CHAPTER 111. CRACKS IN THE CORE
Chapter 111: Cracks in the Core
—No Mercy for Inheritance—
Muna Ikemba fought like the high-born warrior she was.
Trained. Calculated. Swift.
Lightning coiled through her movements like silver wire wrapped around raw emotion.
She came at T`halem with everything.
But it was never a fair fight.
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't shift stance.
He simply existed at a frequency her blade couldn't reach.
Their Soul Domains flared—
Hers, a storm of scorched ruin and precise wrath.
His… a silence.
A gravity that pulled everything into his truth.
The air gave up around him.
Muna struck with a blow that could level strongholds.
T`halem caught it in two fingers.
Crushed the lightning like ash.
Then he whispered:
"You don't understand yet. There's no more ceiling where I stand."
He touched her chest lightly.
And her body—
just folded.
Not broken.
Not dead.
Just…
erased from the fight.
She hit the floor ten meters away, lightning scattered like broken glass.
"I don't hate you, Muna," he murmured, almost apologetically.
"You were never the threat."
And then he turned and walked away.
---
Meanwhile—
Karen and Cassandra raced down the exposed corridors—hearts ragged, vision blurring.
"That… wasn't just a Soulborne," Karen muttered, her grip trembling on her scythe.
Cassandra's breath was shallow.
"We need to reach an exit node. Maybe a breach…"
But the shadows shifted first.
The light vanished.
A circle of figures stood ahead—tall, cloaked in layered power.
The Veil.
All eight.
And in front of them—Ramses, half-smiling.
"You made it farther than I thought."
Karen stepped forward, blade drawn.
"Don't."
Mirex stepped forward.
His voice carried like gravity across bone.
"The Abyss remembers its children."
He pointed at Karen.
"She belongs to us."
Karen flinched—not at the words, but at the recognition they carried.
Something inside her twisted.
Old and cold.
But real.
Cassandra stepped between them.
"You're not taking her."
Mirex didn't respond.
He simply lifted a hand—
And struck Cassandra with a beam of dark soul compression.
Karen screamed.
Cassandra fell to her knees—convulsing.
And her Soul Core—
shattered.
It wasn't explosive.
It was quiet.
Like a tear in silk.
Like the ending of a song too early.
She slumped, eyes wide, not understanding—
Not at first.
Then she screamed.
Karen caught her, knees hitting the floor.
"Cassandra—!"
But the damage was done.
Mirex spoke, calm and cold.
"I didn't do it for strategy. I did it because I hate your name."
"You're Ikemba. That's enough."
Karen rose, trembling with rage, but her aura stuttered—too unstable. Too slow.
"You coward—"
"I'm a realist," Mirex said.
But then—
The air folded.
Space cut itself.
And Kamharida arrived.
Her body landed like a strike of divine retribution.
Eyes gleaming with a light that mirrored only one person: N`yhrll herself.
She didn't speak.
She didn't need to.
Mirex turned.
And for the first time—
He readied himself.
The other members of the Veil stepped back.
Kamharida launched at him.
Mirex met her with a clash of void and soul.
They vanished into a ruptured fragment of the plane—Grand Soulbornes in the void, trading blows that bent the rules of power.
The Veil Council didn't wait.
They took Karen—
Stunned, shaking, resisting.
But she was gone in seconds.
Swallowed by darkness.
Cassandra, broken and barely conscious, was left behind—alone on the cracked floor of that cursed place.
Her Soul Core shimmered in ruins inside her.
She couldn't move.
And above her, smoke fell like black snow.
---