Samuel_Mafua_7207

Karen Lockwood is a rare human who has undergone Soul Awakening—the ability to perceive Soul Energy, a phenomenon unheard of among ordinary people. Mistaking her sensitivity for a mysterious illness, her bewildered parents reluctantly entrust her to the care of Joshua Ikemba, a Master Soulborne and instructor at the Soul Academy. Under the guise of treatment, Joshua transports Karen to the Academy, a hidden institution located somewhere within Lafrosa, the capital city of Soul Island.

Thrown into a secretive and often hostile world filled with powerful beings and ancient hierarchies, Karen struggles to find her place among students born into greatness. Viewed as an anomaly, she must quickly adapt—or be crushed by the weight of expectations and prejudice. Yet her drive to survive and grow stronger burns brighter with each challenge. In a realm where strength is the only law, Karen is determined to carve out her own identity, no matter the odds.

SOULBOUND: THE ABYSS WITHIN

Even as Kamharida knelt above a beaten Mirex, her senses—divine, sharpened by centuries of shadow-walking beside N`ythrll—twitched.

And from it… he stepped forward.

He wore no cloak, no mark of pageantry. Only the stillness of a world that had stopped spinning long ago.

Kamharida rose slowly, blade at her side, Mirex gasping at her feet.

"You stayed quiet long enough," she said.

T`halem's eyes shimmered—not with power, but with depth. Ancient and cruel in its own detachment.

"I wasn't hiding," he said softly. "Just… waiting."

He looked beyond her—not at her, but past her. Through fractured space and soul trails.

And not far from her, broken and burning in slow agony—Cassandra Ikemba.

"Those two," he said, almost like an afterthought. "They're coming with me."

T`halem tilted his head. "You don't get it."

He raised a hand—gently. Not a threat. A command.

Across countless planes, across scars left by divine conflict, every version of space bowed.

Karen barely stood, shivering as power looped through her unstable Soul Core.

Cassandra's body twitched as her ruined soul flickered like a dying star.

One step, and the chamber cracked under his feet. The sigils, the bindings, the Veil's residual power—none of it mattered.

He kneeled beside Karen and touched her shoulder.

She flinched, trying to rise, scythe trembling in her fingers—

"I can show you what they're afraid to let you become," he whispered.

She gasped as a vision erupted inside her—herself, but more. Shadows didn't cling to her; they worshipped her. The Abyss did not consume her; she commanded it.

He turned to Cassandra, knelt again.

Her breath was shallow. Her spirit, splintered.

"She's broken," Nyel whispered from above, watching from the chamber rim.

"She's potential," T`halem replied.

Folded into a pocket of existence only T`halem knew how to navigate.

Kamharida landed in the chamber a second too late, Mirex's battered form in her hand.

She let out a rare sound—half-scream, half-growl—before slamming her blade into the ground and cracking the chamber wide open.

But the Veil Council was already fleeing.

A warp gate—twisting and dirty—flickered at the far end of the chamber. Ramses was slung between Voth and Lira, bleeding and unconscious.

Kamharida moved—fast as divine lightning—

But the gate collapsed behind them.

Kamharida stood alone in the shattered hollow.

"You're going to tell me everything," she said.

"I'll tell you this," he coughed. "You're too late."

"I don't need to be early. I just need to end it when it counts."

She turned, dragging him behind her, the void sealing slowly as they vanished into another rift.

And somewhere, Cassandra lay—soul in ruin, but still breathing.

And standing above them, surrounded by an infinite horizon of black fractals and mirrored stars—

CHAPTER 113. THE GATHERING STORM