Chapter 54 – The Gate of Bone and Breath
A thunderous roar echoed across the broken realm.
Rael stood alone, facing the obsidian gate that loomed above the desolate courtyard. The air had shifted—thicker, older, brimming with invisible threads of fate. The beast beyond the threshold moved again, heavy footfalls rattling the ground.
The violet sky groaned as lightning forked across the heavens.
Then the gate began to open.
With each creaking inch, heat surged outward, followed by an eerie wind that carried whispers—no language, just raw emotion: hunger, grief, and wrath.
Rael narrowed his eyes.
He could not see Yue. He could not sense the First Bearer. Everything had been stripped away.
Only the Third Brand remained—still incomplete, pulsing faintly against his heart.
This place wasn't real.
But it mattered.
---
From the darkness behind the gate, the creature stepped forth.
It was massive. Not a beast of flesh, but one of bone, sinew, and ghostfire. Its skull resembled a stag's—elongated, crowned with antler-like protrusions—but its torso was humanoid, its limbs reversed and jointed in unnatural ways.
Chains clung to its spine, and violet flames danced in the sockets where eyes should have been.
System Message appeared faintly at the edge of Rael's vision:
[Third Brand Trial Initiated.]
Trial Target: "Oshtur, the Bonebound Wrath"
Status: Soul Forging Construct – Not real, but the price is.
Note: Defeat it… or be unmade.
---
Rael inhaled slowly.
His wounds from the tower still throbbed, but the strange dimension was feeding energy into him—raw, volatile. The kind that couldn't be stored, only burned.
He reached inward.
The Second Brand glowed.
His eyes flickered silver.
Instincts sharpened.
Time dilated.
When the beast lunged, Rael was already moving.
---
Oshtur's first strike was a sweeping claw that cleaved through stone like paper. Rael flipped backward, letting the wave of pressure roll past. His feet found shattered ground, and he launched forward, rotating mid-air to drive his knee into the beast's ribcage.
A sickening crunch.
But it wasn't enough.
Oshtur twisted with inhuman flexibility, snatching Rael mid-flight and slamming him into a pillar.
The impact knocked breath from his lungs.
Not fast enough.
He spat blood and rolled aside as a bone-tipped limb skewered the place his head had been.
Faster...
Rael flicked his hand toward the broken statues around the courtyard. He remembered what the First Bearer said:
"The Brands do not gift. They echo. Learn from their echoes."
He leapt toward one of the statues—its arms shaped in a martial stance unfamiliar to him.
But his instincts whispered.
Rael mimicked the posture mid-air and twisted his body—
The beast attacked—
And his movement flowed into a counter.
---
He redirected Oshtur's weight, sliding beneath its swipe and kicking the creature's wrist with perfect timing, destabilizing its stance.
It staggered for the first time.
Rael's vision flared.
[Trait Fragment Acquired – "Flowbreaker Stance"]
(Note: Incomplete. Trait will fade after trial ends.)
[Warning: Trait retention requires spiritual reinforcement.]
---
But he didn't stop.
He moved to the next statue. Another stance. Another echo.
Oshtur roared.
The air split.
Rael moved again—borrowing, mimicking, learning.
Every dodge was a lesson.
Every hit was paid in blood.
He wasn't strong enough.
But he was growing.
---
Oshtur howled and slammed its fists into the ground, sending a wave of ethereal fire across the field. Rael braced himself, channeling his martial will through the borrowed stance of the "Iron Wave Guard."
The fire crashed—and split.
For a moment, the storm of power parted around him.
He stepped through it.
Into the heart of the beast's range.
With a shout, Rael drove his fist forward—not with brute force, but precise intent.
The strike landed just below Oshtur's sternum—where several bone-chains intersected.
[Weak Point Exposed – "Soul Chain Nexus"]
[System: Soul Strike Delivered – Brand Reaction Triggered]
The Third Brand pulsed violently.
---
Pain exploded through Rael's body as a flood of memories not his own ripped through his mind—visions of ancient wars, of temples shattered, of countless deaths at the hands of bone-forged horrors.
He dropped to one knee, screaming.
But something changed.
The Brand responded—not by giving power, but by revealing cost.
[Partial Synchronization Achieved]
Trait Temporarily Gained – "Bone Sense – Tier I"
Understanding Increased: "You now see how this thing was made."
Price Pending…
---
Rael gasped.
He saw it all now.
Oshtur wasn't a monster.
It was crafted—a construct built from slain warriors, their souls bound to a skeleton forged in a furnace of wrath.
And one day…
That would be him.
If he failed.
---
His legs trembled, but he rose.
The Third Brand carved its symbol across his skin now, glowing like fire—but not yet whole. His soul hadn't finished paying.
But he could finish this fight.
He sprinted.
Oshtur charged.
---
They met in the center of the broken world.
Bone met flesh.
Force met precision.
And Rael… was no longer a boy learning to survive.
He was a cultivator.
A warrior.
A strategist.
He pivoted mid-charge, sliding under the beast's lunge, twisting his body with a mastery borrowed from countless martial forms, and drove his palm straight into the soul nexus—
And shattered it.
---
Light erupted.
Chains unraveled.
Oshtur screamed as violet fire erupted from within, consuming its frame in a storm of spiritual backlash. The gate behind it groaned, then collapsed into dust.
Rael stood at the center of the chaos, body burnt, bloodied, and breathless.
But standing.
The Third Brand on his chest dimmed…
And then solidified.
[Third Brand Engraved – "Command of the Broken"]
Effect: You may now command remnants—unformed wills, constructs, or defeated echoes.
Note: Strength depends on spiritual burden carried.
Price: One permanent trait fragment will fade upon each use.
[Warning: This Brand does not make you stronger. It lets others bear your burdens… if you let them.]
---
Rael collapsed to his knees.
Tears—hot, confused, angry—burned his eyes.
The power… wasn't free.
It came with debt.
He now had the ability to command echoes of the past, but each command meant losing a part of himself—a fragment of what he had painfully earned.
---
The world blurred—
And then returned.
He was back in the real tower.
The chains were gone.
The First Bearer stood over him, his mask replaced.
Yue rushed to his side the moment he gasped.
The Bearer spoke one last time:
"Good. You didn't just win. You learned."
Then he faded into shadow, gone without a sound.
---
Rael clutched his chest.
The Third Brand still glowed faintly beneath his robes.
He looked at Yue, who stared at him with wide, unreadable eyes.
And he whispered, "We need to leave. I've seen what's coming."