Chapter Sixteen: The Spire Awakens

Raen's fingertips pressed deeply into his temples, beads of blood seeping from the edges of his nails. His left eye had completely crystallized, the emerald iris reflecting twelve overlapping phantoms, while his right eye eerily remained unchanged—tears streamed uncontrollably down his cheek, leaving trails of corrosive dark green etched into his skin.

"Get... out..."

He staggered forward, slamming open the spire's door. The decayed oak shattered into splinters under the impact—but beyond the threshold was not the forest he expected. It was another altar.

The black obsidian altar inlaid with star-patterned runes was cracked with radial fractures, from which viscous green fluid seeped and crystallized mid-air into delicate, vine-like filaments.

Raen's boot crushed one such crystal with a sharp crack. The sound echoed through the dead silence of the altar chamber, magnified infinitely, like the triggering of some ancient taboo mechanism.

He crouched into a defensive stance, his right hand already resting on the elven longbow he had just picked up.

A strange grid of light emanated from twelve emerald pillars, slicing the space into alternating cages of shadow and glow. He saw the statues carved into the columns begin to shift: the stone eyelids slowly lifted, revealing pupil-less white eyes. On each eyeball, miniature spell arrays flickered, spinning as they locked onto his life signature.

"Damn it!" He rolled to the side—just in time. A dark green spike whooshed past his back, pinning his cloak to the altar. The fabric dissolved into gray-green powder on contact.

As he moved, the twelve pillars flared to life. The statues opened their eyes in unison, and Raen felt twelve icy gazes tighten around his limbs like invisible chains. His muscles froze, as though marionette strings had seized him. The elven bow trembled violently in his grasp, its string humming with a high-pitched wail—the weapon was resisting his control.

The statues' mouths began to move—silent, yet the incantation echoed inside Raen's skull with a piercing shriek. Black-red veins crept into the edges of his vision, and the magic arrays in those white eyes solidified into twelve hovering runes, slowly advancing toward him.

"No..."

Biting his tongue, he tasted blood—and clarity. His instincts as a healer kicked in: diagnosing the environment is the first step in diagnosing the affliction.

The altar was atop the spire's summit, its dome overhead shaped like an inverted ribcage. Between the bone-like ridges hung strands of glowing, viscous liquid. Each droplet drew out silken threads as it fell, sizzling as it met the ground.

"Acidic secretion... concentration: approximately 37%..." Unfamiliar data surfaced in Raen's mind, though he had no recollection of how he knew it.

His right eye blurred with double vision. The crystallization was spreading to his brain.

Suddenly, the Life Crystal embedded in his chest began to quake. A crystalline spike shot through his collarbone and into the altar. The obsidian platform flared crimson with light, as some vast consciousness surged through the crystal into his body. Raen saw visions—countless emerald threads descending from the void, each suspending a crystallized humanoid figure.

They writhed in agony, synchronized perfectly with the pulsing glyphs on his own chest.

"Resonance..." Raen's right hand rose involuntarily, fingers spread toward the nearest emerald pillar. That hand had once healed many, though he never consciously wielded its power—it was the curse acting on its own, siphoning life force and converting it into cursed energy.

A stream of violet light burst from his fingertips like a venomous serpent, lashing toward the pillar. But to his shock, the statue's face curved into a smile.

Then came the pain—his right arm screamed as cursed energy backfired. Beneath the skin, crystalline veins erupted, like frost spreading through his bloodstream. He glanced down to see his fingers turning transparent, flesh siphoned away by some unseen force, converted into energy for the purple stream.

"Damn it... stop!" He struggled to regain control, but the curse had already seized the limb.

The altar's runes flared brighter. The blood-light coalesced into a vortex. The visions intensified—the hanging humanoids now bore his face. Their mouths moved in eerie unison, whispering in layered, overlapping voices:

"Do not resist... we're all waiting for you..."

Suddenly, the dome's "ribs" groaned under strain. Glowing liquid cascaded down like rain. One droplet struck Raen's left eye, and he screamed—searing pain ignited through his skull.

In the split-second before a magical surge erupted, he twisted his wrist, redirecting the decaying energy meant for the pillar back into himself. The green beam hit his left shoulder, instantly charring it to ash—but it broke the curse's hold.

The agony drove him to his knees—and from that angle, he noticed the altar's base. The vine-like carvings weren't ornamental. With his crystallizing right eye, he saw luminous green energy flowing through them like an ancient vascular system.

"Conduits... energy cycle..." He gasped, mouth filled with blood. His left shoulder burned horribly, still dissolving from the decay, but the pain sharpened his focus.

The statues above kept smiling, their mouths tearing wider toward their ears, revealing dark voids within.

The glowing acid still dripped, corroding the floor into hissing craters. Raen braced himself, fingertips brushing the vine carvings. The surface was cold—like the skin of a living thing. Stranger still, the patterns twitched under his touch.

"So that's it... the whole spire is alive." He chuckled hoarsely, blood staining his lips. "You're afraid."

The curse had harmed him, but it disrupted the altar's energy balance.

As if in answer, the altar softened. The obsidian surface rippled like disturbed water. Raen's lower legs sank into it, the contact burning as if he were being digested. He yanked himself free, trailing filaments of goo that exposed raw pink tissue beneath—the altar was revealing its true form.

"Need... an isolating layer..." He tore a strip from his cloak and wrapped it around his left shoulder. The instant the cloth touched the wound, the dead flesh began to mutate, transforming the fabric into a pale, keratinous crust.

His eyes widened—his power was evolving.

The glowing fluid from the dome poured faster. Raen rolled to dodge, but one drop hit his right arm. Pain seared through him, and a memory flickered—rubber gloves, silver cream applied under surgical lights...

"Antiseptic... isolation..." Gasping, he tore open his shirt, revealing the Life Crystal embedded in his chest. The crystal had now reached his third rib. Newly formed glyphs were arranging into an eyelid shape.

He made a desperate decision—he pressed his right hand directly to the crystal.

A reversal.

The Withering Healer was meant to draw life from others. But now, Raen tried to siphon energy from the altar.

The statues shrieked silently. The entire spire quaked.

The energy that surged into him was ancient and foul, but as it passed through the crystal, it was refined into pure emerald light. The glowing strands wove beneath his skin into a mesh, temporarily halting the crystallization.

"Temporary... cellular-level shield..." He muttered, parsing it instinctively. The barrier was burning altar energy as fuel—but at a cost. Glyphs now appeared across his retinas, and alien knowledge began flooding in: fragments about the Twelve Elders and the Covenant of Life.

The altar suddenly bulged upward, forming the shape of a massive face. It opened a mouth of star-etched runes and unleashed a subsonic shockwave.

The shield cracked instantly. Blood oozed from Raen's ears, eyes, and nose. As he staggered, he noticed a rhombus-shaped recess on the forehead—perfectly matching the Life Crystal.

Trap... or opportunity?

He coughed up bloody tissue. Every instinct screamed to avoid this "keyhole." But time was gone. His right fingertips had turned translucent emerald, like insects suspended in syrup.

A torrent of fluid fell from above. Raen dove—but the altar's face lashed out, tendrils wrapping around his ankle. The suckers along their surface each bore a miniature star rune.

Where they touched, skin vanished—not numbed, but erased at the cellular level.

In the split second before he lost consciousness, Raen did two things: he channeled all remaining withering energy into the altar's eyes, and traced a forbidden glyph he'd stolen from Marseran.

The altar shrieked in pain. The tendrils slackened.

Raen broke free—not to flee, but to leap into the altar's center. Before the crystallization reached his heart, he ripped the Life Crystal from his chest—and slammed it into the rhombus recess.

At that instant, the twelve emerald pillars exploded. Shards hung midair in a spiraling vortex around him. Each fragment reflected a different angle of his face. The Life Crystal pulsed wildly as new glyphs appeared in sequence:

[Suitable host detected][Initiating Twelfth Awakening Protocol][Warning: Core Integrity Below 67%][Activating Contingency Plan]

Raen felt cold fingers probing into his skull—not physically, but rifling through memory. Suddenly, those fingers recoiled—as if burned. They had touched something buried deep within that should not exist.

The spire's tremors ceased.

The glowing fluid dimmed. The altar's face froze mid-agony.

Raen seized the chance, yanked out the Life Crystal—now etched with twelve miniature star-runes. The moment it left, the spire let out a death wail and began to shrivel before his eyes.

One rib of the dome snapped, then another. Raen leapt toward a ventilation shaft as the structure collapsed.

It was a gamble—he had no idea where the tunnel led. But as he fell, he sensed something new in the Life Crystal's rhythm: Thump. Thump-thump. No longer mechanical. More like a human heartbeat—imperfect, irregular, alive.

He bounded across shattering obsidian fragments, nearing the safe edge, when his eyes caught something: a familiar swaddling cloth.

It lay quietly on the rubble's edge, surrounded by broken weapons—swords, staffs, shattered bows, even a rusted knight's lance.

From within came the faintest cry, nearly drowned by the crumbling spire.

Without hesitation, Raen flicked his fingers. Vines lashed out like serpents, curling around the bundle and swinging him toward the exit.

But as they wrapped around the infant, a tendril snagged an old leather medical satchel hidden beneath a broken blade. It struck Raen's hip with a thud. Instinctively, he grabbed it as he soared clear of the collapse.

As he escaped the spire, he glanced back—the shrinking walls now showed the twelve emerald statues melting like wax under flame. Their eyes, however, remained intact, coldly fixed on him, branding his nape like an invisible brand.

Sunlight.

For the first time in what felt like eons, light pierced the gloom. Raen leaned against a withered tree, checking his wounds. The Life Crystal's spread had retreated—not vanished, but compressed and refined. New star-runes shimmered like metal beneath sunlight, chiming like wind bells at his touch.

"Twelfth Awakening Protocol..." he murmured hoarsely.

The number implied past experiments.

"Suitable host" meant a selection.

From afar, the holy horns of the Sanctum sounded—low and grim. Raen swiftly wrapped a bandage over his crystallized left eye. In this world, visible mutations brought the Sanctum's noose.

Cradling the infant, he finally noticed the satchel at his waist. Its leather was cracked, but the silver clasp still gleamed. On impulse, he opened it.

A strange memory flared—guiding his lips to name each tool:

"Hemostat... tissue scissors... needle holder..."

The names flowed unbidden, as if he'd used them countless times before. And as he spoke, the Life Crystal shuddered, emitting a faint resonance. Raen frowned, pressing a hand to his chest. A strange, creeping dissonance twisted in his gut.

Why were these surgical tools here, near the spire?

No time for answers. He cast a final glance at the sinking tower—its emerald peak now stained dark red, like dried blood.

His figure vanished into the shadows of the withered woods.

Unbeknownst to him, deep underground, the abandoned spire pulsed once more—sending encrypted signals at an ancient frequency, directed toward some distant entity.

Its message repeated three words, again and again, like a curse, like prophecy—

[Find him][Raise him][Harvest him]