CHAPTER 341: WOUNDS BENEATH THE WIND

The winds in the Circle of Resonance had begun to stir again.

Standing at the perimeter, Naena observed the three before her—Kaelen, Lila, and Kelvin. Their gazes were steel, their breaths steady, though each of them held a weight behind their eyes only trauma could sculpt.

"Are you truly ready?" she asked in a voice that trembled not from doubt, but reverence for the path ahead.

Kaelen nodded.

"We must be. Besides, we don’t particularly have time on our side."

Kelvin clenched his fist over his chest. "Even if the winds tear through our soul, I will not yield."

Lila’s eyes, now tinted with a faint silver shimmer from her awakened Seer bloodline, stared forward. "If I can’t rise above the storm, I’ll die in it. But I won’t die running."

Naena gave a single approving nod. "Then step forward."

The Circle flared.

The statue of the Soaring Wind, its face hidden beneath the sculpted flow of hair and ethereal air, shimmered with cyan light as the trial enveloped them. The gusts intensified, not just in the physical realm, but in the inner planes of their minds, ripping their spirits into the heart of the wind.

---

Inside the trial, everything has already vanished.

There was no ground beneath their feet.

Only the wind.

And the storm that followed.

Each of them was separated—isolated in their own dimension of torment, their minds torn open like old wounds.

First off was Kaelen who five again.

That small hut in the woods.

His mother’s gentle laughter.

His father ruffling his hair.

For a fleeting moment, there was peace.

But it shattered like glass.

The flames erupted first.

Then the screams.

His parents pinned down, helpless, as men cloaked in Dragonyx armor drew blood without mercy. Kaelen’s tiny arms couldn’t reach them in time. Couldn’t stop it.

It happened again.

And again.

And again.

He screamed into the void, but the storm would not hear him.

"You are weak..." the wind whispered. "You couldn’t save them."

"You’ll never be enough..."

Kaelen dropped to his knees—until the memory shifted.

"Kaelen...."

This time, he saw Lila standing beside him.

Then Kelvin.

And then all the faces of those he’d fought for—Guinevere, Morris, Ethan, even Naena.

Their presence was not enough to undo the pain...

But they were anchors.

And he rose.

"I couldn’t save them then..."

"But I’ll become the blade that stops it from ever happening again."

---

Kelvin was in a stone garden again, as he had been the day his sister died.

Her laughter echoed through the wind, and then stopped.

Silence.

Then came the storm.

The moment she was taken—dragged into a portal by the First Magi before he became the Dark Magi.

The moment he was left behind.

"It should’ve been you," said the wind.

"You live in shadows. A mistake. A burden. Forgotten by all—even your own father."

Kelvin stood amidst it, his chest bare, the Orb of Chaos at the center of his chest pulsing violently.

He reached for the pain instead of running from it.

"If I am chaos... then let me be the chaos that consumes those who took her."

He stepped forward into the wind.

---

Lila has tried this trial three times before now, but this time, it struck her deeper now.

The storm replayed the same helplessness—her father’s death, the blood on his robes, the feel of his grip slipping from hers as the Dragonyx warriors left them broken.

But this time...

The storm didn’t end there.

It changed.

She stood before her younger self, who wept in the corner of a bloodied room.

And behind her, a figure of light—her mother, smiling softly.

"You are more than sorrow," she whispered. "You are the wind that remembers... and endures."

Lila turned to the wind, inhaled deeply...

And screamed—a cry so sharp and resolute that it pierced the clouds in her mind.

"I am the wind," she said. "And I will carry my father’s name farther than the monsters who took him ever could."

---

Back in the real world....

Outside the Circle, the winds turned violent—spheres of white-blue airstreams formed around the three.

Naena’s eyes widened in astonishment.

"They’re not resisting the storm..." she whispered. "They’re becoming one with it."

The Resonance Circle howled. The statue of the Soaring Wind shimmered so brightly it appeared to be weeping tears of wind—a sign that the trial was reaching its deepest acceptance phase.

And then—

Stillness.

A silence so pure it cut like a blade.

The wind stopped screaming.

And the three emerged.

Kaelen—his cloth scorched and battered—walked forward with steps like thunderclouds, his eyes calm but distant.

Kelvin—his aura crackling faintly with black lightning—carried himself like a force on the verge of eruption.

Lila—hair whipping behind her, face solemn—stood with eyes that glinted silver under blue.

They had passed.

---

While seeing this, Naena bowed her head slightly.

"You have survived the Soaring Wind..."

"Now let us see if the world can survive what you’re about to become."

Clap! Clap!

A slow, mocking clap echoed through the Hollow.

Followed by a cold, amused voice, laced with venomous curiosity:

"And what, may I ask... exactly have they become?"

Every soul in the Hollow froze.

Kaelen’s body tensed like a drawn bowstring. Kelvin’s orb glowed faintly red on his chest. Lila instinctively stepped closer to Kaelen, her wind-blessed senses screaming at her. Even Naena’s expression twisted—not in confusion, but recognition. Dread.

Before anyone could react or even locate the source of the voice, a black rift in the shape of a crescent moon tore itself into the air in front of them, reeking of ancient decay and a dark divinity.

From it stepped Endless.

He emerged not as a monstrous entity, but as a figure of impossible calm—draped in a shadowy mantle that undulated like it had a will of its own, eyes pitch-black and bottomless, as if the abyss stared back.

His feet barely touched the earth, yet the ground around him cracked and withered, mana trembling, qi recoiling.

Kaelen’s heartbeat thundered.

"Endless..."

Lila gasped.

Kelvin’s entire body leaned forward like a coiled beast.

Ethan, Guinevere, Morris—everyone around reached for their weapons, a reflex born of terror.

But none moved faster than the Nullcarvers present.

Despite Naena’s sudden scream—

"No! Stay back! He’s not to be engaged—!"

—they lunged.

"You dare trespass into our sacred paands of our ancestors!!?"

"You shall be punished for that!!"

The Nullcarvers, trained since birth without mana, wielders of pure qi, dashed forward with precision, shouting war cries, unleashing deadly strikes of golden, red, and obsidian qi.

They moved as phantoms, honed warriors of an ancient craft.

And Endless?

He didn’t even blink.

"Gone."

That was the word he whispered.

With a motionless thought, the entire group of attacking Nullcarvers were erased.

Not slain.

Not wounded.

Erased.

Their bodies turned to dust. Their qi extinguished as though they had never lived.

A wave of silence and horror blanketed the Hollow.

Naena’s knees trembled.

"You... monster..."

Kaelen’s eyes shook with fury. "You didn’t even flinch..."

Guinevere clutched her stomach, nausea rising.

Ethan stepped forward slightly, unable to understand what just happened.

Only Lila stood unmoving, her instincts screaming as the monstrous man turned his gaze toward Naena.

And then, Endless chuckled—low, like the rattling of bones in an empty cavern.

"Why such drama?" he mused, feigning innocence. "Must there always be a reason for me to visit a place I created?"

Naena’s eyes widened. "You... created the Deadroot?"

Endless offered a small tilt of the head. "Well, yes. A gift to the Leech. A little haven for my child. Sadly, both you and those bastards that placed you here spoiled it. Slaughtered it."

He turned again—this time slowly, his gaze now piercing directly into Lila, as if through her soul.

Kaelen immediately stepped in front of her. "You so much as breathe in her direction—"

Endless raised a brow, amused. "Ah, yes... the protector. The bearer of the Pandora. And... the Seer behind you."

A pause.

Then, with a cold, knowing grin, he declared:

"I am simply here... to pick up something important."

"Bit I think I have changed my mind, I will pick both you and the girl behind you if you don’t mind"

"I would rather die than to let that happen"

Kaelen’s body surged with liquid mana and Qi. The Blade of Eternity—though snapped—still hummed on his back.

Kelvin’s scythe materialized with a scream of crimson.

Ethan invoked the mist.

Guinevere’s flame domain ignited.

Morris summoned the wind and earth.

Naena stepped forward, her eyes glowing with primordial qi.

But Endless simply placed one finger against his lips.

"Shhh..."

A pulse of pressure exploded outward.

And every single one of them dropped to one knee—including Kaelen and Kelvin, even with their fortified training.

Only Lila, at the center of his gaze, was untouched.

He smiled softly.

"Child of Seers... I’m sure you’ve heard them whispering your name. Even the Celestials watch you now."

"Come with me. I can offer truth. The full picture. Your kind never had it."

"No.... I will not...."

Lila trembled, her breath shallow.

"Argh!!!!"

But before she could speak, Kaelen roared and forced himself to his feet, blood running from his eyes, mouth, and ears.

"She’s not going anywhere with you, Endless."

"I have already told you that I would rather die than to let that happen"

Endless turned his gaze back toward him, but this time he was almost... irritated.

"Ah, Kaelen. You remind me so much of your father. The same idiocy in the face of inevitability."

Kaelen’s breath caught.

"Kaelen...."

Kelvin’s eyes widened. Lila reached out, gripping Kaelen’s arm.

But before anything else could be said—

The air shattered.

A violent burst of light descended like a meteor—radiant, divine, and blinding—tearing through the sky above.

Endless looked up sharply.

"Them again...?"

"Seems like I will have to move this pickup to a later date. Goodbye for now"

And with a scowl, he vanished.

Gone in a blink.

The Hollow returned to silence, but the scars he left behind—the death, the threat, the words—remained.

Kaelen gripped the hilt of his broken sword tightly.

"We’re not ready... But we will be."

Lila, still gripping his arm, looked at him with burning conviction.

"We have to be."