CHAPTER 499: TOWER

The words hung in the air like frost.

Lindarion’s grip on his sword tightened. "Then why call me here? If the Tree already binds him, why disturb what remains?"

"Because," Elarian said quietly, "the seal is dying. And if you do nothing, both will collapse, the Tree above and the Hollow below. When one fails, the other follows. Balance cannot exist in halves."

The walls flickered again. Visions bled through the glass—forests burning, oceans boiling, the world tree splitting under black flame.

Nysha’s voice trembled despite her poise. "You’re showing him the future."

"No," Elarian said. "I’m showing him the choice."

The ground pulsed beneath them, slow, deliberate, like a heartbeat. The mirrors rippled, and Elarian’s figure wavered. "He stirs," she whispered. "He feels your presence here. His gaze has already turned."

"Dythrael?" Lindarion asked sharply.

"Yes." Her hand lifted, touching the air before him. It felt cold, ancient cold, the kind that numbs thought. "The next time you draw on the Tree’s strength, he will find you. And when he does, he will remember what you were."

Lindarion’s breath hitched. "What I was?"

But Elarian was fading now, her outline fracturing into ribbons of light. "The gods remade you, Lindarion of Eldorath. You are not their first attempt."

Her final words echoed as her form disintegrated into dust. "When the seal breaks, remember the first name that was taken from you."

The mirrors shattered in silence.

Lindarion stood amid drifting shards of light, their reflections still showing echoes of his face, each slightly different. Older. Younger. Unknown.

Ashwing swallowed hard. "Well... that wasn’t ominous at all."

Nysha looked at Lindarion. "What do we do?"

He didn’t answer right away. His gaze lifted toward the spiral of stairs rising into the heart of the tower. The core pulsed faintly at the top, like a distant sun.

Finally, he said, voice low but steady, "We finish what the gods started."

And with that, he began to climb.

The spiral staircase carved into the interior of the inverted tower was narrow, too narrow for something as impossibly vast as the structure around it. The steps were formed not of stone, but of layered mana. Each one pulsed faintly when touched, as if acknowledging their presence.

Ashwing eyed them with suspicion. "I hate stairs made of magic. They always feel like they’re judging me."

"They are judging you," Nysha said flatly. "Everything in here is."

Lindarion didn’t speak. His hand grazed the wall as they climbed, fingers brushing drifting motes of fractured light, remnants of the mirrors that had shattered below. Each mote flickered with a different face. A different version of himself. None lingered long enough to understand.

Above, something hummed, a slow, rhythmic thrum. A heartbeat. The tower’s. Or the seal’s. Or something older still.

The air grew colder the higher they went. Not the natural cold of shadow, but a conceptual cold, the absence of heat, of time, of breath. Nysha shivered despite herself. "This isn’t normal magic. It feels... dead."

"It isn’t dead," Lindarion murmured. "It’s waiting."

[System Advisory: Foreign subconscious imprint detected.]

[Identification: Residual Echo of ’Elarian.’]

[Effect: Memory Probing Attempt — Passive.]

Lindarion’s golden eyes narrowed. "She’s still here."

Ashwing flinched. "She better not be trying to jump into my head. There’s only so much room and most of it is reserved for—"

"Snacks," Nysha guessed.

"Important secrets," Ashwing corrected with dignity. "And snacks."

A faint laugh drifted down from above them, soft, melancholic, unmistakable.

Elarian’s voice.

"You climb as though the weight has not begun to settle."

Lindarion stopped. "...You said you were gone."

"Echoes linger," the voice said. "Especially in structures built to remember."

The staircase shifted subtly beneath their feet, not physically, perceptually. The walls around them turned transparent for a moment, revealing the vast drop to the chamber below. The entire tower looked like the inside of a broken hourglass.

Nysha steadied herself. "This is a test."

"Everything here is a test," Lindarion replied. "Let’s keep moving."

They climbed.

With every dozen steps, the environment changed.

First, the walls darkened, glowing with runes that reacted to Lindarion’s presence, shifting, rearranging, rewriting themselves in languages he almost understood.

Second, illusions bled into the edges of his vision. The roots of the World Tree. The golden orb guardian. Elyndra’s hand on his chest as she remade him.

The memory of a truck’s headlights—

He forced that one away.

Third, the hum grew louder. Not quite sound. Not quite sensation. A pull. A gravity.

Ashwing whispered, "Is it just me, or does it feel like we’re walking straight into a god’s heartbeat?"

Nysha answered before Lindarion could. "We are walking into the core of a divine seal. ’God’ is probably on the mild end of what waits up there."

Lindarion kept climbing. His hair, white as starlight, caught the glow from the runes, refracting them into gold across the walls. The deeper they went, the stronger the feeling became—

A pressure in his chest.

A tug in his veins.

Recognition.

Finally, after what felt like both an instant and an eternity, the staircase opened into a landing.

The chamber awaiting them was circular, small compared to the others, almost humble. Its walls were carved with spirals of light, each engraved with a different epoch, a different war, a different sealing of Dythrael.

At the center hovered a crystalline sphere the size of a human heart. It pulsed slowly, each beat sending waves of light across the room.

Ashwing whispered, "...Is that the core?"

Nysha nodded. "The heart of the tower. The anchor of the Seal."

Lindarion stepped forward. As he did, the sphere brightened, recognizing him instantly.

"At last," Elarian’s voice whispered, echoing from everywhere and nowhere. "The convergence awakens."

Lines of light shot from the sphere, crawling across the floor, tracing sigils that arranged themselves beneath Lindarion’s feet.

[Warning: High-level resonance detected.]

[Source: Divine Seal — Elarian Core.]

[System Stability: Threatened.]

Nysha reached for Lindarion, but Ashwing stopped her with a wing. "No—this is meant for him."

And it was. The light enveloped Lindarion, rising around him like a cocoon, threads of pure energy weaving into his skin.

Elarian’s voice softened.

"You carry the Tree’s blessing, the Flame’s echo, and the remnants of a life stolen before birth."

Lindarion grit his teeth. "Enough riddles. Tell me what I am."

Silence.

Then—

"You are the successor to the first anchor."

Lindarion’s pulse stumbled. "The first..."

Elarian:

"The gods forged one soul capable of binding Dythrael’s essence.

When it failed, they tore it apart.

You are its reincarnation, reborn, reshaped, rewritten."

The light surged, lifting him from the ground.

Nysha’s eyes widened in shock.

Ashwing backed up, wings flaring.

Elarian’s final whisper threaded through the chamber:

"You are the last piece they hid from him."

The sphere cracked.

A shockwave of light burst outward.

Nysha shielded her eyes.

Ashwing was thrown backward.

The tower groaned like a waking titan.

The light around Lindarion turned molten gold—and then collapsed inward, absorbing straight into his chest.

The chamber dimmed.

Silence fell.

Lindarion landed on one knee, breath sharp, eyes burning with something deeper than gold, something older.

Nysha stepped forward carefully. "Lindarion...?"