The titan tried to track him, slow and heavy.

Lindarion vaulted up its leg, dashed along its torso, and reached the opening in its chest just as the core whined to full charge.

He plunged his hand into the unstable fissure.

His core flared violently in response.

Gold and shadow spiraled down his arm, weaving together into a single thread, like a needle of pure mana piercing a knot of tangled, dying energy.

His system reacted instantly:

[Warning: Direct contact with decayed divine construct core.]

[Countermeasure Recommended: Aether Override]

[Initiating Override Sequence…]

The titan convulsed, its entire body shuddering. A beam began to fire, but Lindarion's override hijacked the output, rerouting it.

The blast discharged upward instead, carving a column of light into the sky like a spear that vanished into the clouds.

The titan staggered backward, dropping to one knee. Its armor cracked further, runes dimming.

Nysha shielded her eyes from the light. "Lindarion! Fall back!"

But he wasn't finished.

He held the core with both hands now, stabilizing the surging energy. Ashwing swooped up beside him, frantic.

"DON'T HOLD IT LIKE THAT! YOU'RE ABSORBING SOME OF IT!"

"I know," Lindarion said quietly.

A final surge pulsed outward—

a shockwave of mana—

then the core shattered in his grip.

The titan froze.

Its single eye flickered.

Its towering body slumped forward, trembling.

For a long moment, the desert was silent except for the settling sand.

Then the titan spoke again—its voice quieter now, almost lucid.

"Assessment… updated."

Its head lowered closer to Lindarion, lowering itself like a kneeling giant.

"Designation: acceptable successor.

Warning… the Devourer stirs.

Follow the shifting path.

The desert remembers the way."

The glow in its eye dimmed to nothing.

The titan collapsed, crumbling into stone fragments that dissolved back into ordinary sand.

Ashwing fell onto Lindarion's shoulder. "Can we stop summoning ancient horrors that try to test your soul? I'm starting to get wrinkles."

Nysha exhaled slowly. "This wasn't random. Something is guiding us forward… but whether it's friend or foe is still unclear."

Lindarion looked across the graveyard.

The sand was moving again—

forming a narrow path leading deeper into the desert.

He sheathed his blade and began walking.

"Whichever it is," he said, "we'll find out."

The narrow path formed by the collapsing titan stretched into the sands like a scar, perfectly straight, unnaturally smooth, and faintly glowing beneath the sunset hues. The broken pieces of ancient armor were already sinking below the surface, swallowed by the desert as though the encounter had never happened.

The wind whistled across the dunes.

Dry. Bitter. Carrying the scent of old wars.

Lindarion moved at the front, his boots crushing faint trails left by the titan's dying mana. Behind him, Nysha glided with the quiet poise of someone who never wasted a step, and Ashwing flitted nervously between them, glancing back toward the graveyard.

"They're watching us," Ashwing whispered.

Nysha frowned. "Who?"

"The titans," he muttered. "All of them. Even the broken ones."

Lindarion didn't answer immediately—not because he disagreed, but because he felt it too. A subtle pressure at the edge of his senses. Like a dozen unseen gazes lingering beneath the sand. Not hostile. Not benevolent. Simply observing.

Nysha's hand drifted to her dagger. "The pathway isn't natural. Something carved it for us."

"Not something," Lindarion said quietly. "The titan itself. With its last command."

She blinked. "You're certain?"

He nodded and pointed ahead.

The path wound downward, shifting almost imperceptibly, like a living vein adjusting to their pace. The dunes on either side rose higher the farther they walked until the sand walls towered over them, funneling them deeper into a canyon formed of pure, shifting desert.

Ashwing shivered. "I hate enclosed spaces. And sand. And being funneled like prey."

"You hate everything," Nysha said flatly.

"No. I like food. And Lindarion. Mostly Lindarion."

Lindarion's lips twitched faintly. "Stay alert."

They continued on.

The deeper they went, the cooler the air became. The desert's furnace heat faded, replaced by a strange stillness. Echoes grew sharper. Footsteps sounded like they struck stone instead of sand.

Nysha slowed. "Do you feel that?"

Lindarion did. The terrain was changing. The mana underfoot was altering, becoming denser, more structured. Almost architectural.

He knelt and brushed his fingers along the sand. It didn't fall away like loose grains. It clung together in geometric patterns, forming subtle hexagonal ridges.

"Aetherstone beneath," he murmured.

Nysha knelt beside him. "Buried ruins?"

He shook his head. "Not ruins. A foundation. Something is built under this entire stretch of desert."

Ashwing's wings trembled. "Like… a tomb?"

"Or a city," Lindarion replied.

At that, the wind died entirely.

The path opened into a wide basin, circular, smooth, eerily symmetrical. At its center stood a monolith half-buried in sand, covered in cracked runes identical to those that once glowed on the titan's armor.

Nysha touched one of the runes.

Nothing happened.

But Lindarion's presence made them react.

The glowing symbols flickered awake as he approached, pulsing in soft white-blue tones. The monolith straightened, rising from the sand like a massive petrified jawbone. Glassy crystal lines ran through it like veins.

Then it spoke.

A whisper. Barely audible. Yet it carried clearly.

"Welcome… scion of light and dusk."

Nysha's hand snapped to her weapon.

Ashwing hid behind Lindarion's head. "Nope. I hate talking rocks. Talking rocks are never good."

Lindarion stood calmly before the monolith. "Why did the titan lead us here?"

The monolith hummed, its runes stabilizing into a coherent pattern.

"Designation verified. Purpose: continuation of the inheritance protocol."

Nysha blinked. "Inheritance?"

"Epochal residue recognized," the monolith continued. "Primary directive: guide the successor to the heart of the shifting graves."

Ashwing peeked out. "What's… what's a shifting grave?"

The monolith's light dimmed to a cooler tone.

"A battlefield," it answered.

"A prison."

"A warning."

Lindarion's jaw tightened. "A prison for what?"

"For the one your world forgot.

The one who whispered to titans.

The one who devoured faith."

Nysha's breath caught. "A demi-human god?"

The monolith flickered violently, recognizing the term.

"Correction," it said. "Not a god. A fault. A deviation in creation. A voice that should not exist."

Lindarion's gaze hardened. "Dythrael?"

The monolith froze completely.

No sound.

No movement.

Then its runes flared so bright that Nysha had to shield her eyes. Even Ashwing hissed at the sudden glare. A low rumble shivered through the basin.

"Warning," the monolith intoned.

"Name of the Devourer detected.

Resuming sealed protocol."

The ground trembled. Sand peeled away from hidden mechanisms below, revealing steps descending into a circular shaft.

Cold air rushed out, old, untouched, saturated with mana so heavy it made the skin prickle.

Ashwing clung to Lindarion's collar. "Nope. Nope. Nope. Anything that's been sealed underground for ten thousand years should stay sealed."

Nysha exhaled slowly. "We don't have a choice. Whatever is happening… whatever we saw in Lindarion's vision… this is part of it."

Lindarion stepped toward the opening.

If there was a path to Luneth…

To his mother…

To the truth of the demi-human war…

It would be down there.

He placed his hand on the monolith one last time.

Its glow softened.

"Descend," it said.

"Your next trial awaits."

Without hesitation, Lindarion walked into the darkness.

Ashwing groaned but followed.

Nysha came last, dagger in hand, eyes sharp.

The stone steps spiraled into a vast subterranean expanse—one that pulsed with light like the heartbeat of a slumbering titan.

The moment they stepped off the last stone step, the air changed entirely. It was cooler, heavier, almost viscous, thick with the residue of ancient mana. Every inhalation tasted metallic, like breathing through the echo of a storm long past.

The chamber opened into a cavern larger than any Lindarion had ever imagined. Its ceiling vanished into darkness, and the walls shimmered with veins of crystal that pulsed with faint blue light. The floor beneath them wasn't sand anymore—it was polished stone, etched with intricate patterns that seemed to shift if one stared too long.

Nysha's eyes narrowed. "This isn't just a prison… it's a fortress. Or a tomb."

Ashwing flitted nervously above them. "It smells like… despair. And old dust. And something worse. I don't like it."

Lindarion ignored both of them, moving toward the center. The patterns in the stone coalesced into a circular glyph beneath his feet. The moment he stepped onto it, the veins in the walls flared brightly, and the room itself hummed like a living thing awakening.

A voice—not from any one direction, but from all around—spoke:

"Successor… scion… inheritor…"

Lindarion's hand went to his core instinctively. The mana there hummed in response, twining around his aura like serpents of gold and shadow.

The floor beneath the circular glyph began to sink, revealing a deep pit lined with more runes. Shadows moved in its depths—shapes indistinct, but unmistakably alive. They whispered in tongues long forgotten, calling out promises of power, threats of oblivion, and pleas for release.

Nysha drew her dagger, eyes scanning. "What are those?"

"Trapped… spirits?" Lindarion murmured. "Or fragments of Dythrael's will. They're… waiting for me."

Ashwing squeaked. "Waiting for you to what? Eat them?"

Before anyone could answer, the pit exhaled a gust of mana so potent it knocked them back. Lindarion staggered, and the golden thread around his arm flared violently, latching onto the glyph beneath his feet like it recognized it as an extension of him.

"Your trial begins now," the voice intoned. "Prove the inheritance. Survive the echoes of the Devourer. Claim the heart… or be consumed."