CHAPTER 519: GOLDEN

Subtle at first. Then dramatically.

Nysha suddenly grabbed Lindarion’s arm and pulled him to a stop. "Wait."

Wind kicked up around their feet, spiraling unnaturally. Sand was being pulled downward, sliding like water toward an invisible point. The slope widened into a massive funnel—an ancient sinkhole descending into darkness.

The ground rumbled with an underground roar.

The funnel’s center suddenly collapsed, plunging sand downward in a spiraling cascade. A hidden structure revealed itself beneath—black stone, broken pillars, runes etched in sigils no living scholar had ever recorded.

Ashwing yelped. "THE GROUND JUST FELL OUT OF THE WORLD WHAT ARE WE DOING—WHY ARE WE STILL HERE—?"

Lindarion stepped forward calmly.

The sand parted for him.

Parted.

It didn’t swallow him.

It didn’t pull.

It made way.

Nysha stared. "The ruins... they’re responding to you."

Lindarion approached the opening, gazing down into the hollow. The descent was massive—a pit stretching hundreds of meters deep. At the very bottom, embedded into the ground like a sealed wound, lay a circular gate of obsidian, carved with spiraling grooves that glowed faintly at his presence.

Ashwing whispered, "That’s not a gate. That’s a maw."

He wasn’t entirely wrong.

But Lindarion felt no fear.

Only... recognition.

Nysha stepped to the edge beside him, muscles tense. "Before we go any deeper—you need to tell me what the echo-being meant by ’fourth path.’ And don’t claim ignorance. You clearly understood it."

Lindarion held her gaze for a moment, then answered.

"There were supposed to be three inheritances born from the Origin—light, void, and balance. But the creators theorized a fourth emergent path that could only awaken when all three were in conflict." His voice lowered. "A path of decision. Not inheritance."

Nysha’s breath caught. "Choice."

Lindarion nodded. "The ability to choose the outcome of sealed fates. Even those locked by ancient law."

Ashwing’s eyes widened. "Wait. That means—you could choose Dythrael’s fate? Free him... kill him... or—"

"Rewrite him," Lindarion finished.

Nysha’s hand tightened around her dagger. "That’s why the ruins shift for you. Why the titan bowed. Why the echo recognized you."

Before Lindarion could respond, the gate below pulsed like a heartbeat.

Once.

Twice.

The grooves lit up fully, becoming molten gold and shadow at once, coiling in a dance of opposites.

The air grew heavy.

The sand vibrated.

And then—

A voice rose from the pit.

Not loud.

Not booming.

Just a soft whisper carried upward by ancient breath.

"Lindarion."

He froze.

Nysha’s blood ran cold.

Ashwing clamped onto Lindarion’s shoulder talon-first. "Nope nope nope—WHO just said your name—?!"

The voice spoke again—gentle, patient, but impossibly old.

"Descend, child of choice."

"Descend, heir of no throne and every throne."

"Descend... fourth bearer."

Nysha hissed, "Fourth bearer of what?"

Lindarion whispered back, "Of possibility."

Something shifted below—the obsidian gate turning, spiraling open like a massive stone iris. Cold air surged upward, thick with ancient power... and something else.

Curiosity.

Expectation.

And... relief?

The desert’s veil collapsed fully, revealing a vast ruin spread beneath the sand—towers crumbled, bridges severed, statues worn to bone-like fragments. All of it encircled the sunless gate like a graveyard guarding its corpse.

Lindarion stepped to the edge.

Nysha grabbed his hand. "If we go down there... this won’t just be exploration anymore. This ties to Dythrael. To Luneth. To your mother. To the war of eras."

Lindarion nodded once.

"That’s why we’re going."

Ashwing whimpered. "I hate this. So much."

Lindarion squeezed Nysha’s hand—brief, grounding.

Then—

He leapt.

Straight into the sunless gate.

Nysha cursed and dove after him.

Ashwing screamed and followed with a flurry of wings.

The gate swallowed them.

Light vanished.

Sound vanished.

Heat vanished.

For a moment, there was only the soft pull of the fourth path.

And the faintest whisper, echoing from the abyss:

"Welcome home."

The fall didn’t feel like falling.

There was no rush of air, no weightlessness, no sense of distance or speed. It felt instead like drifting through layers of unmixed ink—denser, darker, deeper—until each breath pushed against something viscous, like the world itself had become liquid shadow.

Then, without warning, the pressure evaporated.

Their feet touched ground.

Stone—smooth, cold, and faintly warm at the same time, as if it held the memory of sunlight long dead.

Nysha landed beside Lindarion, knees bent, dagger ready. Ashwing tumbled in last and skidded across the floor with an indignant screech.

"WE NEED TO STOP JUMPING INTO COSMIC HOLES," he declared, wings shaking. "I swear my soul left my body three separate times just now."

Nysha ignored him, because she couldn’t tear her eyes away from what lay before them.

Lindarion didn’t move either.

He understood immediately why this place had remained hidden for entire epochs.

They stood on a massive stone bridge stretching out over an impossible expanse—an underground city so vast that its farthest edges vanished into unlit haze. Thousands of towers rose from the depths like broken spears, their surfaces carved with symbols that shifted when stared at directly. Some structures floated weightlessly in the air, tethered by glowing golden cords of mana that pulsed faintly like veins. Others rotated slowly, their foundations warped into spirals and crescents.

This city had not been built in the traditional sense.

It had been grown.

Nysha exhaled, voice unsteady but awed. "This isn’t elven. Or titan. Or—anything. It’s too old. And too... alive."

Ashwing clung to Lindarion’s cloak. "Why is everything moving? And breathing? Why does a building need to breathe?"

Lindarion sensed it immediately—the pulse of the city, synchronized with the faint echo still resonating in his veins. The same rhythm as the trial. The same rhythm as the awakening titan. Like the heartbeat of the world had a second, deeper layer—and this place existed in that layer’s reflection.

"The Sunless City..." Lindarion murmured. "The capital of the Precursor race."

Nysha’s head snapped toward him. "You know this?"

"No," Lindarion answered. "But something in the inheritance does."

He took a step forward. The bridge hummed beneath his foot, symbols lighting up in a wide arc ahead of him like a pathway being invited open. Nysha flinched at the sudden bloom of light but followed, scanning every shadow.

The deeper they walked across the bridge, the more details emerged. Skeletons of colossal beasts rested alongside the city walls—some serpentine, some avian, some with shapes he couldn’t recognize at all. Their bones glowed faintly, inscribed with runes that had been seared into them long before death.

Nysha whispered, "This wasn’t abandoned. It was emptied. Erased."

Ashwing’s tail drooped. "Why does everything ancient have to be horrifying?"

Lindarion paused at the bridge’s midpoint. His hand brushed the railing—and the entire city reacted. Runes flickered awake across every visible surface, flowing downward like veins igniting. A deep, resonant tone rippled across the cavern, soft but immense, vibrating through bone and mana alike.

Nysha gripped his shoulder. "Lindarion—what did you do?"

He didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

Because the city wasn’t reacting to his touch.

It was reacting to him.

The hum intensified, the structures shifting into alignment, floating pillars rotating until they formed a spiral pointing toward the city’s heart. A massive tower—twice the height of anything else—stood there, its crown cracked open like an egg, spilling golden threads of energy upward.

The same golden threads that had wrapped his arm in the trial chamber.

Ashwing swallowed. "I think it’s... greeting you? Or preparing to eat us. Hard to tell."

Lindarion stepped to the edge of the bridge and looked down.

In the abyssal depths below, a circular platform glowed faintly—an ancient lift, rune-armored and suspended by strands of crystallized mana. It slowly rose toward them, responding to the city’s awakening.

Nysha tightened her grip on her dagger. "We’re being invited."

"No," Lindarion corrected softly. "We’re being summoned."

The platform reached the edge of the bridge and hovered silently, waiting.

Nysha glanced at Lindarion. "Is this wise?"

"Absolutely not," Ashwing said immediately.

But the platform’s pull felt inevitable, like gravity with intention.

Lindarion stepped onto it.

Nysha followed with a curse.

Ashwing hopped on last, muttering profanities in three languages.

The platform descended—not fast, but smoothly, drifting downward through layers of the ancient city. As they passed broken balconies and shattered schools of floating runes, Nysha whispered, "Where do you think it’s taking us?"

"The center," Lindarion replied.

Ashwing trembled. "The center of what?"

Lindarion stared into the glowing heart of the Sunless City.

"The center of the fourth path."

The platform finally slowed.

The air changed.

Cold.

Heavy.

Ancient.

And ahead of them stood a colossal gate.

Not stone.

Not metal.

But a material that shimmered like liquid gold hardened into glass—runed with shapes that no mortal tongue could form.

Nysha whispered, "This... feels like the throne room of a god."

Lindarion stepped forward.

"No."

He laid his hand upon the gate.

"It’s the tomb of one."

The gate trembled.

And began to open.

The golden gate split down the middle with a low, grinding rumble that felt more like a groan than a mechanism—like something old and tired was being forced awake for the first time in epochs.

A wave of cold washed over them as the opening widened, thick enough that Nysha’s breath turned visible. Ashwing’s wings puffed up like a frightened bird’s.

Lindarion walked forward without hesitation.

The corridor beyond was narrower than expected—far too narrow for a place of this grandeur. The walls were smooth, pale gold, with thin threadlike lines of soft light running along them like capillaries. Every few steps, one of those lines pulsed, echoing Lindarion’s heartbeat.