From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 96: seeker

The descent was slow.

The stairway spiralled into blackness, deeper than it should’ve gone. The walls were lined with scorched murals—fragments of battles lost, faces twisted in agony, cities devoured by flame. But none of them moved. None changed.

They weren’t illusions.

They were warnings.

Each step pressed heavier than the last. Not from exhaustion, but weight. Memory. The deeper they went, the tighter the air became. Not from smoke. From pressure. Like the mountain wanted to keep them out.

Or keep something in.

Leon said nothing. Neither did the others. Even the boy kept silent, his eyes fixed on the darkness below.

Finally, the stairway ended.

The chamber that opened before them wasn’t carved. It was melted. Walls of slag and obsidian formed a dome that pulsed faintly red. In its center lay a circle of jagged stone—a ring scorched deep into the floor. And in that ring knelt a figure.

At first, he looked like a man.

Then he moved.

Chains clinked around his wrists, but they weren’t forged. They were grown—threads of embered bone wrapped like roots into his skin. His eyes glowed faintly. His hair was gone. Burnt away.

But his voice remained.

"Another one," he rasped. "Another who thinks they’re chosen."

Leon stepped forward. "Who are you?"

The man didn’t answer at first. He tilted his head, bones cracking. Then, slowly, he looked up.

His face was familiar.

Callen staggered back. "He looks like..."

"Me," the boy whispered. "He was the first."

The chained man smiled. It was cracked. Wrong. "I opened a seal not meant to open. Took a fire not mine to carry."

Leon clenched his fists. "And what happened?"

"It burned me."

A rush of heat pulsed from the ring. The ground trembled. Molten cracks formed under the man’s knees. Still, he did not rise.

"They called me the Seeker. Thought I could master what came before. I failed."

Elena stepped beside Leon. "Then why are you still alive?"

The Seeker’s smile faded. "Because they want me to watch. To warn. To tempt."

He raised one hand. Firelight flickered in his palm.

"You could take it, you know. A shortcut. My fire is still here. Still burning. You wouldn’t need to bleed like the rest. Just take it."

Leon didn’t move.

The boy stepped forward. "Don’t. That fire isn’t free. It never was."

The Seeker’s face twisted. "So you’ve come to judge me, boy? You who stayed sealed while the world burned?"

The boy didn’t flinch. "I came to see if you remembered who you were."

The flames dimmed.

The Seeker looked at Leon. For a moment, his voice softened.

"Don’t let it choose for you. Don’t reach for power just because it screams loudest."

Then he bowed his head.

And burned.

The chains turned white-hot. The circle flared. And in a heartbeat, the Seeker vanished—not in pain, but in silence.

A new path opened.

Not down.

Forward.

Leon stepped into the ring. The fire didn’t lash at him. It parted.

The path beyond pulsed with a dull crimson light. It led through an archway formed from fused weapons—swords, spears, shields, all melted into one.

Elena reached out. "Leon..."

He turned. "We keep going. Until we find the final seal."

And they walked on.

Deeper into the fire.

The ground beyond the archway shifted beneath their steps. It wasn’t stone anymore—it was metal, scorched and warped, humming faintly like it remembered battle. The walls were lined with blades. Not resting. Not hung. Embedded. Buried deep, as if thrown by giants or left behind in retreat.

The boy slowed beside Leon. "This is where the fire first touched flesh," he said.

Leon didn’t answer. His jaw tightened as they passed a broken spear twice his height. The shaft had snapped clean through a rusted breastplate that still held a sliver of bone. A soldier. Forgotten.

They entered a wide hall.

No ceiling. Just open red sky above, the kind that shouldn’t exist underground. On both sides stood statues—dozens of them. Warriors in full armour, their weapons raised in salute or lowered in mourning. But their faces weren’t stone. They were real.

Preserved in ash.

Tomas looked up. "They fought here?"

"They died here," Mira muttered.

"No," the boy said. "They chose here."

At the center of the hall stood a brazier of black glass. No flame inside. Just smoke—swirling in tight, slow spirals. It didn’t rise. It hovered.

Elena approached first. Her hand hovered just over the smoke. It pulled toward her like breath, then stopped.

"Alive," she whispered. "But waiting."

Leon stepped forward. As he did, the smoke thickened. Shapes formed. Images. Flashes.

A battlefield of white flame.

A king falling to his knees.

A mountain breaking open from within.

He blinked. And the visions ended.

But one image lingered in the smoke.

A crown. Shattered in two.

The boy stepped beside the brazier, eyes lowered. "This is what remains of the oathfire. It cannot be claimed. Only answered."

Alden frowned. "What does that mean?"

The boy turned to Leon. "It means it won’t give you power. It will ask if you’re ready to lose it."

Leon stared at the smoke. "And if I say no?"

"Then the path ends here."

Silence stretched.

Leon stepped closer. The others didn’t stop him. He reached toward the smoke—not to take it, but to feel it.

It pulled back.

Then surged.

A ring of white-hot wind exploded outward, but no one flinched. The statues didn’t move. The ground didn’t break. Only the brazier burned brighter.

And then a voice filled the hall.

Not from above. Not from below.

From within the smoke.

"Who do you burn for?"

Leon didn’t answer at once.

Then, clear and low: "For those who couldn’t."

The flame shifted. Another voice.

"What do you seek?"

Leon’s grip tightened on his sword. "To end what was started."

Silence again.

Then, soft: "Will you let it break you?"

Leon closed his eyes. "It already did."

The smoke pulsed once—then vanished.

In its place, a small ember floated down. It hovered above his palm, then landed.

It didn’t burn.

It warmed.

The brazier went dark.

The hall cracked—gently—and a new door opened behind the far wall. Carved not by hand, but by fire.

Elena exhaled slowly. "That was... different."

"Not power," Leon said. "Permission."

The boy nodded. "The next seal is close."

They moved forward again.

And behind them, the hall sealed shut—one more oath fulfilled.

They passed through the fire-carved doorway into a corridor that pulsed with a steady, unnatural rhythm—like a heartbeat made of molten stone. The walls glowed faintly, not from flame, but from something deeper—veins of old energy stitched through obsidian, pulsing red-gold with every few steps they took.

Callen slowed behind them, eyes flicking to the cracks in the wall. "This place wasn’t built," he muttered. "It was birthed."

Alden ran his fingers along the wall. "It’s alive."

"No," the boy said, "it remembers."

Leon didn’t speak. His hand remained on his blade as they walked, eyes sharp. The air here was different—not hot, not suffocating, but thick. Charged. Like it was waiting for something.

The corridor bent sharply.

And then opened into another chamber—much smaller than before.

A single torch floated in the center of the room, burning upside down.

Beneath it, a pedestal.

On the pedestal, a mask.

Simple. Black. Shaped like a man’s face without eyes or mouth.

Mira stepped beside Leon. "That looks... wrong."

"It’s not," the boy said quietly. "It’s unfinished."

Leon stepped closer. The mask pulsed once, in time with the corridor behind them.

"What is it?" Tomas asked.

"A judgment," the boy replied. "The kind you don’t give yourself."

Before Leon could respond, the flame above the mask flared. Words formed in the air, not spoken—etched in heat.

What are you willing to become?

Leon stared at the mask.

And then—

What are you not willing to lose?

His throat tightened.

Images flickered around the mask—shadows of his past.

His mother’s hands, trembling as she fed him broth in a broken home.

His father’s blade, rusted and buried.

Elena, bleeding in the snow beside him.

A tower falling. His own hands soaked in blood.

He stepped back.

"Leon," Elena said gently. "You don’t have to answer now."

But the boy shook his head. "Yes. He does. That’s what this room is. It won’t let us pass until it knows what kind of fire he carries."

Leon stared into the mask.

And spoke.

"I won’t become what they were."

The flame dimmed.

"But I will carry what they couldn’t."

The mask cracked.

Not shattered. Changed.

It split down the center, light leaking from within. Then it lifted off the pedestal and floated to Leon’s chest—hovering for a moment.

Then, gently, it pressed against him.

And vanished.

The room shifted. The torch snuffed out.

And another passage opened. Narrow. Jagged.

From the darkness ahead came a distant sound.

Breathing.

Heavy. Tired. Waiting.

Leon turned to the others.

"Whatever’s next... it knows we’re coming."

The boy nodded. "And it’s the last one that remembers why we came."

Without waiting, Leon stepped into the dark.

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