Villain Awakening: Rising to the Strongest Dragon God-Chapter 75: The Castle’s Collector

The party stepped into an entrance hall that seemed to stretched further than their eyes could see. The interior space seemed to exceed the outer dimensions. Nika’s gaze followed everything slowly even as his honed instincts prickled.

He sniffed and the air tasted different, it wasn’t dusty or even rotten, it was just absent,like oxygen existed but yet didn’t.

The coolness or even warmth were totally replaced by absolutely nothing.

The party moves further in, noticing furniture that sat arranged for a gathering that seemed to have never happened.

The chairs positioned for conversation, a table set with refreshments that looked fresh but the tablecloth didn’t drape. It stood rigid, frozen mid-fold with cups that didn’t reflect light the right way.

Nika walked closer pressing Lightbane’s blade against the table cloth. The sword scraped with a harsh sting. Metal against stone.

That confirmed it. "Everything’s petrified," he said quietly.

Garran moved to examine a vase on a side table. The flowers inside looked fresh at first glance, petals still holding color and shape. But when he touched one, his finger came away with dust.

"Hmm...contract said murders happened months ago but this doesn’t look like rot,"

"Of course it doesn’t," Nika looked at him.

"It’s all petrified," he repeated.

They went even further down the hall and in one of the open doors, they found the first victim in a sitting room near a window overlooking the courtyard.

The young woman was in servant’s clothing, seated with her hands frozen mid-gesture, mouth open mid-sentence.

Every detail on her was preserved. The weave of her dress. Even the tiniest wrinkles at her eyes that suggested she smiled were there even now.

But the most chilling aspect were the eyes. They caught light like they were alive, but nothing existed behind them other than the terror of realization.

Lyssa circled the figure, assessing her closely. "This wasn’t gradual. She didn’t have time to move. It took her in an instant," she deducted.

"What does this to someone?" Garran questioned genuinely confused even as his brows furrowed.

Nika studied the woman’s expression. The mix of terror in her eyes and the receding smile on her stale lips.

"Something that wanted to keep her exactly like this," he answered.

----

Above them, wood creaked like something was announcing itself or better still marking it’s territory.

The party looked at each other and then proceeded upwards. They moved on wooden stairs that protested their every step.

Nika led the way with Lightbane extended. The blade hummed faintly, responding to something in the air.

The second floor branched in three directions with open doors that revealed rooms frozen mid-catastrophe.

A study where books spilled from shelves into stone cascades. A bedroom with sheets twisted in petrified waves like someone had thrashed in their sleep before been caught.

Then the children’s room.

There were two small figures on the floor, surrounded by transformed toys. A boy reaching for a wooden horse, his stone fingers would never touch.

A girl curled around a doll, face pressed against petrified fabric. Both frozen before they understood what was happening.

This was the cousin’s crime. The murders that started everything. The contract said he’d killed the family and fled with the children. But it seemed he never fled.

Lyssa turned away, making a sound like she’d been struck. Even Garran, who carried his own family’s deaths sealed in his chest, looked shaken.

Again the sounds came from above. This time stone was grounding against stone like someone was pushing a heavy sculpture.

Then a voice both distant and clear echoed from everywhere and nowhere within the castle.

"I had to keep them. They were leaving."

The party all shared a look. This confirmed they were not alone. Garran immediately reached for his twin axes and nodded.

Even as they climbed up the narrow stairs of the third floor. The voice continued, "I loved her but she chose him instead. The bastard took what’s mine, so I took what he valued most.

It seemed the cousin had actually murdered the Lord’s family in a jealous rage but the choice of magic seemed to have twisted his anger into something else.

The party reached a landing where a single door stood closed. The only closed door in the entire castle.

"You don’t understand," the voice said from behind it. "I need them here forever,"

Nika didn’t move a step further when he sensed it. Power radiated from beyond the door, unlike anything he’d encountered.

It wasn’t demonic, nor was it draconic or even an artifact. This was emotion that had become its own force. An obsession that was given life by something extremely twisted.

He looked at Garran and Lyssa for final approval. They both nodded. Nika took a deep breathe and pushed the door open.

The door opened into a shrine of preservation. Stone figures covered every surface, arranged like museum pieces.

Servants frozen mid-task. Family members captured in conversation. The lord at his desk, pen above parchment. His wife beside him, kneeling down with mouth open as if pleading.

At the center of it all, surrounded by his collection, stood what used to be a man.

---

It seemed the cousin had petrified himself in stages. His legs were fully stone, with the transformation spreading up his torso.

One of his arms was completely stone, fingers frozen mid-reach toward a child. The other arm was different with patches of withered flesh around the edges. It was barely working, still pulsing against all odds. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

His face was half-transformed. One eye solid stone that somehow still moved. The other wet and alive but filled with desperate sorrow.

"New subjects," his rasp voice echoed from stone lips that ground against fleshy ones.

"You’ll stay right? Everyone leaves but I can make them stay," he spoke with madness shimmering behind his eyes.

As he spoke, power radiated from him in waves that made the air grow thicker. Lyssa hissed even as Garran ’s chest throbbed softly.

The man raised its remaining flesh hand and with a groan, he spoke. "Such strong emotions. You’ll preserve beautifully."

The air thickened, turning gray like a fog but heavier. Nika felt his arm grow sluggish, the littlest of movements requiring more effort.

The petrification was spreading through the air itself, seeking new victims to add to the collection.

"Begin!" Nika shouted.

Lyssa reacted instantly, her fangs sank into her arms as blood gushed out. She flung the blood that grew thicker towards the entity like an expanding net.

Sheesh

The vampire magic hit the gray fog like acid, burning through it with hissing fury.

Garran moved while the man took a step back. His axes came down on the stone arm, in an attempt to sever it completely.

The glowing blades bounced off like rubber. The stone resisted the steel, the impact sending shockwaves up Garran’s arms pushing him backwards.

He cursed under his breathe. "Bastard,"

Garran’s eyes widened as he saw the gleaming steel of his axe began to change from silver to gray.

The petrification seemed to make the axe alot heavier but something weird occurred. It stopped where the runes on the axe started like the magic were conflicting with one another.

Instantly, Garran looked at Nika.

"Lightbane!" he shouted to Nika.

"This thing’s binding them. Forcing its own contract!"

Nika’s eyes narrowed with understanding. The entity wasn’t just killing. It was binding victims in place with contract magic mimicking soul bonds.

He lunged forward, his blade extended toward the half-petrified heart. Lightbane could sever contracts so it was the worse nightmare to entities like this.

Before Lightbane could reach his heart, the entity’s stone hand caught it mid-thrust.

The metal screamed as stone fingers closed around it. Cracks spread through the entity’s hand upon contact, the anti-contract properties damaging it, but it held on non-theless.

The petrification aura surged explosively even as Nika felt his sword arm stiffen, legs grew heavier, the horrifying sensation of flesh transforming to stone spreading from his fingertips.

Lyssa screamed in pain, her own arm already gray up to the elbow. Garran staggered, one of his legs locked in place.

Nika’s eyes flared, gritting his teeth, he pushed Lightbane to dig deeper despite his arm turning to stone.

The blade’s anti-contract properties flared in a golden blaze that spread from Nika’s body.

Pierce

The Aura that clung to the blade drove forward tearing a crack through the man’s heart after completely shattering the hand.

The golden light spread from the wound through the entity’s chest, racing outward to every petrified figure in the room like a stallion.

The man roared between sobs and scream. Then everything shattered.

Stone exploded into countless fragments. The preserved victims crumbled into dust as their bindings broke, it’d been too long, the magic had replaced their essence.

The entity itself fractured, like glass, pieces falling away to reveal what remained underneath.

A human body remained, with withered eyes closed in something like peace. The man as he’d been before grief twisted him into something that preserved others in the hell he couldn’t escape.

The corpse held for a fleeting moment, visible and real. Then it dissipated. Crumbling to join the dust of everyone he’d kept.

"From dust we came. To dust we shall return."

A/N

I really enjoy writing this and would continue as best I can. Thanks for reading