Silence.
Not the silence of absence, but the silence of something watching.
Vincent stood unmoved, fingers still clasped around the artifact. The moment the Grand Elder had been erased, something within the obsidian frame had… shifted.
No, not shifted.
Awakened.
Lucien adjusted his collar, his expression unreadable. "That thing isn't normal."
Vincent didn't reply. His crimson gaze was locked onto the artifact, scanning its surface as if seeing past its mere form.
It wasn't a weapon. It wasn't a seal.
It was a prison.
A prison that had just felt the presence of something greater than itself.
Boom.
The chamber trembled. The Sang Family cultivators still alive let out shaken gasps, scrambling backward. Their fear wasn't just for Vincent anymore.
Something inside the artifact was moving.
And then—
A voice.
But unlike before, this wasn't a whisper of rejection. It wasn't an illusion forced upon their minds.
This voice spoke into existence.
"You… are not bound by fate."
The words weren't a declaration. They were an observation.
Lucien stiffened. "That's—"
Vincent finally spoke. His voice was quiet, yet it commanded absolute presence.
"Show yourself."
A single pulse of power surged from his palm, forcing the artifact's frame to crack.
The chamber darkened instantly.
Shadows twisted, forming something that did not belong in this world. An entity of shifting black mist, its form indistinct yet vast, materialized before them. The pressure was suffocating—ancient, like something forgotten before the first gods took their thrones.
Sang cultivators collapsed unconscious, unable to withstand even its passive existence.
Lucien muttered a curse under his breath. "Vincent—"
But Vincent didn't flinch. He merely watched as the being lowered itself, its presence folding into the air like a living abyss bowing.
And then—
It kneeled.
Lucien's breath hitched.
Vincent narrowed his eyes. "You recognize me."
The being's form shivered, as if in acknowledgment.
"Your existence… is beyond the design."**
A slow, chilling realization settled over the room.
This being, whatever it was, had been sealed away for a reason. And yet, upon seeing Vincent—
It did not fight. It did not resist.
It submitted.
Vincent lowered his gaze, crimson eyes reflecting the abyss before him.
"The ones who imprisoned you," he murmured. "What were they?"
The entity trembled. Then, for the first time, it spoke a name.
A name that should not have existed.
A name that sent a ripple through reality itself.
Vincent's fingers tightened around the artifact.
Lucien felt the air grow heavier, his instincts screaming that they had just crossed into something far beyond mortal comprehension.
And then—
The shadows vanished.
The artifact, now devoid of its prison, crumbled into dust in Vincent's hands.
The chamber fell into stillness.
But the truth had been unveiled.
And Vincent Vasco was no longer just acting upon the world.
The world was now reacting to him.