Chapter 34 – Soul Resonance and the Womb of Darkness
The seal crumbled—not with an explosion, but with a slow fracture.
Like old skin being shed.
From that gap, Lumina stepped forward.
Kavdrin retreated. Miredan raised a defensive sigil, but it was too late.
The energy around Lumina wasn't an attack, but pressure.
She moved calmly, yet the room seemed to bow with every step she took.
Archon stood frozen.
"We pull back," he said, almost whispering.
No one answered, but they obeyed.
In an instant, they vanished—leaving only Archon's card, fallen and cracked on the magic floor.
Lumina looked at it. She didn't touch it. She simply spoke, quietly:
"Do you think a seal can hold someone who no longer fears losing anything?"
Her steps stopped.
Inside her, Ilior's voice laughed, crawling softly.
"You called me."
Lumina didn't answer. But she opened her mind.
Ilior entered. Not with force, not with threat. He was drawn in, not breaking through.
And as he sought to claim the body, he halted.
"No," Lumina said. "You're not a king. You're only fire. And I'm the one holding the torch."
Ilior grimaced. But he couldn't resist.
Because the contract wasn't coercion—it was appointment.
"When can I speak?" Ilior asked.
"When I no longer wish to be human," Lumina replied.
In the distance, the astral sky opened. The echoes of the old magical world trembled.
Sacred altars cracked. Spirit trees blackened. Spell rivers stopped flowing.
Resonance had begun.
---
The Hellseer Council gathered.
Saelmir gazed into the reflection of memories on the surface of black water.
She saw a baby—within a seal—surrounded by spells too old, too complex, and carrying too much fear.
"She wasn't abandoned," Saelmir said.
"She was imprisoned. Because they feared she would become something greater than all systems."
Ysera lowered her head. Noveras grew angry. Dorvas stayed silent.
The only voice came from Elhara.
"And now… that something has awakened. Not as a unifier. But as the result of your betrayal."
---
Amid the ruins of battle, Raegar stood.
The dust had yet to fully settle.
He picked up a shard of a fallen card.
But it wasn't a spell—
It was a fragment of a dream.
He saw a small girl. Blue-purple hair. Crying at a blood altar.
No sound came. But the image was familiar.
It wasn't Lumina.
"This… after her?" Raegar whispered.
But he didn't know what it meant.
Only a bad premonition stirred within him.
---
In the astral world, Amari stood among floating black crystals.
Maxcen sat upon his throne.
"You let her choose," he said.
Amari's gaze was empty.
"I couldn't stop her," she replied.
"You never could," Maxcen corrected.
"You only wanted this world to never call your child a mistake.
But you forgot… this world created her to be a disaster."
Amari gripped her robe.
"Then who is she now?"
Maxcen rose.
Black aura flowed from his shoulders and body.
"She is… a womb. But not for life. For destruction.
She is the beginning of a new question.
And the world does not yet have an answer."
---
Back to Lumina.
She sat quietly upon the rubble, saying nothing.
But her mind trembled.
Ilior spoke inside her.
"You know they'll hunt you. The Council. The Median.
Even Enver, if he sides with order."
"I don't need a place," Lumina replied.
"I only need the space to decide when to act with the power I have now."
Ilior chuckled softly.
But he couldn't move without permission.
He was caged within the freedom given by his own master—Lumina herself.
"Why did you let me in?"
"Because I also want revenge.
But with my own hands.
Not by fate.
And not by you."
---
In the dimensional nexus, Saelmir opened an old record.
She saw the birth seal of Lumina.
The Council at that time sealed three aspects within the infant:
an ancient spirit, median blood, and a human soul.
"Not one of us asked… why God allowed her to be born like that."
Dorvas answered briefly:
"Because we had already become God to this world.
And the deciders of that child's fate."
Saelmir stared coldly.
"That's why she'll destroy us.
History repeating, isn't it?" she asked, looking at Dorvas.
"Enver…" Dorvas murmured.
They both recalled the past—
when Enver took the power of the Five Council members with ease.
And the one who restored them was someone unexpected.
Would Lumina do the same to the Council?
Or worse—erase them entirely?
---
Lumina opened her eyes.
No one was around.
The world gave no sign.
But its pulse had changed.
Time felt slightly heavier.
The air, slightly quieter.
She looked up.
"Amari… Enver… you call me child.
But none of you truly chose me.
The world chose.
And you all silenced it."
She rose and began walking north—
to the place where she first heard the spell that pierced her soul.
---
Meanwhile, Enver stood atop an old temple.
His eyes gazed east, but his soul was pulled elsewhere.
He said nothing.
But the last card in his hand began to blacken at its edges.
"She has changed," Enver murmured.
And he knew—
their time to stand on the same side was almost over.
---
Inside her, Ilior spoke once more.
"Do you know… your vengeance won't end by burning or erasing them?"
"I don't want vengeance to end," Lumina replied.
"I want them to know… that I remember what they did to me."
"And after that?"
Lumina didn't answer.
Because the answer wasn't for Ilior—
It was for the world.