Garfield collapsed in the chamber, visions tearing through him. Memories not his own flickered in his skull: burning temples, chains of light binding a shadow, screams swallowed by silence.
When he woke, the Being loomed.
"You touched what should not be touched. The tomb itself reacts to you."
"Then let it," Garfield rasped, wiping blood from his lips.
For three days, he lay in the chamber, body wracked with fever. During this time, dreams clawed into him. He saw his own childhood—not as memory, but as judgment. His mother's smile, fading into death. His father's distant contempt. His siblings mocking him as his body weakened from excessive mana. The humiliation carved into his soul reemerged, raw as ever.
But alongside the pain came clarity. Every lash of memory steeled him. He would not just survive this tomb. He would master it.
On the fourth day, he rose, body trembling but alive. The glyphs on the wall had changed—new lines now etched themselves as though responding to his blood. And in the center of the mural, the erased space shimmered faintly.
Garfield pressed his hand to it again. This time, instead of pain, he felt resonance—like a door waiting to open.
The Being growled.
"Do not awaken what sleeps, child. Maizel was one of the thirteen sons of a forgotten power. His tomb was never meant for you."
Garfield smirked coldly. "Then it was always meant for me."