The silence of Tomb Maizel was never truly silence.
It pressed on Garfield like the weight of an ocean, yet within it he could hear the thrum of something alive, something ancient. Each step he took into the dim-lit corridor made the phosphorescent veins of stone tremble faintly, as if the tomb itself recognized his presence and recoiled.
He paused before a set of broken coffins — not shattered by age, but by something violent. The lids had been clawed open from within. Empty.
The Being's voice, that drifting whisper, brushed the back of his mind.
"Do not tarry here, child. Those coffins were not meant to remain open."
Garfield crouched, running his fingers across the cracked surface of one sarcophagus. The stone felt warm — too warm for something buried in this eternal chill. "If they escaped," he murmured, "then they're wandering somewhere within this tomb."
"Not wandering," the Being corrected. "Bound. Still serving. Pray you do not meet them."
He stood without another word, his cloak brushing against the glowing veins of the wall. The air here grew thick with the metallic scent of blood that wasn't present moments ago. It clung to his throat. Yet he walked deeper.
Ahead stretched a hall, and upon its walls lay carved inscriptions, looping in a script not of mortals. His eyes narrowed as the glyphs shifted subtly when viewed from the corner of his vision. They resisted being understood, as though meaning itself was hidden behind a veil.
Garfield reached out, letting his fingers brush the grooves. Immediately, his veins lit with pain — his mana reacted violently, forcing him to bite back a growl. Blood slipped from his nose, dotting the dusty stone floor.
The Being hissed sharply.
"Fool! This is the script of the Laws. You are not yet ready to read them."
"Then teach me."
A pause stretched long, colder than the tomb itself. Finally, the Being's whisper slid back into his skull.
"I will translate what does not endanger you. But know this: knowledge has weight, and too much weight will break you."
The glyphs flickered. Meaning seeped into Garfield's mind like poisoned honey.
"Thirteen pillars," the Being intoned. "Guardians of balance. Their thrones aligned with gods above, bound by law, by oath, by sacrifice."
Garfield exhaled slowly. "And the empty space?"
The Being's voice faltered, a rare hesitation.
"Forget the fourteenth. It does not exist."
He smiled faintly, ignoring the command. His hand lingered on the erasure — a scar gouged deep into the mural, where once something had been carved and then obliterated. The absence spoke louder than the inscriptions.
He whispered to himself, voice low: "Something was here. Something they feared enough to erase."
The Being's tone sharpened, almost desperate.
"You hunt shadows. Do not chase them."
But Garfield had already chosen to chase. He leaned back, resting against the cold stone. His thoughts turned like blades in his mind. If thirteen pillars existed — if the thrones were tied to divine authority — then the one erased, the one silenced, must have been greater. Or dangerous beyond reason.
He pressed further down the corridor. The whispers grew louder now, no longer only the Being's. Ghostlike murmurs bled from the walls, broken fragments of a voice not whole:
"…fate… devourer… slave…"
Garfield froze. His hand tightened at his side. The voice was not the Being's, but it carried the same flavor of eternity, as if time itself strained to speak.
"What was that?" he demanded aloud.
The Being remained silent.
He clenched his jaw, mana stirring dangerously beneath his skin. "Answer me."
Finally, the Being's reply came, brittle and weary.
"This tomb remembers its master. Maizel's will was etched into every stone. Sometimes… fragments linger."
"Fragments about fate."
"You heard nothing," the Being snapped, voice suddenly sharp as steel. "Forget it."
Garfield's eyes narrowed. For the first time, he detected something within the Being he had not before — not power, not arrogance, but fear.
And that, above all, intrigued him.
The hall ended at another mural — this one larger, sprawling across the stone in maddened precision. Thirteen figures cloaked in radiance, each clutching a sphere of light. But again, at the end, there was absence: a figure gouged out so thoroughly that only jagged stone remained.
Below them, the glyphs continued. Garfield crouched, running a bloody finger over the letters. He no longer asked permission. The pain was excruciating, as if his blood itself rejected the script, but he forced himself to endure.
The words slid into his mind, disjointed:
"…chains of fate… eternal balance… one erased…"
His vision blurred. The ground tilted beneath him. Yet through the haze of pain, he smirked. They had tried to erase the fourteenth. They had tried to silence its existence. But even silence leaves echoes.
"Forget it," the Being said again, voice trembling with something Garfield had never heard from it before.
Garfield rose, wiping blood from his chin, his smile cold.
"I will never forget."
The tomb groaned faintly, as though stirred by his defiance. Dust fell from the ceiling. Somewhere in the distance, a hollow scream echoed through the stone, neither beast nor man.
He did not flinch. Instead, he pressed forward into the deeper dark, the whispers curling tighter around him like chains of smoke.
And behind him, the erased figure in the mural seemed to shimmer faintly, as if its absence were no longer content to remain hidden.