The city had never been this quiet.
Not after the howls. Not after the pendulum's chimes. Not even after the Choir had bled their songs into the night.
Now—silence pressed down like a lid on a coffin.
Elara stood close to Aelric, her hands trembling as she clutched her broken lantern. Its light barely flickered.
The ground shivered beneath their feet. Just once. Then again.
Like a heartbeat.
---
> [System Notice: Final Cycle Approaching.]
Remaining Time: 00 Days : 12 Hours : 43 Minutes
---
Aelric let out a dry laugh. His corrupted arm twitched, smoke trailing off his veins.
"Twelve hours. That's all you've got left," he muttered, eyes sliding toward Elara. "The system doesn't even hide it anymore."
Elara's lips trembled. "Don't—don't say it like that. Please."
He didn't answer. Not yet. His eyes were on the earth, where cracks had begun to spread like veins of glass. From those fissures, a faint glow pulsed—slow, steady, and deep.
The heartbeat of something vast. Something buried.
---
Hours crawled. The city was abandoned, but not dead. Every broken window seemed to breathe. Every statue seemed to watch. A fog had settled, heavy and pale, as though the air itself feared to move.
Elara whispered, "Why isn't anything attacking us tonight?"
Aelric's grin was sharp and joyless. "Because this isn't a night of hunting. It's a night of waiting."
He flexed his corrupted hand. "They want us scared before it even begins."
---
> [Warning: Dimensional Seals weakening.]
[Core Entity: The God Beneath stirring.]
The system's words echoed like bells inside their skulls.
Elara flinched. "A god… under us this whole time?"
Aelric tilted his head back, staring up at the voided sky.
"You thought the timer was just for fun? No, Elara. This was always a ritual. Every hollow, every trial—feeding it."
Elara's face drained of color. "Then… what happens when it wakes?"
He finally looked at her. His eyes were wild, but clear.
"Either the world ends, or we end it first."
---
The tremors grew. The clocktower in the distance shook, its pendulum swinging wildly, tolling on its own. Each toll cracked another piece of the sky.
Shards of night rained down, hissing into nothing before they hit the ground.
Elara pressed herself against Aelric's side, whispering, "I'm not ready for this."
His corrupted arm rose almost without thought, curling protectively around her.
"No one's ready to fight a god," he said, voice low. "That's why we cheat."
---
The ground split.
From the deepest fissure, a sound escaped. Not a roar. Not a voice. Something older. A hum that made their bones ache and their clocks flare with heat.
Elara cried out, clutching her wrist. Her timer blazed bright red—
[00 Days : 11 Hours : 59 Minutes]
It was draining faster.
Aelric's timer pulsed too, digits flickering, corruption crawling further up his neck.
---
> [Final Trial Initiating.]
Title: The God Beneath.
Condition: Resist Awakening until cycle's end.
Secondary Condition: Offer sacrifice to stabilize entity.
---
Aelric read the words and laughed. A harsh, broken laugh.
"Of course. Of course they'd give us a choice."
Elara's eyes filled with horror. "Sacrifice… what kind of sacrifice?"
He looked at her, and for the first time that night—he didn't smile.
"You already know the answer."
---
The ground shook harder, splitting stone into dust. From the abyss, tendrils of molten light slithered upward—too many, too vast to count. They weren't attacking. Not yet. They were feeling, testing, brushing the city like fingers tapping a coffin lid.
The god wasn't awake. Not fully. But soon.
Elara buried her face into Aelric's shoulder, trembling. "Twelve hours… we just need to last twelve hours…"
Aelric's grin returned, ragged and bloody.
"Then let's make them the longest twelve hours of their life."
---
> [Final Night has begun.]
Time Remaining: 11 Hours : 58 Minutes
---
To be continued…