Chapter 88 – Ash and Breath
Silence.
Only the sound of breath scraping in and out of a raw throat.
John lay still on the cold stone, his blood dried into black lacquer against his skin. The chamber's light pulsed faintly, like a heart too tired to keep going. His body twitched once, then again. Finally, he moved.
He rolled onto his side, coughing up copper. Every joint screamed.
"You're still alive,"
Alaric's voice murmured in his mind, smooth and sharp as a blade pulled from water.
John didn't answer. He dragged a cracked potion bottle from his ring, tore the cork with his teeth, and drank. The bitter liquid burned down his throat, spreading warmth through the ice in his veins. He followed it with another — the meditation potion — forcing his breath to steady until the shaking slowed.
The blood on his chest began to shimmer faintly.
Listen, Alaric said, a hint of wonder beneath the sarcasm.
You feel that? Your body… it's adapting.
You're breaking the mortal shell.
John's brow creased. "what does that mean?"
The floor beneath him vibrated. His skin tightened; the veins in his arms lit like faint threads of molten gold. The heat crawled through muscle and marrow, painful and slow. It felt like being reforged from the inside out.
Bones cracked — deep, deliberate, almost rhythmic. His breath came out as steam.
Then the pressure changed.
Something snapped loose in his chest, not a sound but a release — a gate opening inward. For a moment, the entire room tilted. His vision flashed white.
When it cleared, he was standing.
The air bent around him in waves. The crusted blood split and fell from his body like shed bark. His frame had shifted — taller by half an inch, muscle corded with faint luminescent lines. He flexed his hands; the joints popped with sharp, thunder-like clicks. The pressure radiating off him pressed the dust away in a ring.
Break the Mortal Realm, Alaric said softly.
Few ever touch it before D-rank. Of course… I trained you, so I suppose mediocrity was never an option.
John exhaled, eyes half-closed. His aura settled — not calm, but contained.
Then another voice filled the chamber — low, resonant, ancient.
"Impressive."
The Guardian stepped from the shimmer of the waterfall behind him — a shape carved from smoke and gold, eyes like hollow suns. It regarded him with idle interest, the way a mountain watches a flame.
"For surviving the trial, a reward is due."
Its tone was neither praise nor kindness. Merely statement.
John looked up, sweat still streaking through the dirt on his face. "A reward?"
Two motes of light appeared between the Guardian's hands — one crimson, one azure. They floated like opposite stars, humming with restrained power.
"One gift of strength," it said.
The red orb swelled; within it burned the vision of an inferno — a storm of flame circling a single figure. "A technique of fire and destruction. Beyond your reach, yet not beyond your fate."
The blue light flickered. Inside it, through translucent haze, John saw a shape — a man kneeling in sand, his head bowed, a dark coil rising beside him.
Blake.
"The other is mercy."
The Guardian's voice barely shifted, but the air grew colder.
"Your companion is ensnared by the Dream Serpent. His soul bleeds within its nest. Choose."
John didn't hesitate.
"Send me to him."
The Guardian tilted its head. "So certain."
"He's my friend." His voice was rough but steady. "I won't let him die alone."
A faint sound escaped the Guardian — not quite laughter, not quite breath.
"Then your choice is made. Power… or loyalty. Perhaps, in time, they are the same."
The azure light unfolded, spinning into a gate of shifting sand and starlight.
John bowed his head once, simple and sure, then stepped forward.
The light swallowed him whole.
The world fell apart.
For an instant he was nowhere — a flicker of thought between heartbeats — and then everywhere. Then he appeared in the room Blake was in.
When John hit the ground again, he was on sand.
He knelt, gripping his head, teeth bared against the flood of emotion that wasn't his own.
He lifted his gaze.
The room Blake was in was dusty and made of stone. At the center of the desolation sat Blake — motionless, hunched, hands buried in the sand. His armor was cracked, his weapons gone. The air around him pulsed with faint, rhythmic whispers.
John stood and walked toward him, boots sinking in the ash-soft sand.
The closer he came, the louder the whispers grew — fragments of voices bleeding through memory.
"Hold the line—!"
"Blake, behind you—!"
"Run!"
Then silence. Over and over.
Blake didn't look up.
John stopped beside him. "Blake."
No response.
"Blake. It's me."
Nothing. Just the slow shake of a head, barely moving.
John crouched. The man's eyes were hollow — pupils wide, unfocused, reflecting something far away. His lips moved in a whisper.
"I…. couldn't save her."
John swallowed hard. "I'm sorry."
Blake flinched at the words, as though struck. His fingers clawed at the sand.
A ripple went through the air.
From the horizon, shadows stirred — faint outlines of figures marching across the dunes. The dream was rebuilding itself.
He's caught in a memory loop, Alaric said quietly. The serpent feeds on guilt. It won't release him willingly.
John stared at Blake for a long moment, then reached forward and put his hand on Blake's shoulder.
The world shifted.
Fire. Screams. Blood.
Memories that weren't his slammed through his skull in flashes — men shouting, a woman laughing, the smell of iron, the sound of bones breaking.
Ashley's name whispered in the dark.
Jake's voice cut off mid-sentence.
The room they were in dissolved into fire and smoke.
They stood in the middle of a battlefield.
Bodies littered the ground. Kobolds screamed through the smoke, their eyes glowing with red hate. The heat was suffocating.
John recognized it instantly — The vision he'd felt burn through his mind of Blake's last memory of Rina.
Blake moved like a ghost through the carnage, repeating motions he'd lived a thousand times. He swung an invisible weapon, shouted hoarse orders at soldiers who weren't there. His face was raw with fury and despair.
John followed him through the chaos. Every footstep felt heavier, as though the air itself resisted intrusion.
Then he saw her.
Ashley — frozen mid-movement, blade drawn, light crackling around her. The explosion caught her, tore through her chest, and turned her to falling embers.
Blake dropped beside her, screaming soundlessly.
John's throat tightened.
He wanted to look away. Couldn't.
If you break the memory too early, Alaric warned, it will tear his mind apart. You have to reach him inside it.
John clenched his fists. "Then I'll reach him."
He stepped forward through the smoke.
"Blake!" he shouted.
The world didn't hear him.
He shouted again — louder, until his voice broke the rhythm of the illusion.
Blake turned, confusion flashing in his eyes.
John walked straight through the fire, light rising around him like a second sun. The flames parted where he passed. He reached Blake, grabbed his shoulder, and forced him to meet his gaze.
"Look at me," John said.
Blake stared at him as if seeing a ghost. "You… how—"
"It's over."
The ground shuddered. The sky darkened. The serpent's voice slid between the noise like silk.
"He doesn't want to leave. He belongs here."
The smoke coiled together behind Blake, forming the faint shape of a vast, fanged head. Eyes of molten gold opened above them.
John didn't turn.
He didn't need to.
"Blake," he said again, steady and low, "you don't have to keep watching this."
"I failed them." Blake's voice cracked. "All of them. Jake… Ashley—"
"I understand, but this is the past and you have people who need you now."
"But I already lost the one I loved. How am i supposed to move forward!"
John's hand tightened on his shoulder. "you just have to, but you are not alone."
The serpent hissed, the sound like laughter.
"He would rather drown."
John's eyes narrowed. The air around him rippled — the faint shimmer of heat and light pulsing together.
He stepped forward. The serpent lunged.
Its fangs struck the sand where he had stood; John's body blurred, reappearing behind Blake. His fist slammed into the ground, sending a shockwave of light tearing through the illusion.
The world fractured — sky splitting, smoke scattering like torn cloth.
The serpent screamed.
John's aura flared — a contradiction that burned reality's edges. He caught the serpent's head in both hands as it lunged again and pulled.
The creature exploded into mist.
Silence crashed down.
Blake gasped. The battlefield flickered, then dissolved into gray. Only the two of them remained — kneeling in the fading echo of the dream.
John let go of him slowly.
They woke in the pyramid chamber
Blake looked around, bewildered. "Where are we?"
"In the pyramid." John wiped the sweat from his face with a shaky hand.
For a long moment, neither spoke. Only the faint hum of the dissolving realm filled the air.
Then Blake's voice, quiet: "I really loved her… you know."
"Yeah," John said. "I know.. I could feel the pain through the memories."
Blake nodded slowly. His hands trembled, but the emptiness in his eyes was fading — replaced by something rawer. Pain. Anger. Life.
He's gonna be fine, Alaric murmured.
The gray light began to fracture. The dream peeled away like cracked paint.
The air was cold again, real again. Dust fell from the ceiling where the illusion's collapse had disturbed it. Blake slumped against the wall, drawing in ragged breaths. John sat across from him, every muscle screaming with exhaustion.
For a moment, neither moved.
Then Blake said, "How did you even get here?"
John smirked without humor. "That's a long story."
Blake huffed a laugh — small, bitter, but real. "Fair enough."
They sat in silence for a while, both staring at the cracked floor between them. The pyramid's faint heartbeat pulsed through the stone — steady, endless.
High above, unseen, the Guardian watched.
"Mercy chosen over power," it whispered, voice echoing through the chamber.
"Perhaps the old world remembers itself after all."
The sound faded, leaving only the quiet drip of condensation from the walls.