The darkness of the Sunken Temple was not empty. It was heavy, pressurized by miles of swamp water and centuries of silence.
Miriam sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor. The silver box lay open in her lap. The red crystal—the Heart of Saint Aelius—pulsed with a rhythm that was slightly faster than her own heartbeat.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It was a seduction.
Every instinct in her body screamed at her to close the lid. This was a Gold-rank artifact. It was the condensed, crystallized soul of a man who had purified a continent. For an Iron-rank Healer to touch it was akin to a housefly trying to drink from a blast furnace.
"You're shaking," Kael said.
He was standing ten feet away, sharpening his sword. The rasp of the whetstone was the only sound in the damp corridor.
"I am vibrating," Miriam corrected, her voice tight. " The resonance is... aggressive."
"Can you do it?" Kael asked. He stopped sharpening. "If you burn out, we are dead. Valerius will be through that rubble in less than twenty minutes."
Miriam looked up. Her eyes were reflecting the red glow of the stone.
"He won't kill us immediately," she said. "He wants the stone. And he wants to know how I poisoned his men. He has an ego, Kael. That is the only shield we have."
She looked back at the crystal.
The mechanism of absorption, she thought, shifting into her clinical mindset.
In the Academy, they taught that Ether absorption was like breathing. You inhaled the ambient energy, filtered it through your lungs, and stored it in the core.
But this? This was not air. This was solid matter.
To absorb this, she had to perform a spiritual digestive act. She had to break the crystal down, strip away the "Will" of the Saint, and consume the raw power beneath.
"Varn," Miriam said without turning her head. "Keep the light steady. If I seize, do not touch me. Just ensure I don't bite my tongue off."
Varn, huddled near the statue of the fish-god, nodded. She looked terrified.
Miriam took a deep breath. She placed both hands on the crystal.
She didn't pull. She opened.
The Inner World
The moment her skin touched the surface of the Heart, the physical world vanished.
Miriam was no longer in a damp temple. She was standing in a field of white fire.
The heat was absolute. It stripped the skin from her bones, the meat from her muscles. She screamed, but she had no mouth.
Invader, a voice boomed. It wasn't a sound; it was a tectonic shift in the atmosphere. You are impure.
It was the Will of Saint Aelius. Even dead, his ego survived in the Ether.
Miriam stood—or floated—in the white fire. She forced her consciousness to hold its shape.
I am not impure, she projected back. I am empty. And you are fuel.
The fire roared. It tried to burn her "Self." It tried to impose its own order upon her. It wanted to turn her into a mindless drone of the Light, a creature that only knew how to pray and obey.
This was why people exploded when they touched high-rank artifacts. It wasn't the energy that killed them; it was the foreign personality overwriting their brain.
Miriam fought back.
She didn't fight with strength. She fought with biology.
She visualized her soul not as a fortress, but as a virus. A bacteriophage.
You are big, she thought at the white fire. But I am small. I don't need to beat you. I just need to eat a piece of you.
She visualized her Ether latching onto the edges of the white fire. She began to dissect it.
Isolate the aggression. Discard.
Isolate the divinity. Discard.
Isolate the raw vitality. CONSUME.
It was agonizing. It felt like she was performing surgery on her own ghost. She mentally sliced off chunks of the red energy, scrubbed them clean of the Saint's personality, and dragged them into her own core.
Her Iron-rank core, a small, dusty cup, began to crack.
It couldn't hold the volume.
Expand, Miriam commanded herself. Adapt or die.
She forced the walls of her core to shatter. She used the stolen energy to rebuild them, not as a cup, but as a web. A lattice of high-density Ether channels that ran through every inch of her body.
She was rewriting her own nervous system.
The Physical World
"Boss," Gerry whispered. "Look at her."
Kael watched. He had seen mages meditate before. It was usually boring.
This was not boring.
Miriam was levitating an inch off the ground. The veins in her neck were bulging, turning a bright, neon red. The air around her was distorting, rippling like heat haze over asphalt.
Steam was rising from her skin. The damp clothes she wore were drying instantly.
"Is she dying?" Varn asked, her voice trembling.
"No," Kael said, gripping his sword. "She's molting."
BOOM.
A heavy thud shook the floor. Dust rained down from the ceiling.
Kael spun around to face the blocked entrance.
The rubble was glowing orange.
"He's here," Kael said. "Varn, get back. Gerry, shields up."
The stone blockade didn't explode. It melted.
Like wax held to a candle, the granite turned into slag. It dripped down, hissing as it hit the wet floor.
Through the hole, a figure floated.
Bishop Valerius.
He was glowing. His white tunic was spotless. He didn't look tired. He looked bored.
Behind him, four Paladins stepped over the molten rock. Their armor clanked, heavy and menacing.
"Found you," Valerius said.
His voice carried effortlessly down the hallway.
Kael stepped forward. He stood between the Bishop and Miriam.
"You're trespassing, Bishop," Kael said, twirling his sword. "This is a private party."
Valerius looked at Kael. He looked at him the way a man looks at a cockroach on his dinner plate.
"A mercenary," Valerius sighed. "A man who sells his loyalty for coin. You have no soul to burn, so I will simply dismantle your body."
He raised a finger.
Flash.
A beam of light shot toward Kael's chest.
Kael was ready. He didn't try to block. He dropped.
The beam passed over his head, scorching the air.
"Scatter!" Kael roared.
Gerry charged. He was a tank. He slammed his shield into the nearest Paladin.
CLANG.
The impact was brutal. The Paladin staggered back, but didn't fall. He brought his mace down. Gerry caught it on his shield, his knees buckling under the weight of a Silver-rank strike.
Varn screamed an incantation. A blade of wind sliced through the air, aiming for the Bishop's neck.
Valerius didn't even blink. A barrier of golden light materialized around him. The wind blade shattered against it like glass.
"Pathetic," Valerius murmured.
He flicked his wrist.
An invisible force hammered Varn. She flew backward, hitting the wall with a sickening crunch. She slid down, limp.
"Varn!" Gerry shouted, distracted.
The Paladin kicked Gerry in the chest. The mercenary went flying, skidding across the wet stone.
Kael was the only one left standing.
He was fast. He used the shadows. He lunged at the Bishop from the side, his sword coated in dark, poison-laced Ether.
Valerius turned his head.
"Slow."
He caught Kael's blade.
With his bare hand.
The Bishop's skin was harder than diamond. He held the sharp edge of the steel, smoke rising from his palm as the holy energy neutralized the poison.
"You possess skill," Valerius admitted. "But you lack faith."
He squeezed.
CRACK.
Kael's sword shattered. Shards of steel exploded outward.
Valerius backhanded Kael.
It wasn't a slap. It was a kinetic impact. Kael was launched into the air. He smashed into the stone pillar near Miriam and collapsed, coughing blood.
The fight had lasted thirty seconds.
The Twin-Fangs were broken.
Valerius floated forward. He ignored the groaning mercenaries. His eyes were locked on the girl sitting in the alcove.
Miriam was still floating. The red light around her was intensifying.
"The thief," Valerius whispered. "You think you can digest a Saint?"
He landed softly on the floor. He walked toward her.
"You are polluting the relic just by breathing on it."
He reached out to grab her neck.
The Awakening
Inside the white fire, Miriam felt the disruption. She felt the hostile intent of the Bishop.
She had consumed enough.
She had taken twenty percent of the crystal's energy. It wasn't all of it, but it was all her body could hold without detonating.
She grabbed the remaining eighty percent of the energy—the bulk of the Saint's will—and shoved it back into the crystal.
She slammed the mental lid shut.
System Reboot.
Her eyes snapped open.
Valerius's hand was inches from her throat.
Miriam didn't dodge.
She caught his wrist.
Valerius's eyes widened. "What?"
Miriam's hand was small, pale, and delicate. But her grip was absolute.
She looked at him.
Her eyes had changed. The irises were no longer brown. They were a kaleidoscope of green and red—the green of growth, and the red of raw vitality.
"You talk too much," Miriam said.
Her voice sounded different. It was layered. It sounded like two people speaking at once.
She squeezed his wrist.
She didn't use strength. She used Bio-Feedback.
She located the ulnar nerve in his arm. She pumped a spike of raw, unadulterated pain directly into the myelin sheath.
Valerius gasped. He yanked his hand back, stumbling.
He looked at his wrist. There was a bruise forming. A dark, purple fingerprint.
"You..." Valerius stared at her. "You hurt me?"
He was a Gold-rank. His skin was blessed. Iron-rank attacks should bounce off him.
Miriam stood up. She dropped the silver box. It clattered to the floor, fused shut.
She rolled her shoulders. The burn on her deltoid was gone. Not just healed—erased. The skin was new, pink, and perfect.
She looked at Kael, bleeding on the floor. She looked at Varn, unconscious.
"You broke my employees," Miriam said. "Repairs are expensive, Bishop."
Valerius's shock turned to rage.
"Blasphemy!" he roared. "Die!"
He raised both hands. A storm of light arrows materialized behind him. Hundreds of them.
"Volley!"
The arrows fired. A machine-gun barrage of holy fire.
Miriam didn't run.
She stomped her foot.
Ability: Overgrowth.
She poured the stolen red energy into the stone floor. But stone is dead. It cannot grow.
However, the Sunken Temple was not made of normal stone. It was made of fossilized bone.
Miriam woke the bone up.
GROW.
massive ribs of calcified white bone erupted from the floor in front of her. They twisted and interlocked, forming a grotesque, organic wall.
The light arrows slammed into the bone wall. Explosions rocked the hallway. Chips of bone flew like shrapnel.
But the wall held.
Valerius ceased fire. The dust cleared.
He stared at the wall. It was regenerating. The cracks in the bone were knitting together before his eyes.
"Necromancy?" Valerius hissed.
"Biology," Miriam corrected from behind the wall.
The bone wall split open. Miriam stepped through.
She wasn't holding a weapon. She raised her hands.
"You rely on light, Bishop. Energy. Physics."
She pointed a finger at the nearest Paladin.
"I rely on the fact that you are made of meat."
Spell: Cell Anarchy.
The Paladin froze. He dropped his mace. He began to scream.
Inside his armor, his own skin was revolting. His pores were closing. His sweat glands were firing in reverse. His hair follicles were growing inward.
It wasn't lethal immediately. It was maddening. It was the sensation of being eaten by your own suit.
The Paladin fell to his knees, clawing at his helmet.
"Stop it!" Valerius shouted. He waved his hand, casting a cleansing spell on the Paladin.
Golden light washed over the soldier. The pain stopped.
But in that second of distraction, Miriam moved.
She didn't charge Valerius. She knew she couldn't beat him in a duel. He had too much mana, too much firepower.
She charged the environment.
She ran to the statue of the fish-god. It stood above a pool of stagnant water.
"Water breeds life," Miriam whispered.
She plunged her hands into the black water.
She dumped the rest of her "Red Ether" into the pool.
Bloom.
Microscopic algae in the water absorbed the divine energy. They multiplied. They mutated.
In a nanosecond, the pool exploded.
A massive tentacle of green slime and algae erupted from the water. It wasn't a creature; it was a colony of plants acting as a single muscle.
The slime-tentacle lashed out. It smashed into the two remaining Paladins, gluing them to the wall with a paste that hardened like concrete.
Valerius levitated above the chaos. He looked down at Miriam.
"You are a plague," he said, his voice cold and deadly calm. "I will burn this entire temple to ash to kill you."
He began to gather energy. Real energy. The air grew hot. The water in the pool began to boil.
He was preparing a tactical nuke spell. Sun-Fall.
Miriam looked up. She was panting. She had used a lot of juice.
"Kael!" she shouted. "The box!"
Kael, groggy and battered, looked at the silver box lying on the floor.
"Throw it!"
Kael didn't ask questions. He grabbed the box and hurled it.
He didn't throw it at Valerius. He threw it at the hole in the ceiling—a crack caused by the earlier battle.
"Fetch!" Miriam yelled at the Bishop.
Valerius looked at the box sailing through the air. He felt the energy inside it—the massive, throbbing power of the Saint.
He had a choice.
Kill the girl and let the relic be buried/lost in the rubble.
Or save the relic.
Greed is a powerful motivator. But religious fanaticism is stronger. To Valerius, that box was God.
He broke his casting. He flew up, catching the box in mid-air.
"I have it," he triumphed.
"Now!" Miriam screamed. "Gerry! The pillar!"
Gerry was leaning against a support pillar. It was cracked.
He understood.
With a roar of effort, Gerry slammed his shoulder into the crack.
The pillar gave way.
The ceiling of the corridor—already weakened by the heat and the battle—collapsed.
Tons of rock and mud from the swamp above came crashing down.
Valerius looked up. He clutched the box to his chest and shielded himself with a golden barrier.
The avalanche buried him.
It buried the Paladins. It buried the exit.
Miriam, Kael, Varn, and Gerry were pushed back by the shockwave, tumbling deeper into the darkness of the temple.
The Aftermath
Dust choked the air.
Miriam coughed, waving her hand. She cast a small Purify Air spell—a simple cantrip she had learned in year one. A bubble of clean air formed around them.
"Is he dead?" Gerry asked, limping over.
"No," Miriam said. She slumped against the wall. "You can't kill a Gold-rank with rocks. He will dig himself out. But it will take him hours. Maybe a day."
"We bought time," Kael said. He touched his chest. His ribs were broken. "And we lost the box."
Miriam looked at him. A small, tired smile touched her lips.
"He has the box," Miriam said. "And he has the Saint's Will."
She tapped her own chest.
"But I kept the batteries."
She held up her hand. A faint, red mist swirled around her fingers.
"I drained about twenty percent of the raw power. The box is still powerful, but it's... unstable now. If he tries to use it for a ritual, it might fizzle. Or explode."
Kael laughed. It was a painful, wheezing sound.
"You really are wicked."
He looked at Varn. The mage was stirring.
"We need to move," Kael said. "Deeper. There has to be another exit. These temples always have a water-gate."
Miriam nodded. She stood up.
She felt... different.
The "Iron" ceiling that had held her down for her entire life was gone.
She wasn't Steel rank yet. She was something else. Her mana capacity hadn't just increased; the quality of her mana had changed.
It was denser. It felt alive.
She looked at the wound on Kael's chest.
"Let me see," she said.
She placed her hand on his armor.
Diagnosis.
Before, she would have felt his pain. She would have had to grit her teeth and share the burden.
Now?
She felt the break. She felt the inflammation.
But the Sympathetic Feedback was muted. It was like hearing a scream through a thick glass wall.
She pushed her Ether into him.
Knit.
The bone snapped back into place. The bruise faded.
Kael took a deep breath. His eyes widened.
"That... didn't hurt," he said. "Usually, your healing stings like acid."
"I am refining my technique," Miriam said simply.
She didn't tell him the truth.
The truth was that she wasn't just asking his cells to heal anymore. She was commanding them. She was using the authority of the Saint to bully his biology into submission.
It was faster. It was painless.
And it was terrifyingly arrogant.
"Let's go," Miriam said. "Before the Bishop digs his way out."
The Depths
They walked for an hour. The temple descended deeper into the earth. The air grew colder.
The carvings on the walls changed. They no longer depicted the Saint or the Light. They depicted something else.
Great leviathans. Cities under the sea. And a figure—a woman with no face—holding a needle.
"The Goddess of nature" Varn whispered, looking at the relief. "The Mother of Monsters. The Church calls her a demon."
"Maybe she was just a misunderstood doctor," Miriam muttered.
They reached a massive circular chamber.
In the center was a pool of water. But this water was crystal clear. It glowed with a soft, blue bioluminescence.
And sitting on a throne on the far side of the pool was a skeleton.
It wasn't a human skeleton. It was eight feet tall. It had four arms.
And it was wearing armor made of a strange, iridescent metal.
"The Tomb of the Guardian," Kael said. "This is a dead end."
"No," Miriam said. She walked toward the pool. "Look at the water. There is a current. It flows out."
She pointed. Beneath the surface, a tunnel led away into the dark.
"An underwater exit," Gerry said. "Great. I can't hold my breath for five minutes."
"I can help with that," Miriam said. "I can oxygenate your blood. It will give you fifteen minutes."
"Useful," Kael muttered.
He walked toward the skeleton on the throne.
"Nice armor," he said. "Might be worth something."
He reached out to touch the metal.
"Don't!" Miriam shouted.
Too late.
Kael's finger brushed the iridescent breastplate.
Click.
A mechanism engaged.
The skeleton's eyes didn't glow. It didn't animate.
Instead, the pool of water began to churn.
Bubbles rose to the surface.
Something was coming up.
"It wasn't a guardian," Miriam realized, backing away. "It was a lock."
A massive head broke the surface of the water.
It was smooth, pale, and eyeless. It had a mouth full of needle-teeth. It looked like a giant, albino eel, but with human arms protruding from its sides.
The Progenitor.
It hissed. The sound was like steam escaping a pipe.
"Boss," Gerry said, raising his shield. "That thing is big."
"Miriam," Kael said, drawing a dagger (his backup weapon). "Can you talk to it? Since you're the queen of slime now?"
Miriam looked at the creature.
She felt its Ether.
It was ancient. It was hungry.
And it was sick.
She saw the tumors growing on its side. She saw the rot in its gills.
"It is in pain," Miriam said.
She stepped forward.
"Miriam, get back!" Varn shouted.
Miriam ignored her. She walked to the edge of the pool.
The creature lunged. It stopped inches from her face, sensing something.
It smelled the Saint's Heart inside her.
Miriam raised her hand.
"I can fix you," she whispered.
The creature froze.
Healing wasn't just for humans. And in a world where everything wanted to kill you, sometimes the best weapon wasn't a sword.
It was a favor.
Miriam placed her hand on the monster's wet snout.
"But," she added, her eyes flashing green. "You have to give me a ride."
The creature shuddered as her energy flowed into it. It made a low, purring sound.
Miriam turned to the mercenaries.
"Get on," she said.
Kael looked at the monster. He looked at Miriam.
He shook his head in disbelief.
"Remind me never to piss you off, Doc."
He climbed onto the creature's back.
Miriam climbed on behind the head. She grabbed the dorsal fin.
"Go," she comman
ded.
The Progenitor dove.
They vanished into the blue depths, leaving the Sunken Temple behind.
Above them, muffled by tons of rock and water, the sound of Valerius screaming in rage echoed through the empty halls.
The Healer had escaped. And she had taken the first step toward the throne.
(End of Chapter 4)