Chapter 133: Take It

Chapter 134: Take It

Lothe placed his right boot onto the first step of the descending staircase, Nyren and Adrian following closely behind.

The moment his heel brushed against the second step—

THUMP.

The entire stone staircase trembled violently, forcing Lothe to halt mid-stride. His brows pulled into a hard line.

"What are you planning now?" he muttered. He wasn’t addressing anyone in particular, but Adrian and Nyren instantly caught the underlying tension in his voice.

Suddenly, the ancient golden runes carved into the stairwell walls ignited.

One rune. Two. Three.

Then all five began to glow with a blinding, cohesive light.

HUMMMMM—!

A heavy, suffocating wave of spatial fluctuation swept across the stone steps.

Adrian instinctively summoned a dozen floating metal blades from his Soul Manor, his eyes scanning the shifting shadows. "What’s happening this time?"

Lothe stared ahead, his expression unreadable. "I don’t know."

His gaze sharpened as he activated [Qi Sight]. The world dissolved into translucent energy currents.

The staircase wasn’t merely glowing—its fundamental spatial architecture was warping.

The surrounding coordinates twisted inward, folding over themselves like layers of fine, transparent fabric.

Lothe’s expression turned grim. "The palace is rearranging the route."

Nyren’s crystal sword materialized in her hand, ready for any sudden strike. "Again?"

Lothe shook his head. "No."

His eyes tracked the violently shifting spatial grid. "This time... it’s not adapting to us."

BOOM!

The staircase suddenly stretched into infinity, and a flash of blinding golden light swallowed all three of them whole.

[Meanwhile, in Sector Three...]

Seana, Asher, the three Argon sisters, and Jules stood locked in a tense standoff against the six executioners when—

BOOM!

A violent tremor shook the basalt chamber from floor to ceiling.

Everyone instinctively looked upward. The ancient walls pulsed with an intense crimson glow, and instantly, the six executioners dissolved into thick clouds of gray smoke that drifted away into the unseen vents.

Ambiel tightened her grip around her leather whip, her guard still raised. "Another sector shift?"

Arvessa glanced toward the massive arched entrance at the far end of the chamber. "Something feels entirely different."

Asher’s fingers tightened around the hilt of Myriad Forge. But a fraction of a second later, his brows pulled together. He felt his sword vibrating violently against his palm.

What is it? he murmured internally, confused by the sudden kinetic rebellion of his Soul Weapon.

The vibration didn’t stop; it escalated into a chaotic, erratic rhythm.

"What’s wrong with your blade?" Jules frowned, casting a suspicious glance at Asher’s trembling arm.

"I don’t know," Asher replied, his eyes darting across the vast chamber as Myriad Forge began humming at a deafening, high-pitched frequency.

The oscillation became so intense that Asher’s grip was violently thrown off.

Clang!

The sword tore free from his hand, vibrating fiercely as it hovered entirely on its own in mid-air. Everyone froze, staring at the suspended weapon.

Asher stared at his sword, his spiritual sense instantly connecting to the blade. Through their soul bond, he knew Myriad Forge wasn’t trembling from fear or structural instability.

It’s reacting to something nearby.

Asher’s eyes scanned the perimeter with absolute vigilance. "There’s an anomaly here."

"Like what?" Jules sneered.

Before Asher could answer—

BOOM!

A section of the massive palace wall crumbled outward. Asher and the others threw their arms up to shield their eyes from the billowing dust.

When the smoke finally settled, a colossal circular chamber was revealed.

And suspended at its absolute center was a strange, impossible object: a crystalline sphere.

Roughly the size of a human head, it floated silently above an ancient basalt platform, connected to the surrounding palace walls by thousands of razor-thin golden threads that pulsed rhythmically with light.

Thump... Thump... Thump...

Jules stared at the sphere. For reasons he couldn’t comprehend, his heart began hammering wildly against his ribs.

He didn’t understand the sudden sensation, but every instinct in his body screamed that this object held unimaginable power. No—he didn’t just want it.

He needed it. Right now.

Jules’s hands clenched into tight fists. "What in the world is that?" Asher muttered, his eyes narrowed.

"Probably another automated mechanism," Ambiel said, stepping forward cautiously, her wind whip coiling loosely around her forearm.

"We shouldn’t touch it until we understand its mechanics," Asher warned.

"Ha!" Jules scoffed harshly. "I’m not an idiot, Blackwood."

Yet, his eyes never left the floating sphere. Greed—dark, suffocating, and absolute—flooded his pupils.

[Sector Four — The Core...]

The golden light flashed, then rapidly receded.

Lothe’s boots touched solid stone. He immediately raised his head, and his expression hardened into stone.

Adrian and Nyren materialized beside him. Neither spoke; their wide eyes said everything.

They were standing inside a staggering, cathedral-sized circular chamber. Unlike the previous sectors, this room contained no doors, no automated traps, and no guardians.

Instead, the entire floor was covered in complex, glowing ancient formations. Massive energy channels ran beneath the translucent crystal flooring, all converging toward a single focal point in the center.

With his [Qi Sight] still active, Lothe tracked the countless streams of energy pouring into the room.

...So this is the Core.

Suspended at the exact center of the chamber was a massive, terrifying structure. It resembled a colossal, beating silver-black heart.

Thousands of ethereal energy strands fed into it from every direction—the residual power of defeated guardians, the refined elemental Qi of the sectors, and faint, distant sparks of human superpowers inside the palace.

All of it was being funneled directly into this central monstrosity.

"What the hell is that?" Adrian’s mouth hung open, his gaze fixed on the gargantuan floating heart.

Lothe didn’t answer. His eyes flickered rapidly as his mind disassembled the data in real-time.

The energy is being categorized... then separated... compressed... and finally redistributed.

Lothe’s breath caught. His expression turned ice-cold. "This is the palace’s central processing and distribution hub."

"You’re certain?" Nyren asked, her voice tight.

"Almost."

"Your analysis is entirely correct."

A familiar voice cut through the cavernous silence.

Lothe’s eyes snapped toward the sound. A figure stepped smoothly out from behind one of the massive support pillars.

A pair of strange, circular blades hung at his waist—each slightly smaller than a human palm, their edges lined with razor-thin metallic teeth, while faint Qi circulated through grooved runes along their surface.

Lucan.

"It’s been a while," Lucan said with a faint, polite smile.

Of course, they had briefly crossed paths before entering the palace gates, but Lucan had no way of knowing this was the same "scholar" hiding behind a talisman earlier.

"It has indeed," Lothe replied smoothly.

"And it seems we have company."

Another figure stepped out from the shadows behind Lucan—an older man draped in dignified scholarly robes. His expression was composed, though his eyes burned with intense, unblinking intellectual curiosity.

"Professor Sy," Nyren breathed out, a wave of relief washing over her at the sight of a surviving authority figure.

"You triggered the Core?" Lothe skipped all pleasantries, cutting straight to the point. He didn’t know them well enough to waste time on small talk.

Lucan’s smile faded instantly. "No."

Lothe’s eyes narrowed. "You didn’t?"

Professor Sy shook his head, his expression grim. "We arrived here before the recent spatial pulse. But when we got here... the Core was completely dormant."

Lothe’s gaze flicked back toward the massive silver-black heart. "And then?"

"It woke up on its own," Professor Sy answered solemnly.

THUMP.

The entire chamber shuddered in unison.

Adrian’s jaw tightened, and Nyren’s hand instinctively drifted back to her sword hilt.

Lothe continued staring at the Core. Something fundamental had shifted. The volume of energy flowing through the subterranean veins was increasing—slowly, steadily, and relentlessly.

It felt as though something at the absolute bottom of the ruins had just taken its first breath.

"If you didn’t trigger it," Lothe murmured, "then something else woke it up."

Professor Sy nodded slowly. "We believe so."

"We?"

Lucan gestured toward the colossal structure. "We’ve been trying to figure out what."

Before Lothe could respond—

THUMP!

A violent pulse erupted from the Core, sending a shockwave through every wall and conduit in the entire Ancient Palace.

[Back in Sector Three...]

Jules suddenly staggered, clutching his chest with a sharp gasp. "What the...?"

For a fraction of a second, a violent surge of foreign energy tore through his meridians. His Spiritual Qi violently erupted outward.

BOOOOM!

A web of blinding silver lightning detonated around him, startling the others into stepping back.

Jules stared down at his own trembling hands. "What the hell just happened?"

Faint, oily black strands flickered amidst the silver lightning. They lingered for barely a heartbeat before vanishing entirely.

Jules blinked rapidly. "Did you guys see that?"

Arvessa shook her head, her hand resting on her hilt. "See what?"

Jules looked at his palms. Nothing seemed visibly wrong. His lightning was still silver.

But it felt different. Heavier. Colder. Infinitely more destructive.

A twisted, ambitious smile slowly crept across his lips. Interesting...

Above the ancient platform, the crystalline sphere suddenly pulsed with blinding light.

Jules’s eyes locked onto it instantly. His heartbeat accelerated into a frantic drumbeat.

Take it.