Chapter 299
At first, I think the orb is just reacting to my presence again. It flares to life the moment my fingers graze its surface, casting its soft, ethereal glow across the vast, statue-lined chamber. But then the light sharpens. Splinters. Sparks.
Tiny pinpricks flicker to life all over the walls, ceilings, and even the floor—thousands of them, scattered like sand. No… not sand. Stars.
A thousand tiny stars, lighting up one by one in sequence like some hidden constellation was waiting for a cue.
They’re not just glowing. They’re moving.
I turn slowly, the orb pulsing warm in my palm. As the light catches, I realize what's happening—the walls are laced with Darklite. Threaded into the stone in patterns that were invisible before. Now, under the orb’s influence, it’s like the entire room has come alive. Stars shimmer and slide across the surface like they’re dancing—no, darting—racing around us like comets caught in an orbit.
Axel breathes out low beside me, the awe in his voice obvious. “What in the deep…”
The swirl of stars forms spirals around the chamber. Not random ones. Intentional.
I follow the motion with my eyes, heart hammering. The spirals aren’t symmetrical. They’re coiled, layered, winding tighter and tighter until—
A shape.
A form.
Leviathan.
He’s everywhere. The massive swirls are his body, his tail wrapping through the stone, his fins flaring across the ceiling. His eyes—dark pits filled with burning silver—stare down from above, and at the far end of the room, his mouth opens wide.
At first glance, he looks like he’s devouring the sun.
Then I realize—
It’s not a sun.
It’s an eclipse.
A perfect black disc of shadow surrounded by blazing gold light. And around it, the darting stars take on new shapes—no longer twinkling formlessly, but burning trails of meteorites flung across the skies.
An eclipse and a meteor shower.
At the same time.
Axel inhales sharply. “I’ve heard of this.”
I glance over. “What do you mean?”
He steps forward, running a hand through his hair. “It’s a story—an old one. Our people used to say that when an eclipse and a meteor shower happened on the same day, it was a sign the world was ending. We called it the Night of Reckoning. Thought it was superstition.”
I stare at the display, my breath catching.
At World’s End.
The words aren’t just metaphor anymore. They’re coordinates. A cosmic alignment.
My grip tightens around the orb. A hum builds inside it, answering the charge in my blood, the breathless realization burning in my chest. I pour more power into it—just a trickle at first, then more.
The orb flares, brighter and brighter, until the whole room begins to pulse with it. Each embedded strand of Darklite responds, sparking to life, feeding off the surge of energy.
The eclipse in Leviathan’s mouth shifts.
It breaks.
No, not just breaks—releases.
A wave of energy rolls out from the sun’s core, a cascade of golden light. It pours down into Leviathan’s open maw, igniting his massive body from within. His scales flare in breathtaking, terrible patterns—iridescent waves of color ripple through him like a living prism.
It’s beautiful.
It’s awful.
He’s burning with it.
But then the power shifts again.
It moves.
Out of him.
Into the gods.
Figures of the Conclave rise around the room, each one etched into the swirling bands. At first they’re dim, lost in Leviathan’s glow—but now they begin to blaze as the light from him drains into their outstretched hands.
Leviathan’s glow dims.
Theirs intensifies.
His color fades to gray.
They shine like stars.
He becomes a shadow.
They become gods. And all it took was…
My heart stutters in my chest.
I whisper, voice barely a breath.
“He lied…”
Axel looks at me sharply. “What?”
I meet his eyes, the weight of it all crashing down on me like a tidal wave.
“Shoal,” I say, barely able to get the words out. “He said he was going to use the Darklite to supercharge Leviathan, to wake him up and release him. He’s a fucking liar.”
I turn back to the mural, to the truth written across the stars and stone.
“This is showing how the Conclave became gods—they needed a way to weaken Leviathan, and they used Darklite to do it.”
The orb dims in my hand, the room settling around us like it’s exhaled a final truth.
“He’s not trying to become Leviathan’s ally or his master,” I say, my voice breaking.
Axel stares at the glowing walls, his expression unreadable. “He wants to be a god in his own right. But how could he think he’d be able to get away with that? It took seven of the most powerful Enkians to ever exist to pull this off. It would be impossible to do on his own.”
“Not with the tech Lily built,” I whisper. “Not with control over the Elder Kin, over Enkian bloodlines. If Shoal can connect himself to the same network—”
“Then he can siphon it,” Axel finishes, horror dawning in his voice. “He could, in theory, take the entire Conclave’s power for himself.”
I nod slowly. “He’s recreating the same betrayal. The same trap. And if he succeeds…”
“We’ll be begging Leviathan to swallow the world whole,” Axel mutters.
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