NOVEL NEXT Chapter 125: The Cradle
The mist that clung to the valley floor was cold and ancient, coiling around my boots like a living thing. It muffled all sound, creating a profound, unnerving silence broken only by the whisper of the wind over the high ridges and the steady, quiet beat of my own heart. The air tasted of wet stone, cold dust, and something else, a faint, metallic tang like old blood or ozone. I descended from the ridge, a ghost moving through a world of grey, my Gaze a constant, sweeping pulse, probing the fog for any hint of a threat. The closer I got, the more the sheer, impossible scale of the ruins resolved itself.
This was no mere fortress or temple. The Kyorians built with a severe, geometric logic, their structures monuments to order. Human architecture, even at its grandest, was bound by the familiar laws of physics. This… this was different. The archways that loomed out of the mist were too vast, too graceful, carved from a single, seamless piece of black, vitrified stone that seemed to drink the light. They didn't support weight; they commanded it, bending space in a way that felt more like a product of will than engineering. I ran a hand over the cold, impossibly smooth surface. There were no tool marks, no seams. It was as if the rock had been sung into existence.
I passed beneath the first great arch, stepping out of the wind and into the city proper. It was a place of silent, shattered grandeur. The causeway under my feet was paved with hexagonal basalt stones, each one fitted together with a precision that would make a Dweorg weep. Crumbling towers, like the petrified ribs of some colossal, long-dead leviathan, clawed at the misty sky. I felt like an ant walking through the graveyard of giants. And everywhere, on every surface that was still standing, was art.
The first carving I saw was simple, an abstract swirl of lines etched into a fallen pillar, depicting a bird of fire rising from a circle of ash. As I moved deeper into the ruins, the depictions grew more complex, more breathtaking. A vast, bas-relief mural covered the entire side of a building that was still miraculously intact. It showed a phoenix, its wingspan as wide as a mountain range, breathing a torrent of golden fire not onto an enemy, but onto a barren, cracked landscape. And where its fire touched, life bloomed. Trees sprouted, rivers flowed, and tiny, humanoid figures knelt, their arms raised not in fear, but in pure, unadulterated reverence. This was not a god of destruction. This was a god of creation.
I moved on, my boots crunching on rubble that had once been a civilization. I passed into what must have been a great plaza. Here, the story continued, etched into the plaza's retaining walls in a series of magnificent panels. One showed the same great phoenix, now a terrifying engine of war, flying alongside warriors in strange, feathered armor. Their enemies were not mortal armies, but monstrous, amorphous beings of pure shadow, creatures of grasping tentacles and too many eyes, eerily reminiscent of the "hunger" Kasian had described. The phoenix was a blazing sun against their darkness, its fire a shield for the warriors who fought bravely under its wings.
Another panel showed a quieter scene. A procession of robed figures, priests or scholars, were offering glowing, crystalline shards to the phoenix, which accepted them gently in its beak. I saw myself, a shadow in this much larger story, my Domain a faint echo of this profound, foundational power. I saw my ancestors, adrift in their pearl Ark, and wondered if they had known of this place, if they had carried these stories with them from a dying Earth. I was not just seeing the history of a forgotten people; I was seeing a lost chapter of my own.
I finally reached the heart of the ruins. Before me stood a gate. It was a single, perfect circle, a hundred feet high, set into the sheer face of the mountain. It was forged from a metal I didn't recognize, a warm, coppery alloy that seemed to glow with a soft, internal light of its own, untouched by the millennia of decay that had claimed the rest of the city. The entire surface was covered in a single, breathtakingly intricate carving of a phoenix, its head at the apex, its wings forming the curve of the gate, and its tail feathers trailing down to the bottom, each feather a masterpiece of artistry. There was no lock, no handle, no seam. It was a solid, impassable wall of art and metal.
I reached out, my fingers hesitant, and touched its surface. The metal was warm, humming with a deep, resonant power. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a pulse of recognition, as gentle as a sigh, flowed from the gate, through my hand, and into the deepest parts of my soul. It wasn't interrogating me or testing me. It was welcoming me. The Ashen Phoenix bloodline in my veins, the fire in my core — it was a key. A low, musical chime, like a thousand tiny bells, echoed through the valley. The intricate lines of the carved phoenix began to glow with a brilliant, golden light, and the two massive halves of the circular gate slid apart, silent and smooth, revealing the darkness within.
I stepped through the threshold, every sense on high alert. My hand rested on the unseen hilt of a summoned blade. The World Quest had warned me of a slumbering Guardian. This was its lair. The gate slid shut behind me, plunging me into a soft, quiet twilight.
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The chamber within was vast, a natural cavern so large the entire city outside could have fit within its confines. The ceiling was a dome of glittering, crystal-laden rock, each crystal glowing with a soft, warm, golden light, like a captive sea of stars. In the center of the chamber, a gentle mound of fine, silvery-white ash rose from the floor, easily thirty feet high. And curled atop this mound, sleeping the deep sleep of ages, was the Guardian.
My breath caught in my throat. I lowered my hand, all thoughts of combat forgotten, my entire being consumed by a sense of pure, reverent awe.
It was a being of impossible, heart-stopping beauty. It was a phoenix bird, yes, but to call it a bird was an insult. It was a living, breathing sculpture of fire and grace. It was larger than any of the beasts I had fought on my journey, its body easily the size of a small house. Its feathers were a cascade of sunset colors — deep ruby, fiery orange, liquid gold — that seemed to shift and flow even in its sleep, as if woven from captive flames. A crest of longer, ethereal feathers, the color of a dawn sky, crowned its noble head. Even in slumber, it radiated a sense of immense, ancient power, but there was no malice in it, no hostility. It was a power as gentle and life-giving as the sun's warm rays.
I stood there for a long time, just watching, a lone mortal in the presence of a living myth. The quest had mentioned a sorrow I was meant to pacify. Was this majestic creature truly grieving?
Slowly, carefully, its head lifted. Two eyes, like twin pools of molten gold, blinked open. They were ancient, filled with a wisdom that had seen the birth and death of stars. They focused on me, a tiny, dark figure in its vast, luminous hall. I braced myself, my Domain a coiled spring, ready to flare to life.
And then the most bizarre thing in my entire life happened.
The ancient, star-fathoming wisdom in its eyes vanished. It was replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated, explosive joy. A sound, a series of chirps and happy little squawks utterly incongruous with its majestic size, echoed in the vast cavern. It wiggled, a full-body shimmy of pure excitement that sent a shower of shimmering golden embers cascading from its wings. Its long, elegant tail feathers began to thump rhythmically against the ash pile. Thump. Thump. Thump. It looked, for all the world, like a colossal, mythological, feathery puppy.
Before I could process this reality-shattering shift in tone, it moved. It didn't fly; it half-hopped, half-bounded off its ash pile with a clumsy, adorable eagerness that was completely at odds with its divine grace, and galloped towards me. This wasn't the charge of a Guardian. This was the deliriously happy reunion of a dog who had just heard its owner's keys in the door.
A telepathic voice, not a boom or a whisper but a warm, joyful thought that felt like sunshine and cinnamon, bloomed in my mind.
"Enki! You're back! You're finally back! Oh, I missed you so, so much, Enki! Did you have a good trip? Did you bring me a moon-cricket? You were gone forever!"
It reached me before I could even take a step back. A massive, feathery head, radiating a gentle warmth that smelled faintly of ash and baking bread, nudged my chest, pushing me back several feet. Then it began to nuzzle against me, a deep, rumbling purr, like an avalanche made of happiness, vibrating through my entire body. I was being lovingly headbutted by a divine being.
My mind, which had been primed for a conceptual battle for the fate of a continent, completely and utterly short-circuited. I stared, wide-eyed, at the giant, molten-gold eye currently trying to affectionately get under my chin.
"I… my name is Eren Kai," I managed to say out loud, the words sounding small and stupid in the vastness of the chamber. I pushed the thought as well. I think you have me mistaken for someone else.
The phoenix completely ignored me, continuing to purr its mountain-sized purr. "Oh, Enki, you always say the silliest things after a long nap. You look different! Did you change your feathers? They're very dark! Very stylish! But it's you! I'd know your song anywhere! It's been so quiet without you! So boring!"
It then attempted to preen one of my arms with its colossal, gently-glowing beak, a gesture so impossibly tender and absurd I was left completely paralyzed. All my training, all my power, all my grim resolve — it all melted away in the face of this… this overwhelming, divine affection.
The World Quests had been completely, utterly wrong. There was no sorrow to pacify. There was no Guardian to lullaby. There was just this… this giant, cosmic, flaming dog that thought I was its long-lost owner.
I stood there, trapped in a headlock of pure, unadulterated love from a living myth, my meticulously laid plans for a grim and perilous quest lying in smoking ruins around me. Every instinct, every piece of data, every expectation had led me to this moment, and the reality of it was so much stranger than I could have ever conceived. My entire worldview had just been knocked sideways by a happy, overgrown firebird.
My mind searched for a single, rational thought, a cohesive plan, anything. But it found only one, echoing in the profound, feathery silence.
Huh?