NOVEL NEXT Chapter 115: The Claimants
Dawn broke gently across the Groshla Sanctum, casting pale blue light over broken towers and scorched parapets. The air smelled of wet stone and fading embers. For the first time in what felt like ages, the land wasn't cloaked in tension, but something softer, steadier. Something like peace.
Ethan stood on the highest terrace, his arms folded as he looked over the Sanctum. What had once been a proud bastion of the Dragonkin now resembled a humbled ruin with flickering torches and fresh banners bearing no symbol yet. The banners were placeholders, cloth dyed in violet to reflect the Rune Stone's color, and the growing whispers of a new dominion.
Below, the morning buzz had already begun. Members of the scouting group were organizing supplies, repurposing what they could from the armory. Dragonkin inhabitants—now unarmed and docile—watched quietly from their barracks, still dazed by the events of the day prior.
"They haven't fled," Kaeryx noted, his spectral form draped across a collapsed watchtower beside Ethan.
"No. With your superior bloodline they're always bound to submit to you," Ethan replied.
"Then use that. A people lost are a people waiting to be led."
Ethan nodded slowly. Kaeryx was right. The Dragonkin weren't rebels; they were disarmed fanatics in need of a purpose. And with no Warlord left to guide them, they now looked to Ethan—by extension, Kaeryx—for that.
"We can't run a Sanctum with just twenty people," Ethan said.
Kaeryx's laughter was a whisper of wind. "Then make them yours."
Later that day, Ethan stood before the gathered Dragonkin. Over a hundred of them had emerged from their chambers and tunnels, kneeling in a wide semi-circle around the Rune Stone courtyard. They bore no weapons. Their horns and tails twitched slightly, as though responding to Kaeryx's invisible presence.
Ethan stood on the platform where the Warlord once barked commands. Now, he looked down at them, calm and composed.
"I do not ask for loyalty," he began. "I ask for understanding. The Rune Stone has recognized me. Your guardian spirit has fallen. You know what that means."
Silence.
He took a step forward. "But I have no wish to crush you. You are part of this Sanctum. I want to build it up, not bury it. I offer you this: stand with me. Help me restore this place. In time, it will be more than a ruin. It will be a home again."
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Then, one of the elder Dragonkin stepped forward, bowing his horned head low.
"You bear the mark. And he... he is our god returned. If he speaks through you, then we shall listen."
One by one, the others followed, lowering their heads. Not out of defeat. Out of reverence.
Ethan exhaled slowly. It had worked.
Over the next few days, work began in earnest. Ethan divided his team: scouts became interim commanders, organizing small groups of Dragonkin to begin clearing rubble, reinforcing walls, and repairing internal chambers. Storage vaults were inventoried. Dormitories cleaned. The kitchen fire pits rekindled.
David took over logistics, handling trade and inventory. Nelda, surprisingly effective, trained willing Dragonkin to follow their scouting team's discipline. She didn't hold back, treating them like any recruit, barking orders until the stone shook.
Kaeryx rarely showed himself, but his aura lingered throughout the Sanctum like a divine warning. No creature dared rebel in his presence.
But Ethan knew something was missing.
They had the Sanctum. They had the people. But they had no name. No identity.
So, one night, he summoned the inner circle—David, Nelda, and a few others—to the central tower.
"We can't keep calling ourselves a scouting group," he said, spreading a makeshift map over the table. "This is going to grow. And fast. Other forces will come for us. We need to solidify."
Nelda leaned over the table. "An official name?"
Ethan nodded. "Something the world will remember. Something that represents what we are."
David chuckled. "The Sanctum Breakers?"
"No," Ethan said, smiling faintly. "We're not just breaking them. We're claiming them. Protecting the ones who can't. Rising from nothing."
"Then call it that," said Nelda. "The Claimed."
Everyone paused.
David tilted his head. "The Claimed..."
Ethan considered it. "No. The Claimants."
Nelda grinned. "I like that better."
That night, the Claimants were born.
The next morning, the Dragonkin banners changed. Still violet, but now painted with a silver symbol: a rising flame curled around a rune.
A message.
They weren't a band of survivors anymore.
They were conquerors of destiny.
It was dawn in the Great Labyrinth, though the sky above the Dragonkin Sanctum remained hidden behind jagged spires of obsidian rock and a thick web of ethereal clouds. But within the walls of the conquered sanctum, light poured in—not from the heavens, but from hundreds of glowing mana lanterns now lit in honor of their new ruler.
The air buzzed with a strange mix of awe and tension.
Dragonkin guards, once towering sentinels of pride, now knelt in silent rows before the great central courtyard, their reptilian heads bowed not out of fear—but reverence. Many of them had watched Kaeryx float above with wings spread and eyes glowing like miniature suns. The presence of the draconic soul beast had shaken something ancient in their blood. Even their warlord, an elder drake with scales like tarnished bronze, had thrown down his weapon and pledged fealty without so much as a demand.
Ethan stood before them now—not on a throne, but a carved platform where once the warlord had stood. His clothes were still dusted with blood from the battle—though hardly a battle at all. He hadn't yet changed, nor washed the sweat from his brow. It gave him a rugged edge, the kind that made his words heavier when he spoke.
"I am not your god," he told the Dragonkin firmly. "Kaeryx is not here to rule you. You may keep your ways, your beliefs… but understand this—your Sanctum now stands as part of something greater. A coalition not of conquest, but of purpose."
He looked across both his own group and the Dragonkin, his voice steady and low.
"This world does not reward the weak. But together—by claiming the labyrinth's heart—we will build something stronger than any beast, any empire, or any fate placed upon us. We are the Claimants. You are now a part of that."
Silence hung in the air. Then, a slow thrum—Dragonkin fists striking breastplates, then palms slapping scaled chests. A sound of acceptance. Not triumph. A resonance of submission and acknowledgment.
Kaeryx perched atop one of the central spires, wings folded, eyes ever-watchful. It didn't need to speak. Its mere presence ensured no disloyalty dared to fester.
---
Later that Day
Ethan met with David, Nelda, the slime (now affectionately nicknamed "Gleem" by the scouts), and several representatives of the Dragonkin around a wide stone table carved directly into the sanctum's heart.
David unrolled a freshly updated parchment—a new map, hand-drawn with their known surroundings, dangerous zones, and potential sanctum territories.
"We've established scouts in a twenty-mile radius," David reported. "Still mapping the terrain, but there are strange readings to the northeast—probably another Sanctum, though we're not sure if it's abandoned or occupied."
Ethan leaned over the map, tapping a rune-marked segment of stone. "What about here? That mana flux."
"A ruined temple. Dragonkin call it 'The Whispering Stone.' A relic that predates their Sanctum."
"They say it talks," Nelda added, her voice thick with skepticism. "Only during the blood moon. Next one's in two days."
Ethan frowned, interested. The Labyrinth was ancient, yes—but its secrets ran deeper than its sanctums. The Whispering Stone could be a key, or a trap. Either way, it needed exploring.
"We'll send a team to investigate," Ethan said. "If it's a relic site, I want to see it myself."
One of the younger Dragonkin, a scout named Kaelor, stepped forward. "I will guide you there, Claimant. My clutch once guarded that place."
Ethan studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Prepare a team. Small. Quiet. We move before nightfall tomorrow."
---
That Evening
While plans were made, Ethan took a quiet walk through the inner gardens of the Sanctum—newly lit with glowing blue moss and steaming pools warmed by volcanic veins below. Kaeryx moved beside him, silent as always.
Though Kaeryx couldn't hear the system like Ethan could, it could feel the shifts in his soul—the tension, the drive, the shadow of ambition mixed with burden.
"You're quiet," Ethan said aloud, glancing at Kaeryx.
The dragon-like soul beast narrowed its glowing eyes, then turned away.
"You sense something too, don't you?" Ethan murmured. "This place... it's just the beginning."
Kaeryx didn't respond, but Ethan understood. The Dragonkin's submission had been easy. Too easy. And that could only mean one thing.
Greater threats lay ahead.
Elsewhere in the Labyrinth...
Far across the twisting stone expanse, deeper into the forbidden zones of the Labyrinth, a Sanctum unlike any other stirred. A sanctum of shifting shadows and cold logic, where glass and memory intertwined.