Quick Recap-
King Leontius spares James—revoking Duke Goldsen's execution—but claims him for the crown: "He belongs to me."
As Arthur weeps with relief, Sir Ronald Klaus is ordered to extract James from Rudenberg within ten hours.
Trimat, the exiled "Tempest Tyrant," insists on joining despite never entering the unstable Blood Cave—a living, wounded passage through the Hollow.
Ruby and Adam provide Light/Hydro support as the group prepares to descend.
The cave "exhales" upon their arrival, its walls scarred by their earlier escape.
With Ronald's blade drawn and Trimat's storm-forged presence, they step into the darkness—where James sleeps, unaware his fate has shifted."
-Recap Ends
"Let's see what the cave holds," said Sir Ronald Klaus.
And the cave listened.
The forced entrance loomed before them — cracked wide open like a surgical incision carved from escape.
Stone edges melted from Hydro-pressure, glowing faintly under Ruby's Light glyph. Miasma curled outward like breath withheld too long.
Sir Ronald stepped in first.
He didn't need torchlight.
He brought sound.
Arthur followed, heartbeat tight in his throat.
Ruby and Adam kept close, cast engines synchronized. Trimat walked at the rear, cloak brushing fractured sediment.
Behind them, twelve Dentrian knights entered formation. Silent. Ready.
The cave sealed behind them.
And the descent began.
Ruby activated a soft Light glyph, painting golden layers over the broken path ahead.
Adam tuned his Hydro-Volt engine, pushing damp pressure rings outward to clear the ambient fog.
Arthur kept his eyes sharp for echoes of the past — the corridor was familiar, but faintly rewritten since their escape.
Sir Ronald remained quiet.
But his engine wasn't.
He pulsed ultrasonic rings forward — invisible waves that mapped terrain, movement, density.
The cave responded in flickers — contour shadows bouncing back as sonar signatures.
Every breath, every crack, every shifting ripple returned to him like a whispered map.
Then—
Distortion.
From the side fissure, three Blood Worms lunged.
Glassy red hide. Triple-hinged mandibles. Cast venom dripping from their fangs.
No one panicked.
Ronald didn't draw a weapon.
He inhaled.
And then cast—
A supersonic pulse.
Fast. Focused. Silent.
It tore through the nearest worm, rupturing its central vein. The second curved toward Arthur, spinning mid-air — Ronald fired a directional echo that curved around Ruby's glyph shield and slammed into the worm's core.
It collapsed.
The third went low, crawling under a knight's boot.
Ronald didn't look.
He snapped his fingers.
The frequency spike shredded its spine from beneath.
Arthur blinked.
Ruby whispered, "He didn't even flinch."
Adam murmured, "This isn't fighting. This is permission."
Trimat said nothing.
But his eyes lingered on Ronald longer than they ever had.
The group pressed on.
Then the spiders descended.
Eight-legged, bone-white, cast-warped glyph scars. Some bore corrupted sound mimic glyphs, attempting to distort Ronald's sonar mapping.
Wrong move.
Ronald recalibrated.
Cast a compound echo.
The cave rippled — not from explosion, but from synchronized collapse. Two spiders scuttled, froze mid-motion, then disintegrated before impact.
A third lunged toward Ruby.
Ronald raised one hand.
Let the sound turn inward.
The spider curled inward — and didn't unspool.
Its body imploded in silence.
Arthur exhaled.
"You're turning sound into structure."
Ronald replied, "The cave provides. I ask."
Centipedes arrived next.
Long. Venom-tipped. Sheath-coated in overlapping cast fiber.
Ronald cast an echo beneath their movement.
The resonance pulse wrapped around them.
They paused.
Turned.
And slid back into the shadows.
No one cheered.
No one spoke.
The cave didn't allow celebration.
Only movement.
And memory.
Minutes later, the group reached a widening chamber.
The Hollow.
Arthur's feet slowed.
Ruby dimmed her glyph — instinctively respectful.
Adam didn't speak.
Trimat stepped past them all.
Then paused.
Ronald's sonic scan returned fragments.
Pressure echoes.
Residual scream waves.
As if the cave had kept the voices.
And then they saw it.
The Vispen's corpse.
Scattered.
Shattered.
Black scales gleamed like broken obsidian.
Four eyes.
Two ruptured.
Two wide — frozen mid-scream.
Chest caved inward.
Tail severed.
Limbs strewn across the basin like rejected theories.
Arthur gasped.
Ruby flinched.
Adam blinked.
Ronald stepped forward and cast a pulse.
The sound returned silence.
But not emptiness.
Only reverence.
"So… that monstrosity…" Arthur whispered. "Bexam did this?"
Ronald knelt beside a fractured claw.
"These aren't wounds," he said.
"They're instructions."
Ruby furrowed her brow. "He mapped the destruction?"
Adam shook his head. "This isn't combat. This is dissection."
Trimat stepped toward the eye sockets.
"They weren't fighting to win."
"They were trying to decide who deserved to remain remembered."
Arthur said nothing.
He stared at the scale fragment nearest his boot.
The group pressed past the Hollow, deeper into the cave's next layer. Fog shifted. The temperature dipped. Echo feedback slowed.
And then, Ronald spoke.
"I've seen James's file," he said.
Arthur turned.
"I read the lab pulses. Abyssal Ice. 0% potency. Memory disruption. Cast field fracture."
Arthur nodded.
Ronald asked, "So why do you go this far? Why save a boy who could erase your entire city if his engine flickered?"
Arthur slowed his pace.
"He didn't ask for power."
"He begged for purpose."
Ronald kept watching him.
Arthur continued.
"And when fate answered with a curse… he broke."
"He thought he'd be a hero. A knight. A protector."
"But the Archive froze."
"And he shattered."
"Lost. Alone."
"In that state, people didn't console him."
"They… abandoned him."
Arthur's voice cracked.
"They branded him. Laughed. Rejected."
"Even his rage isn't toward them."
"It's toward the decision. The destiny that chose this path."
"He's angry at the universe. At whatever decided he'd be a plague bearer instead of a savior."
Ronald didn't reply.
But his next echo cast moved slower.
More deliberate.
"He's not evil," Arthur added quietly.
"He's… beautiful."
"A soul shaped like frost, yes — but his warmth leaks through the cracks."
"And I would walk through fire. Blood. Ice. Miasma. Monster-spawn and death decrees…"
"…if it meant giving him one more breath."
Ronald turned back toward the cave.
Said nothing.
But something flickered behind his eyes.
And that was enough.
Minutes later, Arthur found Trimat standing alone at the edge of a pressure fracture wall. He stared at a ripple in the stone — one too faint for the rest to notice.
Arthur stepped forward.
"Sire."
Trimat didn't turn.
"I wanted to thank you."
"For your voice."
"For your courage."
"For giving my boy the time fate refused."
Trimat blinked.
Arthur added, "I swear I'll repay you."
"Whatever it costs."
Trimat smiled faintly.
"No need."
Arthur paused.
"But you stood against history."
"You saved him."
"You gave me everything."
Trimat's voice was calm.
"I didn't do it for you."
Arthur's heart stung.
"Then… for him?"
Trimat walked forward.
"No."
Arthur blinked.
"Why, then?"
Trimat said softly—
"It's not important."
Arthur didn't ask again.
The cave didn't echo that line.
It buried it.
The team moved forward.
Past the Hollow.
Past the corpse.
Past the places history tried to forget.
And somewhere ahead — beneath stone and silence and buried light —
James Rubenblood waited.
The cave's pressure shifted.
Layered fog pulsed slower now, but the crawl through sediment veins was costing them minutes — and every breath weighed heavier with time. Arthur checked his caster. Ruby's light was still stable. Adam snapped open his wrist glyph and muttered, "If we keep this pace, we won't make it."
Ronald didn't respond.
He kept walking.
Arthur looked back. "How much longer?"
Adam groaned. "We're five hours in. We can do it in ten… barely."
The knights pressed forward in formation, boots coated in frost-sludge and cast residue.
Then Adam stopped.
"There's a faster way."
Ronald turned.
Slightly.
Adam held up both hands, pulsing Hydro volt strands between his fingers. The currents snaked gently across the walls and pooled into a spiraling rhythm.
"If Ruby encases everyone in a Light sphere, I can channel my Hydrovolt engine beneath it — shape a current that surges forward."
Arthur blinked. "What, like the pulse ferry we did earlier?"
"Exactly," Adam said. "Under Light shielding, we ride the water across the cast lines. We'll triple our pace."
Ronald's jaw clenched.
"Dangerous. One misalignment and we fragment the entire squad."
Arthur stepped beside Adam. "He can do it."
Ronald exhaled.
"No."
Then Trimat spoke.
His voice wasn't loud.
But it broke the stalemate.
"It's a good idea," Trimat said.
Ronald froze.
Arthur and Ruby turned.
Even Adam looked surprised.
Ronald didn't reply.
But everyone saw it — that flicker in his chest. His hesitation. And what it meant.
Because Ronald Klaus might question anyone.
But he'd never question Trimat D. Dentrius.
"Form the sphere," Ronald said.
Adam nodded.
Ruby raised both palms, casting a Light shell large enough to wrap the knights, Arthur, and Trimat.
Adam sank into a crouch. His Hydrovolt engine surged, water shaping into a pulse stream beneath the sphere. The current rippled — alive, controlled.
Ronald stepped inside last.
"Once we move, I won't be able to map echoes."
Trimat replied, "Then listen differently."
The stream activated.
The sphere surged.
And they moved.
At 6:03 AM, the team sped through the cave's lower arteries like a cast-bound comet.
The walls zipped by in glistening mist. Arthur clung to Ruby's shoulder.
The knights braced in formation. Trimat stood calmly at the sphere's rear, hands tucked, watching the current carve time.
They reached the Bexam's Hollow Experimental Zone by 6:40.
Ruby dimmed the sphere and Adam slowed the current to a crawl.
The space opened wide — larger than memory allowed.
But there was no scream.
No hum.
No presence.
Bexam was gone.
Arthur's breath tightened.
Ruby stepped forward, palms glowing faintly. "He was here…"
Adam stared into the cracked stone bed. "This is where we first saw him. This lair."
Ronald scanned the zone. "Echo feedback… empty."
Trimat stepped into the center.
There was no blood.
No claws.
Only a split in the cave wall — jagged. Not from violence.
From exit.
"He left," Trimat said.
Arthur turned. "You mean escaped?"
"No," Trimat said softly. "Freed."
He pointed toward the breach.
"By defeating Vispen, the cave no longer held him."
"And if what you told me about him is true…"
His voice chilled.
"The outside world is in danger."
Ronald's lips pressed together.
Arthur glanced at Ruby.
Adam murmured, "We did this…"
Trimat continued walking.
"Let's hope he finds silence."
"And not kingdoms."
The squad pushed forward.
Adam reignited his current stream, Ruby cast again, and they surged ahead. Swamp fog thickened at the tunnel's next curve — pressure readings spiked. Adam winced.
"We're hitting a pulse knot."
Ronald nodded.
"Brace."
They breached the swamp layer at 8:00 AM.
It smelled of decay and soundless wet death.
Echo fields crackled. Ruby's shield trembled. Adam slowed the current to buffer against impact.
Then—
Swamp Monsters.
Six.
Bulbous heads. Glyphs embedded in their shoulders. Veins pumping acidic cast fluid. Eyes stitched from bone.
They lunged.
Ronald stepped out.
Cast supersonic burst.
Two heads exploded.
Three knights activated pulse spears — spearing through the monster limbs. Arthur cast a defensive wall — barely held.
Then—
A roar.
A snake.
Not normal.
Not myth.
A beast.
Seventy feet long.
Scales lined with warped glyph memory. Eyes pulsing with dormant hatred. Its jaw split in four hinges. Its body curved toward Trimat's side of the sphere.
Knights shouted.
Ronald cast a barrier echo.
The snake pushed through.
It reared back—
Ready to strike.
Then Trimat raised one hand.
Just one.
No cast circle.
No glyph sigil.
Just wind.
He flicked his fingers.
The cave screamed.
The wind didn't just surge — it zigzagged.
Split.
Twisted in chaotic geometry, slicing through the air like thunder dragged through broken mirrors.
The arc collided with the snake's head.
The body didn't explode.
It unraveled.
Limbs collapsed.
Spine cracked.
Tail twitched once.
Then nothing.
Everyone stared.
Ronald's lips parted.
Ruby whispered, "That was…"
Adam said, "A flick."
Arthur watched the fragments settle.
Trimat lowered his hand.
Did not speak.
Kept walking.
By 10:04 AM, they reached the final fog basin — the place with thin current walls and violet cast lines.
Adam adjusted his engine settings.
"We're nearing the pond."
The trio braced.
Arthur said, "This is where Vispen lived."
Ruby added, "The beginning of the nightmare."
They reached the pond edge at 10:18.
A large, shimmering pool sat dead center — black-tinted water swirling faintly.
Ronald stepped forward.
"This pond is unnatural."
His echo pulse returned no feedback.
Like the water swallowed memory.
"Needs studying," he said.
Trimat replied, "It holds answers."
Arthur turned. "Later. Right now…"
Ronald nodded.
"Right now, we finish the mission."
Adam pushed the stream once more.
At 11:20 AM, the pressure warped — a sign of the cave's final turn.
Light pierced from above.
The tunnel began to rise.
The fog lifted.
Stone cracked.
And at 11:31 AM—
They saw it.
The Outcast Gate of Rudenberg.
Carved into the cliff's base like a forgotten promise.
Shields flickered.
Guards patrolled above.
Rust etched the glyph sigils.
Ronald stepped forward.
Scanned once.
Then turned to the group.
His voice cut the air.
"Let's get that boy."
"When Waters Race,
Snakes Learn Fear"
END OF CHAPTER-17
-To Be Continued-