Chapter 18: Shatterspine Ridge
The mountains of Shatterspine rose like broken teeth from the earth, jagged and cruel, as if the gods themselves had tried to cage something and failed. No trees grew here. No birds dared fly. The wind moaned through the stone, carrying voices that weren't human.
Rayden stood at the base of the ridge, cloak snapping behind him. The path forward wasn't carved—it was torn open, a wound in the world. His boots crunched over dead gravel and bone dust as he advanced, every footstep met with the System's distant hum.
[Location Discovered: Shatterspine Ridge]
Threat Level: Lethal
System Disturbance Detected: 73% Interference
Warning: Visual and auditory hallucinations may occur.
He pressed onward anyway.
By the second hour, the temperature dropped. Not cold—just wrong. The kind of chill that made thoughts slow and shadows twitch. Once, he saw a glimpse of himself ahead—his own figure, walking just a few paces forward.
He drew his sword.
The other Rayden stopped too.
Then vanished into mist.
He kept climbing.
Twice, he passed stone markers—old ones—each carved with the same strange rune: the twisted eye of his own System, etched beside the symbol of the crowned serpent. Two ancient forces. Two ancient enemies.
At the third marker, he found bones.
Not just one body—hundreds. All armored. All dead for centuries, mummified by mountain winds. Many still clutched weapons. Some had their skulls shattered. Others had no wounds at all—as if something had taken their minds, not their flesh.
Rayden crouched beside one and saw a metal badge on its chest.
"Order of the Chainbound."
A System Enforcer guild. Long extinct.
> So they tried to seal this place too… and failed.
As he turned to continue, the wind changed.
A whisper echoed:
> "Turn back…"
It wasn't in his ears—it was in his bones. The System flared with red warning glyphs, and then the shadows ahead moved.
Dozens of figures emerged—shrouded in chainmail, eyeless, soulless. Bound by cursed metal, driven only by the lingering will of an ancient command.
[Enemy Identified: Chainbound Wraiths]
HP: ???
Note: Immune to conventional attacks. Weak to chaos-imbued weapons.
Rayden's blade ignited with the rage of the Berserk System.
He charged.
The first swing passed through one of them—ineffective. The second, laced with Madness Threading, sliced deep, unraveling the wraith like torn fabric. Screeches erupted as they converged, chains rattling, hooks flying.
He spun, activating Echo Veil—and in an instant, time fractured. He vanished from their perception for three seconds, reappearing behind them with a war cry. Two more fell, consumed by the unstable rage of his evolving power.
But they were too many.
He was being dragged back, caught by chains wrapping around his limbs. His mind strained. His vision blurred.
Then the ground beneath him cracked.
A pulse rippled out—a deep, dark resonance from below.
The wraiths froze.
One by one, they turned their heads toward the rift now opening behind Rayden. Not at him—but at it.
The presence that had awoken.
The chains recoiled. The wraiths fled—not in fear of Rayden, but of the thing rising from the deep.
He turned slowly.
A doorway had formed in the mountainside, etched with runes older than the Systems themselves. Black light spilled from its edges. A voice—not human—spoke from within.
> "Bearer of the Berserk Flame… you stand before the Citadel of Origins."
[Quest Update: Path to the Forgotten Citadel – Completed]
New Quest: Descent into the Origin Vault
Objective: Enter the Citadel. Face the Architect.]
Warning: Absolute Point of No Return.
Rayden clenched his fists.
Every part of him screamed that this was suicide.
He stepped forward anyway.