Chapter 20
Beneath the moonless sky, far from the gilded halls of the Sanctum, Elaris moved like a whisper between the jagged rocks of the Wraithmere Expanse. Cloaked in gray and veiled in runes of concealment, she traveled alone—no council guards, no emissaries. Only her thoughts, sharp and restless.
She had cast her vote to delay action against the Void Domain—but it was not indecision that drove her. It was doubt. The council had grown too rigid, bound by fear of ancient scripts and faded laws. They saw the Void as a threat to be eliminated. Elaris saw potential. Power unclaimed. Knowledge untapped.
And so, she came here—to the edge of the known world. To a place outlawed by the Dominion Treaty.
*The Obsidian Hollow.*
A deep chasm, pulsing with a violet glow that seeped from its veins like blood from an open wound. No map charted it. No history claimed it. But Elaris had heard whispers… from the tomes of the Forgotten Archive.
She descended slowly, each step echoing with a hum of arcane resistance. At the base, in a circular chamber older than the Dominion itself, stood *a monument of fused bones and crystal*—a relic of the Primordial War.
Elaris pressed her palm against it. It was cold, but not lifeless.
*"You've come,"* a voice rasped from the shadows. Not a greeting. A knowing.
From the darkness stepped a figure cloaked in tattered red, his face masked in iron. His presence bent the air, like time faltering in his wake.
*"You're not supposed to exist,"* Elaris whispered.
*"Neither is the Void Domain,"* the figure replied. "Yet here we are."
She hesitated—then knelt.
Not in submission.
In pact.
*"I want to understand it… before they destroy it."*
The masked figure tilted his head. *"Then you must embrace what the council fears."*
And in that moment, the chamber pulsed once more.
Knowledge. Forbidden. Dangerous. Free.
—
Absolutely. Here's the *expanded continuation of Elaris' secret mission*:
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The stale air of the Obsidian Hollow thickened as Elaris rose from her kneel. Her breath caught—not from fear, but from the sheer density of the arcane pressure swirling around the masked figure. Every instinct screamed to retreat, to unbind the seal she carried from the Sanctum and vanish into the night.
But she had come too far for fear.
The figure's voice slithered like smoke through the chamber.
*"You carry the Dominion's seal... but not its conviction. Why?"*
Elaris stepped forward, eyes locked on his.
*"Because the Council fears what it cannot chain. They'll erase Draziel before asking why the Void chose him."*
The figure remained silent, yet the air seemed to tighten with anticipation. At last, he extended a hand, fingertips crackling with pulsing violet veins—raw Void essence.
*"Then take it."*
A shard of glowing crystal floated between them—neither fully solid nor ethereal. As it hovered, the chamber's walls shuddered with echoes of forgotten screams, visions flashing in the peripheral edges of reality. Lost timelines. Collapsing realms. Unwritten futures.
Elaris reached out, her fingers trembling as she brushed the shard.
Agony. Clarity. Whispers of infinite hunger and eternal stillness clawed through her mind—but beneath it, a *pattern* emerged. The Void was not chaos—it was *a law yet to be understood*.
She didn't pull away.
She endured.
The figure watched, motionless. Then:
*"You are not like the others. You seek the root, not just the flower."*
*"I seek truth,"* she whispered, gasping.
*"Then you must choose. The Council will come for him. When they do... whose side will you stand on?"*
Elaris didn't answer immediately.
Her thoughts flashed to Draziel, to the way he had awakened the Void not through conquest, but through pain—through betrayal. A soul fractured yet still fighting. A danger, yes, but also a *bridge to something deeper*.
*"I'll stand where understanding grows. Even if I must burn the old roots to make way for new ones."*
A silent pause passed between them. The masked figure raised his hand, and shadows gathered like a cloak around her shoulders. A *mark*—hidden from mortal eyes—was placed upon her palm. A key. Or a curse.
*"Then we are bound,"* he said, voice like thunder behind glass.
*"Let the Dominion tremble."*
The shard vanished.
The hollow dimmed.
But as Elaris turned to leave, the figure spoke once more.
*"Tell your Council nothing. But remember this—*
*Void doesn't destroy... it reveals what was always there."*
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