CHAPTER 138: SOUL PYRE

The world swam back into focus for Galahad Lawless, and with it came dread.

He blinked rapidly, trying to steady his vision. His body felt heavy and sluggish, and when he tried to move, he realized he couldn’t.

His wrists and ankles were pinned, not by rope or chains, but by writhing bands of darkness. They clung to his skin like living tar, cold to the touch and not yielding an inch.

He was in his own dorm room, but it no longer looked like his own.

The lamp’s glow was gone. The windows were blacked out, and every inch of wall and floor smothered under a suffocating layer of shadows. Even the air felt thicker, as if he were breathing through cloth.

His breath hitched when he felt the chill at his throat.

There was a blade, a knife sculpted from pure shadow, resting against his skin. It didn’t cut, but instead, it sat there with just enough pressure to remind him how easily it could.

That was when a voice came from across the room. It was calm, but it held an unmistakable hint of bloodlust, and something much darker.

"If you even think about trying to escape," Noah said without looking at him, "your throat will be slit before the thought finishes."

Galahad froze, every nerve in his body going stiff. His eyes tracked Noah as the boy moved along the side of the room, cloak still drawn, hands calmly tracing the books on Galahad’s shelf, studying their titles before turning away.

Noah moved through the room like he had all the time in the world.

Galahad’s throat bobbed against the blade at his throat as he swallowed. His voice was hoarse when it came. "What do you want with me? Is this... is this about the monolith?"

Noah turned his head slightly, the hood shadowing his face. Then he chuckled, low and humorless. "Partially."

He walked closer, his boots quiet against the floorboards muffled by shadow. His burning orange eyes glinted faintly under the hood as he stood before Galahad.

"I did everything I could back then," Noah said softly. "I fought, I bled, I risked myself, just to make sure you and Leo crawled out of that monolith alive." His voice was coarse, like sandpaper.

"And what did I get in return?" he chuckled. "Not even an attempt at a defense. Not a word when they mocked me. Not a hand when they chained me."

Galahad’s lips parted, but no words came.

Noah leaned closer, his voice dropping, colder now. "And then I found out who it was. The man who broke me. The man who turned my soul into ash, day after day. Do you know his name, Galahad?"

The boy froze, already knowing.

"Your father," Noah hissed. "Osiris Lawless."

The shadows pulsed like a heartbeat around the room, as if even they recoiled at the name.

"You betrayed me," Noah said, not even raising his voice. "And your father destroyed me. So tonight..." He straightened, his hands spreading slightly as if to welcome the darkness that writhed closer. "This is my payback."

Galahad’s heart hammered in his chest. He tried to steady his voice, to sound firm, but fear cracked through. "Noah... listen to me. I didn’t know what my father was doing to you. If I had known, I would have—"

"Stop." Noah’s voice cut him off. His smile returned, thin and cruel. "You want to reason with me? Then let me explain something to you."

His hand rose, palm open. A faint red glow bloomed to life, and the shadowy walls seemed to shiver at the sight of it.

"Your father liked to use one spell more than any other," Noah said, his tone casual, almost conversational. "It’s called Soul Pyre. S-rank. Designed not to burn flesh, not to char bone, but to burn the soul itself."

Galahad’s eyes widened, the color draining from his face.

"Your father used it on me so often," Noah continued, "that my very soul became a parchment for the spell. Burned into me. Now I don’t need incantations. I don’t need a scroll. I just need to remember."

The red glow brightened, weaving into a circular spell formation that floated above Noah’s hand. It pulsed with unnatural heat, though no flame rose from it.

"When regulated," Noah explained, his grin widening faintly, "it doesn’t kill right away. Instead, it sears the soul. Causes pain beyond description. Hallucinations. And best of all, it locks the victim in accelerated time. Every second stretches into eternity. A moment of agony becomes a lifetime."

He crouched down, eye level with Galahad, the spell humming between them like a predator’s growl.

"So I’m curious," Noah whispered, grin sharp, eyes alight with cruel anticipation. "How long do you think you’ll last before you break?"

"Noah! Wait!" Galahad tried, his voice trembling.

But Noah had already cast.

The formation flared and vanished into Galahad’s chest.

At once, his body jerked. His eyes went wide, his mouth opened in a scream, but no sound escaped the walls. The shadows swallowed it whole.

Inside the second year Gold-tier dorm, everything was quiet. Outside, the world knew nothing.

But in Galahad’s soul, fire bloomed.

It wasn’t like any pain he had ever known. His nerves couldn’t describe it. His mind couldn’t cage it. It felt like he was burning from the inside, every memory, every thought, every shred of his being set alight and left to collapse into ash.

He tried to move, but the shadow bonds pinned him. He tried to close his eyes, but the pain burned through the dark.

And then came the worst part.

Time shattered.

What should have been one second stretched and fractured, becoming an eternity. Every heartbeat elongated into an endless scream. Every breath became a century of torment. He clawed for reality, but the fire dragged him down, again and again.

Outside, Noah watched. He stood with arms folded, expression calm, shadows writhing happily at his back.

The red glow of the Soul Pyre still faintly glimmered across Galahad’s body, his convulsions wracking the chair, sweat pouring down his face.

The shadow knife pressed harder against Galahad’s throat, not to cut, but to remind him that escape was impossible.

His screams continued, silent to the world, but deafening inside the sealed room.

The boy who had once been mocked, chained, and left to rot, now stood over his tormentor’s son, watching him crumble under the very spell that had broken him.

And Noah grinned at it all.