CHAPTER 1533: STORY 1533: A PRISON TREMBLES

The battlefield reeked of scorched stone and blood. The guardians lay shattered, their molten husks cooling into jagged ruins, but the silence that followed was no victory. It was waiting—thick, oppressive, like breath before a scream.

The survivors gathered in a ragged circle, their eyes fixed not on the fallen guardians but on the trembling child in Elara’s arms. Its ember glow had dwindled to a fragile spark, so faint it barely lit her tear-streaked face. Each of its breaths rattled, thin and shallow, like the final embers of a dying fire.

The scarred woman leaned on her spear, her voice harsh but steady. “You saw it. It crushed them, turned monsters into ash. But look at it now—it won’t last another battle. One strike left, maybe less. We need to decide where that strike falls.”

Murmurs rippled through her people. Some nodded grimly, others muttered curses, their fear sharpening into anger. One man spat into the ash. “Better to end it now before it drags us into the grave with it.”

Elara rose, her flame flaring weakly in defiance. “End it? After it saved you? It’s more than a weapon—it’s bound to the chains. Didn’t you see? The Gate responded to its cry. It’s part of what holds him.”

Kael’s jaw clenched. He looked at the Gate—its black stone doors pulsing faintly, the chains glowing hotter with each faint flicker of the child’s light. He felt it in his bones: the titan inside shifting, straining, listening. The Ashborn Child wasn’t just a weapon. It was a key—and perhaps also a lock.

The scarred woman’s gaze hardened on him. “You swore the burden was yours. Then speak, warrior. Do we march with it, or end it now before it betrays us?”

The weight of every eye pressed against him. Kael’s fingers tightened around the jagged blade, though no steel could cut the knot in his chest. His instincts screamed to end the child, to sever the tether before it dragged them into the abyss. Yet when he looked at Elara, at the desperate fire in her eyes, he faltered. She saw something he could not—hope where he saw only doom.

Before he could answer, the ground quaked violently. The chains across the Gate rattled, their glow flaring so bright the survivors shielded their eyes. A low groan thundered from within, deep and guttural, like stone grinding against stone.

The child whimpered, pressing its face into Elara’s chest. Its frail voice cracked through the tremors: “Father... waking...”

The scarred woman’s people recoiled, panic breaking through their ranks. Some raised weapons, not at the Gate but at the child.

Kael stepped forward, blade raised, voice like iron. “You strike at it, you strike at me.”

Elara’s flame wrapped tighter around the child, her voice fierce through her exhaustion. “It’s not a curse—it’s the only thread keeping him bound.”

The tremors subsided, but the chains still glowed, heat rippling through the air. The Unborn had stirred. And every choice they made now would tip the scales toward salvation—or release.

Kael looked from the scarred woman to Elara, then to the dying ember cradled in her arms. The question burned like a brand in his mind.

Not if the child would break.

But whether it would break the chains—or break them all.