CHAPTER 1178: IMAGES

Arty watched Aesa and Eccar leave through the portal. Their shapes fading down the swirling energy.

The moment the room quieted, Erend stayed where he stood, arms folded, gaze fixed on her with that familiar blend of concern and protectiveness he never bothered to hide.

"What do you need?" he asked gently.

Arty took a moment before answering. Her eyes drifted downward as if she searched for the right words inside her own uncertainty.

"I think..." She hesitated, then met his eyes again. "I think I need armor. Something to protect myself. Defense is important, right?"

"Yeah," Erend nodded immediately. "It is."

Arty studied him for a few seconds. Then she smiled. Soft and small, but full of quiet understanding.

She could see it clearly that her brother wanted to stay. He wanted to hover beside her like a protective shield. But she also sensed something else pressing on him, something he needed to deal with, something larger than either of them.

And she wanted him to go quickly.

"I’m fine," Arty said warmly. "You can go handle your other thing now. I promise I won’t let anything dangerous happen to me."

Erend stared at her with conflicted feelings. His jaw tightened slightly before he finally let out a sigh.

He wanted to argue and insist on staying anyway. But he couldn’t. He really did have something urgent to take care of.

"You sure you’re fine?" he asked again, brows furrowed.

"Of course," Arty replied with an exasperated smile, rolling her eyes just a little. "I have Sylmira with me. And I don’t feel pain anymore, remember? I’ll be okay."

Erend let out a breath and nodded. "Okay. But if anything feels off even a little, contact me. Immediately."

"I will." Arty grinned. "You worry too much."

"It’s literally my job as your brother," Erend muttered.

Arty laughed softly. Erend’s expression softened at the sound, but the worry never quite left his eyes.

"Alright," he finally said, stepping back. "I’ll go. Don’t do anything reckless."

"No promises," Arty teased.

"Arty."

"Okay, okay. I’ll be careful."

Satisfied enough—though reluctantly—Erend summoned a swirl of red and black energy.

A portal cracked open behind him like a burning tear in the air. He gave her one last lingering look, then stepped through, vanishing in a wash of light.

When the portal disappeared, silence settled in the room again.

Arty sighed and turned to Sylmira, who had been pretending not to eavesdrop while nervously stirring a cup of tea she hadn’t taken a sip of.

"So," Arty said, sitting down beside her. "What do we start with?"

Sylmira straightened, her hands still trembling slightly.

"First, we need to inform King Roderick. He must hear the situation directly from us, or he’ll think the kingdom is being abandoned without explanation. I need to craft precise and complete words for him."

"Right." Arty nodded. "We’ll go to him first."

"After that," Sylmira continued, "we need to contact the royal smith to make armor, weapons or enchantments, whatever we require. I’ll send word immediately. They’ll work faster if the request comes from me. Just like before."

Arty appreciated the effort. "Thank you."

"And..." Sylmira added reluctantly, "I need to speak with the knights. All of them. I must update their patrol routes and prepare them for a potential kingdom-wide alert. If what your brother said is true, we’ll need every sword ready. They also still need to gather reports from the adventurers that might come back."

Arty stood. "Then we shouldn’t waste time."

"No, we shouldn’t," Sylmira agreed, gathering her robes.

They walked together out of the room, the hall’s cold air brushing past them.

Sylmira kept pace beside her, her posture composed. But Arty noticed the way her fingers twitched.

As they reached the stairway, Sylmira slowed just a little, her gaze sliding toward Arty with a faint, unreadable worry.

"Arty," she murmured, "are you truly alright? You... feel different."

Arty paused. Something twisted faintly inside her chest, but she pushed it aside with a small smile.

"I’m really fine," she said again.

Sylmira didn’t reply. She only nodded and continued walking, but her eyes stayed on Arty longer than usual, heavy with unease.

Something didn’t feel right.

Not just with Arty or the air around her.

Sylmira couldn’t shake the fear that whatever had changed had already sunk too deep to see.

—

Saeldir drifted deeper into sleep, but his mind did not rest. The knowledge he had absorbed from the Codex still churned inside him in a heavy and overwhelming wave.

At first, it flowed like before as whispers of ancient words, symbols he did not yet understand, or voices of forgotten ages reciting information.

But then the words melted.

They stretched, twisted, and bled into colors and shapes, becoming visions that swallowed him whole.

Saeldir found himself floating above a world he did not recognize, suspended in a void between dream and memory.

Below him, mountains cracked open. Oceans boiled into steam. Cities crumbled to dust in a breath. The sky burned.

And at the center of the destruction stood three beings.

They were not illusions or metaphors. They were real in a way that made his soul shiver.

The first one shone with blinding radiance. This one looks divine and terrible. A halo of spinning light circled its head, carved from ancient runes. Its wings were made of pure brilliance, every feather a blade that cut anything it touches. Wherever it turned, mortals fell in silence, their lives erased before they even understood they had died.

The second towered like a nightmare that had torn its way out of the deepest abyss. A colossal monster with scales like black steel, horns curling like twisted spires, eyes burning with furnace-red fury. Its roar shattered mountains. It breathed darkness that devoured entire armies in a single sweep.

And the third... the third had no true form. It looks like a mass of grey and black tentacles slithered across the world, shifting and reshaping endlessly. Where the tendrils passed, sanity vanished. People collapsed not from wounds, but from their minds tearing apart under its presence.

Three beings. Different shapes. But the same aura.

The same monstrous malice and impossible power.

They moved to destroying, devouring, and erasing until the world beneath Saeldir became nothing but a broken sphere drifting in void.

Saeldir felt his breath vanish. His heart was hammered. His skin crawled as though the beings could sense him watching.

These weren’t visions created by fear.

These were the fragments of knowledge he had not yet processed before collapsing. One of the deepest secrets of the Codex, forcefully poured into him, now manifesting as images of unstoppable horrors.

He understood nothing of their origin. But he understood one thing with absolute clarity.

If these beings ever stepped into their world... nothing would survive.

The dream trembled violently, and Saeldir felt himself being ripped away from the vision, spiraling back into darkness.

—