CHAPTER 305: IS IT THE SAME EYES?

The cult never really worshipped that thing. They didn’t matter enough even to be pawns in the bigger picture.

They were just placeholders—broken messengers echoing a voice that never wanted to be heard in the first place.

Even the girl, Pale Mirror, wasn’t chosen. She wasn’t a vessel.

She was just a window—something that was used to watch from the outside without stepping all the way in.

But now, that window had shattered.

And if Lilith was right... the thing behind the girl had started searching for another way in.

She walked through the quiet corridor, past the study, headed toward a part of the estate that almost no one ever entered—and never without her say-so.

The vault wasn’t protected by spells or physical locks. That would’ve been too simple.

It was protected by belief.

The world had to choose to forget it existed. And most had.

As she descended the steps, old runes along the walls lit up—not from fire or light crystals, but from recognizing her presence.

They responded only to her bloodline, to what she was born carrying.

The vault opened not because she said so, not because she forced it, but because the old forces it was tied to accepted her.

Inside, the air was heavy and still, cold. The place didn’t feel abandoned—it felt like it was part of the intangible space.

Stone markers lined the chamber, there were not tombs exactly, but not far from it. Each one a warning, a reminder of something that had once mattered too much.

She stopped in front of the one without a name.

No writing. No glyphs. Just a single slash, uneven and crooked, shaped like a broken crescent.

She placed her hand on it, and something shifted—not in the room, but inside her.

Not a thought. Not even an emotion.

Something older. Deeper.

Visions hit her in pulses. Not like memories. More like echoes crashing into the present. A sky folding into itself.

Oceans boiling in silence. Cities that had once been sung into being were reduced to cracked stone and wordless dust.

And in the center of it all, a man knelt. His cloak was torn, his horns shattered, and his body bent—not like he’d been defeated, but like he had finished something final.

The last Incubus.

And across from him... something else. Something that had survived him.

Lilith pulled her hand away slowly, her breath steady but tight, not from fear.

From understanding.

This wasn’t about the cult. Not even close. This wasn’t about some forgotten god clawing its way back to power.

This was about return.

And the thing watching Ethan—it didn’t want to beat him.

It wanted to claim him.

Because of what was in his blood.

She climbed back to her study, activated a hidden glyph, and pulled up Ethan’s soul trace. She didn’t say anything. Just placed a fresh seal on it—silent, buried, almost impossible to detect.

But it would alert her the second that thing tried again.

"You don’t get to touch him yet," she whispered.

The interface blinked. She leaned back in her chair as the display shifted to the control feed.

Multiple screens popped up—Valcrest’s team returning from the field, the last cult node dissolving into ash on the wind, and one flickering feed stuck halfway through loading.

Every time the name "Pale Mirror" appeared, it glitched.

Lilith didn’t flinch.

She turned the volume down, not to silence, but to a soft hum, and watched the alert feed in the corner.

Crescent Shadow had flagged Pale Mirror’s location.

Division Six had logged Valcrest’s unauthorized deployment.

The Sovereign Monitors were quietly scanning for high-tier energy traces near myth zones.

All the pings were waiting on her command.

She didn’t give it.

Instead, she brushed her hand across the surface of the desk and pulled up an older file—one so old the system had to pause and ask permission to load it.

It showed a faded gray emblem, crescent-shaped. It had no nation, faction, or title attached to it.

Just the mark.

Underneath were three names. Each one is partially redacted.

Each name had once shaken the world.

Each person had left quietly, long before they could be called gods or traitors.

Now, she needed their silence again.

She tapped a scroll near her. Not digital. Not enchanted. Just old, bound in a nearly invisible thread.

The seal cracked the moment her thumb touched it.

Inside, it held three short lines.

A name—long gone from the public record.

A place—north, far beyond what anyone called "safe" anymore.

And a question.

"Is it the same eyes?"

The scroll wasn’t meant for them. It was for her. A reminder.

The last time a Pre-Rift thing woke up, no one wanted to believe it until it was too late. Until entire cities fell, and ancient bloodlines died trying to seal a breach no one understood.

She folded the scroll, pressed the thread, and watched it stitch itself shut.

Back on the screen, Valcrest’s report finished syncing. His voice came through—steady, professional, maybe too calm. But she caught it.

The edge. The clarity.

"He’s not doing this for power," she murmured. "He’s doing it because we took his chance away. And now, this is the only thing left he can control."

Her office stayed quiet. She didn’t need anyone else to hear.

She opened the operative list—names marked as retired, dead, or unrecoverable. She tapped one.

A second later, a bell rang under the floorboards.

Not digital.

Physical.

She smiled a little and turned toward the window, which opened on its own. The night air was crisp, the sky clear, and the moon high.

The wards she’d set around the estate—around Ethan—were glowing and not reacting. Recognizing.

Something had brushed his fate.

And something else had responded.

Lilith activated another shard, one tied to old accords with myth-tier contacts—many long thought gone, some banished, most forgotten. She flagged them all as "watch only."

Not a call to arms.

A call to attention.

Because when this thing moved again, they’d have no excuse to stay neutral.

And she would remember who chose silence.

She paused over one name—an old ally, the only one who ever warned her that not all rifts closed properly.

She marked it active.

Just as the display lit up again.

Pale Mirror’s energy had shifted. The mirror was cracking.

Lilith didn’t react.

Didn’t send a squad. Didn’t even flinch.

She let it unfold.