CHAPTER 43: A VOICE

The silence between one roar and the next was as thick as the darkness that pervaded the ruins. The cursed city seemed alive—not in the usual sense, but with a rotten, whispering consciousness.

Each step was an affront. Each breath, a provocation.

Eren stood where the remains of an ancient arch held cracked columns harboring fungi that pulsed red.

Kaela guarded the left flank, her senses on high alert, growling softly.

Nyssa stayed close to him, her body jittering with nerves.

Morwynn, above, wove threads of vigilance between broken pillars.

"They’re surrounding us," she warned. "They sense our presence. They don’t need to see... just to know that we’re alive."

The ground trembled with dry, hollow steps. The apparitions were reorganizing, more aggressively. It was no longer just a horde: it was a siege. Eren furrowed his brow, calculating escape routes and survival chances. They weren’t good.

That’s when he heard it.

A voice.

A line of sound cutting through the chaos.

It wasn’t a scream, nor a word. It was like a whispered thought inside his mind—cold, clear, and impossible to ignore.

Come.

Eren blinked. None of the girls reacted.

Further down. To the left. Passage veiled by illusion.

He turned his eyes to the side of the ruins. The voice described an impossible path. A buried arch, covered by debris—but... there was something. A glow that shouldn’t be there.

"Move," he suddenly ordered.

"What?" Kaela turned with narrowed eyes. "Are you going to bury us alive?"

"Trust me. Now."

Morwynn didn’t question. She descended silently and began cutting an opening with her silk blades.

Eren advanced towards the cracked wall. The apparitions were coming. Faster now.

"Shield!" he commanded.

Nyssa swelled. A field of thick, vibrant slime enveloped the group, repelling the first ghosts that were already hurling themselves at them. One passed through the barrier... and melted, screaming like a soul in acid.

Time was short.

With a kick, Eren broke the rubble covering the passage. Dust exploded, revealing a thin, spiraled staircase descending into the damp stone.

Come.

He didn’t hesitate.

"Kaela, last. Morwynn, cover. Nyssa, center. Let’s go."

They descended running, no time to breathe. At each turn of the staircase, the sound of the creatures above diminished—not from distance, but from... retreat. As if they feared what was there.

The staircase ended at a stone door open just enough to allow a tight passage. Inside, a vast circular chamber rose, with columns standing like ribs. In the center, an altar covered in moss. At the back, a broken throne.

The temple.

Absolute silence.

The voice disappeared.

"This... isn’t right," Kaela murmured.

"It’s not wrong either," Eren replied.

He looked around coolly. They were safe—for now. There was no sign of the creatures. The magical pressure was less here inside. The system itself seemed hesitant to manifest windows.

Nyssa was still trembling. She leaned against one of the pillars and curled up. Morwynn silently scaled the side wall, building invisible alarm threads.

Kaela walked to the altar and sniffed. "No one is here. But... someone was."

"We’ll stay," Eren decided. "Until I understand what this was."

"The voice?" Morwynn looked down from above. "You heard it too?"

He stared at her.

She just blinked, then smiled slightly.

"Figured."

Eren walked to the broken throne.

The carvings were worn, but it was still possible to see symbols—interlocked circles, stone eyes, open hands, and runic symbols resembling... the system.

He ran his hand over a broken inscription. The cold of the stone was unusual, almost like metal. Something vibrated there.

What are you? he thought.

But there was no answer.

"We’ll sleep here. Kaela, first watch. Morwynn, second. Nyssa, you rest now."

"And you?" the slime asked in a low voice.

"I don’t sleep."

She nodded, resigned.

The faint lights in the room seemed to come from small crystals embedded in the walls, whose origin no one understood. Eren stepped away, sat on some rubble, and closed his eyes.

But his mind spun.

Who had guided him?

Why?

Why had only he heard it?

And what was that temple?

No answers. Only silence and the echo of the group’s breathing. The night stretched like an eternity over the cursed city, and in that temple—where the world seemed suspended—Eren knew the next step would require more than strength.

It would require understanding.

And maybe... trust.

But he still didn’t know in whom.

Nor why.

The night descended like a heavy curtain over the ruins of the cursed temple. Even inside, beneath the broken columns and walls devoured by moss, the air seemed stagnant, muffled by a magical mist that made it difficult to even distinguish where the interior began and where the world outside ended.

Kaela slept leaning against a fallen pillar, arms crossed, head slightly tilted, though her sleep was restless—like that of a wolf always alert. Nyssa rested in her compact form, emitting a faint, rhythmic glow, as if dreaming of gentle things. Morwynn hung high, in an improvised web between broken columns, eyes half-closed, but vigilant.

Eren did not sleep. He never slept.

He sat in the center of the hall, legs crossed, eyes fixed on nothing—or perhaps everything. His motionless body contrasted with the inner turmoil. The plan was still unclear. There were too many holes in the mental maps he was drafting. The curse of the temple obscured routes, confused senses, distorted the system’s signals. Something was... wrong.

Then, he heard it again.

A voice.

But it wasn’t sound. It was more a touch in his mind, like a vibration that didn’t pass through the ears—went straight through the thoughts. Familiar. Feminine. Recognizable, though as diffuse as mist.

"Come."

The command was silent, but clear. There was no urgency, nor threat. It was an invitation. As if he already knew where to go.

Eren rose silently. Fluid movements. Firm, quiet feet, as if they already knew the way.

But he wasn’t the only one moving.

Kaela, who was sleeping nearby, cracked open one feline eye as he took the first step. She pretended to continue sleeping. Counted the seconds. One. Two. Ten. Twenty. When she was sure he was out of the others’ line of sight, she rose with predatory precision, stepping among the rubble like a silent shadow. And she followed.

Eren crossed the temple with the same cold focus with which he dissected plans. He passed through corridors that once seemed collapsed, but now, guided by the voice, showed small passages between the rubble. A bluish light flickered ahead, too faint to be visible from afar — magic, probably. There was a sensation in the air, like dense electricity, building with each step.

Upon crossing what seemed to be an inner courtyard covered by dead vines, he stopped.

Sylha was there.

Or rather, a translucent figure with Sylha’s contours—a feminine specter with gentle eyes and a timeless expression, as if not bound by the logic of human emotions. She seemed to float a few inches above the ground, her skin emitting an ethereal glow that contrasted with the decay around.

Her eyes met his.

""You came.""

She didn’t smile. But the voice — now audible, not just mental — carried a note of contentment.

Eren didn’t respond immediately. His eyes scanned the spectral figure, confirming what the system already whispered in the corners of his vision:

"Who are you, really? — he asked, without hostility, but with the direct tone of someone calculating risks."

Sylha glided towards him, without actually touching the ground.

""The one who watched you from the entrance of the labyrinth. The one who whispered, but did not impose. The guide of a cycle... that is about to break.""

"And why me?"

Sylha tilted her head slightly, as if admiring a rare piece.

""Because you are the exception, Eren Vale. You break what others obey. You create where others merely follow. And more importantly..." — she drew closer, her eyes glinting. — "You listen.""

The answer didn’t satisfy him. But something about her calmed him. It was as if the words were less important than the presence. The feeling she conveyed was not threat, nor adoration. It was... silent reverence. A respect that came not from faith, but from recognition.

Kaela watched everything from afar. Hidden between two broken columns, only one ear showing, her heart racing with unease.

She didn’t understand that presence — didn’t know if it was ally, threat, or something beyond comprehension. But seeing Eren there, before another female, even if spectral, caused something unsettling in her chest. Not jealousy in the common sense — it was more... instinct. The kind of impulse animals have when seeing their mates in other territories.

Eren was never hers. But at that moment, he seemed even less so.

"Why did you bring me here? — he asked, arms crossed."

Sylha spun slowly in the air, and behind her, pillars of ghostly energy began to emerge, as if echoing her presence.

""Because the city you are in... is not just cursed. It was an altar.""

Eren frowned.

"Altar?"

""For the first. The first Tamers. Those who created bonds with monsters not for power, but for symbiosis. And for art.""

The whispered name pierced Eren’s mind like a subtle arrow:

[Order of the Ancestral Tamers]

The system blinked discreetly, but revealed nothing.

Sylha extended her ethereal hand — a non-physical gesture, but symbolic. An invitation.

""You are about to awaken something. But before that... you need to understand.""

Eren hesitated.

Not out of fear.

But out of calculation.

How far could he go before losing control?

The answer was about to arrive.

And the entire city seemed to hold its breath for it.