The descent was slow.
The stairway spiralled into blackness, deeper than it should've gone. The walls were lined with scorched murals—fragments of battles lost, faces twisted in agony, cities devoured by flame. But none of them moved. None changed.
They weren't illusions.
They were warnings.
Each step pressed heavier than the last. Not from exhaustion, but weight. Memory. The deeper they went, the tighter the air became. Not from smoke. From pressure. Like the mountain wanted to keep them out.
Or keep something in.
Leon said nothing. Neither did the others. Even the boy kept silent, his eyes fixed on the darkness below.
Finally, the stairway ended.
The chamber that opened before them wasn't carved. It was melted. Walls of slag and obsidian formed a dome that pulsed faintly red. In its center lay a circle of jagged stone—a ring scorched deep into the floor. And in that ring knelt a figure.
At first, he looked like a man.
Then he moved.
