Erterna Ruin
“This place doesn’t remember time. It only remembers silence.”
A thin fog blanketed the edge of Hargenbor Bay. The air felt heavy, as if each step passed through a dimension unwilling to be touched. No birds sang. No waves broke. Only the whisper of the wind remained, and the scent of damp soil unchanged for thousands of years.
Erterna Ruin lay at the southeastern tip of Hargenbor territory, atop a natural ring of stone cliffs—said by legend to be the first place where the Nytherion Abyss breached into the real world.
Delwyn and the core team arrived in full formation: Rei, Wayne, Valethra, Barry, and Dr. Westley Watson, now equipped with spiritual instruments to detect dimensional distortion. None of them spoke during the journey.
Because… they could all feel it.
Something here was alive, but without form. Something here had been watching them long before they arrived.
🕳️ The Hollow Gate
Dr. Watson planted his marking staff at the center of the ruined circle.
“Parallel dimension coordinates indicate the primary spiral is stabilizing.”
The sky turned to a deep gray. The ground beneath their feet felt slick, even without rain. And then, ahead of them, between two fallen monoliths… a transparent black spiral began pulsing slowly.
It did not look like technology or magic.
It looked like a wound in reality itself.
Queen Valethra gripped her spiritual sigil. Barry closed his eyes and muttered a protective mantra.
Wayne spoke softly:
“If we go in there… we won’t come out the same.”
And Rei, standing at the front, gazed into the spiral without blinking:
“It’s not a place to enter. It’s a place to return to yourself.”
📍 End of Chapter
One by one, they stood at the spiral’s edge.
Their lights flickered.
Their shadows blurred.
And from within the portal, a familiar voice echoed:
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
Kamila Alena.
No longer just the heir of Henchoeway—
But the full Avatar of the Nytherion Abyss.
“Enter… if you are ready to end everything.”