Chương 58: The Heart of Jeruem

"Nazarai?" Galer asked, frowning. The scholar proudly placed a hand over his chest.

"A term I discovered in a very rare old booklet written in a forgotten tongue. It took me months to decode it." He continued with clear excitement.

"There are currently two hundred and ninety-one thousand of them in this region. They cannot leave the border. They have been cursed by the Nibelungen themselves, some say they are imprisoned here for the crime of holding the Nibelungen hostage." Aemilius leaned in, eyes gleaming.

"Do you understand what that means? One: the Nibelungen are undeniably real. Two: they are every bit as mighty as the tales claim them to be. Three: they have emotions." His voice dropped to a mumble only a person near his mouth could hear the last bit.

"And if they have emotions… they can be corrupted." He straightened again.

"That is why I am here. To find the Nibelungen themselves or at least clues to where they moved on, if they moved on." Galer raised an eyebrow.

"If they truly are what the fairytales say, we must be extremely careful and cautious. They challenge anyone they meet to a contest be it a race, game, riddle and the winner earns a wish. One must think very seriously about the wording… or suffer the same fate as Dacram and his folk did." The scholar laughed softly.

"But that is exactly what makes it thrilling! They possess the power to reshape the world, yet they do not. Why? That is what I want to know." Galer thought for a moment.

"If they can do all that, it also means they cannot do nothing. They seem to require a medium a human element. They themselves may be limited by it." Aemilius nodded eagerly.

"Yes, that is one theory. Another is that they are so ancient they have already changed the world many times… and simply grew bored. Apathy born of eternity." The two kept debating different interpretations of the Nibelungen's power until Iskatot suddenly raised a hand. A Nazarai sound echoed nearby. It was hollow and distant at first, like wind moaning through an empty ribcage, but then it deepened into a low, pulsating thrum that vibrated through the stone beneath our feet.

To the rest of us it was eerie and unsettling, but Iskatot's face tightened sharply. He had clearly heard it the loudest. The sound seemed to drill straight into his senses, his body going rigid as he tilted his head, listening with every fiber of his being. The debate died instantly. All conversation ceased. Even Aemilius fell silent, his scholarly arrogance momentarily replaced by raw caution. Iskatot motioned sharply for us to move faster, quieter. The sound was getting closer. We marched forward in silence.

The tunnel was colder than I expected. I reached out and pressed my palm against the ancient stone wall. It felt unnaturally cold, almost damp, as if the weight of centuries had seeped into the rock itself. The chill traveled up my arm and made the hairs on my neck stand.

"How old is this tunnel exactly?" I asked quietly into the group. Aemilius, walking a few steps ahead, turned with that lone yet prancing energy of his, like a scholar who enjoyed hearing his own voice echo. He tapped one of the faded markings on the wall with two fingers, a proud little smile tugging at his salt-and-pepper beard.

"Ah, excellent question, young one!" he announced, his tone theatrical even in a whisper.

"This was once a vital supply route during the height of Jeruem's prosperity. You can still see the old supply markings carved here and see these shallow grooves? They guided the carts so the drivers wouldn't get lost in the dark. The stone itself tells us it is at least twelve hundred years old, possibly older. The mortar between the blocks contains traces of a rare blue mineral only found in the deep quarries beneath the city. Quite the engineering marvel for its time, wouldn't you say?"

He continued analyzing the markings as we walked, almost dancing from one symbol to the next, clearly thrilled to have an audience. I pulled my hand back from the cold stone, glancing behind me toward Galer.

"I don't trust that man," I whispered.

"He has too much knowledge. He speaks way to much like Professor Étienne dú Sissione back in Taharj." Galer glanced at the scholar's back for a moment before replying quietly, his single eye calm but thoughtful.

"Yes, he's even sharper than that guy. The way he speaks, the details he pulls out of nowhere… it's impressive. But not every smart man is a dangerous zealot in his views. Some are just obsessed with knowledge for its own sake. Others…" He let the word hang, then added in a lower tone, "Others hide something far darker behind the brilliance. We watch him closely, Erumes. If he slips, we'll see it. Until then, he's useful. Knowledge like his could save our lives down here."

I frowned, still unconvinced, and looked away toward the other side of the tunnel. Something in how Aemilius moved way too eager, too theatrical, it felt exactly like the professor had. Clever men like him with secrets had been always to full of themselves. We were forced to stop when thick vegetation and thorny roots completely blocked the path ahead. The roots were monstrous twisted, black, and covered in long, razor-sharp thorns that glistened with some kind of sap.

They had completely strangled the tunnel, forming an impenetrable living wall. Frustration surged through me like a tick trying to invade someone's skin. We had been moving so well, almost hopeful, and now this. Aemilius stepped forward, checking the two side tunnels quickly. He shook his head, lips pressed into a thin line.

"Those won't lead closer to the center," he muttered, clearly annoyed that his perfect route had been interrupted.

"This one will. We have no choice." The scholar's usual theatrical confidence cracked for a moment and his shoulders tensed, and I caught a flash of genuine irritation in his eyes and so he argued with plan B "Then we make our own path. We collapse the end structure here and use the rubble as a makeshift bridge to reach the surface. We are very close to the center and not that far of the place to be, so exactly where I expected." I stared at him, heart pounding with unease.

"There are the Nightmares above us. How do you plan to collapse a tunnel without notifying every single one of them to amass right here?" He corrected me smoothly, almost mockingly.

"Nazarai." I gritted my teeth.

"Okay. Nazarai. How would you like to make this work without them swarming us?" Aemilius turned and looked straight into my teenage eyes, his expression almost pitying.

"Simple. This is exactly what I want. Let them accumulate here. Let them investigate near the heart of Jeruem. While they are distracted, we slip deeper into the suspected Nibelungen Area, the center." His argument was sound. Logical. Ruthless. I hated it, that he sounded right. I just hated him. I turned away sharply, fists clenched at my sides. Every instinct screamed that trusting this man was a mistake. He wasn't just seeking knowledge...

he was playing with something dangerous in mind and smiling while doing it in his thoughts. Iskatot didn't wait for further debate between anything he had it enough in these tunnels. His expression hardened into something cold and decisive with no hesitation, no wasted words to speak of. In one fluid motion he brought forth his sickle-chain. The weapon seemed to drink in the dim light as he channeled his Umbral Dominion on it.

The air around the blade grew unnaturally dark, shadows writhing like living darkness hungry for release. His Animo surged sharp, precise, and terrifyingly controlled. It wasn't a wild explosion of power like in the badlands; it was a artisans work made of pure darkness, focused to a razor's edge. For a fraction of a split second, the tunnel itself seemed to hold its breath. Then he struck it. The sickle-chain whipped forward with surgical accuracy.

The impact was devastating yet perfectly placed targeting the weakest structural points of the ancient ceiling and walls. Stone screamed as it shattered. Cracks spider-webbed outward with frightening speed and precision. The entire 2. 2-kilometer-wide structure groaned like a dying giant, then collapsed in a controlled avalanche of rubble, earth, and twisted roots. Tons of debris rained down, vegetation from the surface tumbling in with it.

A massive cloud of dust exploded outward, choking the air and stinging our eyes. The shockwave rolled through the tunnel like thunder trapped underground, vibrating deep into our bones. Iskatot stood motionless for a heartbeat afterward, chain still humming with residual Umbral energy, his face calm but his eyes burning with focused intensity. He had just announced our presence to every Nazarai within range, yet he had done it with the cold precision of a master. There was no going back now.

We ran upward through the collapsed rubble and emerged into the open air. In the distance, only five kilometers away there stood a colossal palace. Its marble gleamed in deep emerald green, crowned with khaki-yellow rooftops. Dark glass windows stared like empty eyes. The massive copper gate hung open, as if it had remained that way for centuries, untouched, unbroken.

We sprinted toward a small, dusty stable nearby, ducking under old blankets and animal sheets for cover just as the Nazarai released a deafening scream. The sound multiplied rapidly, an unnatural chorus of haunting, layered wails that echoed across the ruined city like thousands of dying souls crying out at once. Hundreds became thousands. Their floating forms gathered into a dark living storm that swallowed the sky.

We moved slowly under the huge blanket, eyes fixed on the sand-green ground, following Aemilius' whispered directions from his near-photographic memory. Every step was tense. One wrong turn and we would be seen by these horrors. It took exactly 58 minutes and 29 seconds to reach the gate, as Aemilius announced the precise time the moment we slipped inside. The interior was breathtaking and eerie. A huge staircase rose before us in rich copper tones, still gleaming faintly despite centuries of neglect.

A faded red carpet, threadbare and dusty, covered the steps like dried blood. Dusty black banners hung from the high walls, each displaying eight white stars arranged in a perfect circle above flowing cloud-like waves. The symbols felt heavy with meaning-ancient, regal, and somehow mournful. Many sections of the palace had caved in. Crumbled marble blocked entire hallways and doors, forcing us to pick our way carefully.

The silence inside was oppressive, broken only by the soft crunch of debris under our boots and the distant, haunting screams of the Nazarai outside. We climbed the staircase in tense silence, hearts pounding in unison with all different emotions and expectations in mind. At the top, a once-magnificent dome had been shattered, leaving jagged holes open to the sky. Light rain had begun to fall, dripping through the broken glass panes in steady, cold streams onto our heads and shoulders.

Each drop felt like a warning from the sky themselves. Aemilius insisted we follow a straight copper line embedded in the carpet. It glowed faintly under what little light remained, guiding us like a vein of old power. The line led us to a smaller staircase, narrower and more intimate, and finally to a grand golden-blue gate with black outlines, standing slightly ajar. We squeezed through the opening one by one, the ancient metal cold against our skin. There it was. A vast throne room stretched before us.

Eight seats of the highest imaginable quality of pure blue-gold, completely untouched by dust or time, they stood in a perfect circle. Aemilius muttered in disbelief, running his hands over them.

"Scientifically impossible…" In the center stood a huge table with a detailed map of the Orbis Terrarum. Each seat had a bowl-like depression carved into the table, as if meant to hold something important on it or be a workbench for otherworldly creation. I reached out and touched one of the bowls it was the 6th seat one. My ring suddenly pulsed with violent shockwaves. The activation was so forceful it nearly knocked me off my feet.

Ancient information flooded my mind with symbols and knowledge in a language I couldn't possibly ever understand or read. Panicking, I instinctively chose the second option with my left index finger in panic. The pulsing stopped. I landed hard on my butt, head throbbing, as if I had just worked as a blacksmith, smelter, and craftsman all at once. Aemilius lunged toward me, eyes wild with greed, trying to reach into my pockets. Galer was faster. Knives pressed against the scholar's neck in an instant.

"Stop. What are you trying to do?"

"Don't you get it?" Aemilius hissed, still grinning madly.

"That bowl is a Nibelungen crafter! He had a Nibelungen item and he just recrafted it. Of course I want it, this young child is to much of a red haired buffoon to understand what he did, but on my hands it will reveal many answers!" Galer's blades drew a thin line of blood. The scholar's hand slowly twitched toward the strange cylinders strapped to his chest hidden from our side. Iskatot's voice cut through like ice.

"You all better... Run!." He unleashed his full Umbral Dominion. Shadows erupted violently as he destroyed the ceiling above us, creating an exit. We burst outside just as the palace became a beacon for the Nazarai to rush into, like we called upon them. Over two hundred and fifty thousand of them were now converging on the building, their floating forms darkening the sky. Their glowing amber eyes locked onto my pockets once more. A single, unified scream tore through the air breaking sound barrier.

The chase was on. We had to run. And so we ran with everything we had. The mission was simple: get out of there alive. Galer's voice echoed in my mind through telepathy: The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. Leave the scholar behind. He'll come after you... after the ring. He'll kill for it, now that he knows what you did. We have to drop him via this given chance. We agreed without words. We pulled ahead, leaving Aemilius in the dust. Or so we thought.

Behind us, the scholar realized what we were trying to do. With a snarl he snatched one of the strange cylinders from his chest harness, a dark green vial with black dots, about five centimeters long. The needle was 2. 3 centimeters long with a 1. 4 millimeter hole. He slammed it into his own neck without hesitation. The transformation was horrifyingly fast. His body twisted and cracked, limbs elongating, skin hardening into chitin. In seconds he became a human-insect hybrid...

praying mantis-like, just like the ones we had seen in Moesia, but smaller and somehow more vicious in speed and combat prowess. He now kept up with us. His compound eyes locked onto me, onto the ring in my pocket with predatory hunger. I glanced back, breath ragged.

"He looks like the smaller Moesia mantises… the dangerous one you guys killed, remember?" Galer's face was grim.

"Same color. Same height. We fought that one before, you are right. Weird… How the hell did this man transform into THAT?"

"This is close to one we cant fully remember anymore only the name Simon," I muttered. Galer nodded.

"Then let's increase our tempo to maximum. Lets leave him behind for good, its for the better." I pumped Heart Flame into my legs, igniting every stride with explosive power. Galer partially lit his own legs, each step cracking stone beneath him. Iskatot moved ahead in shadow steps, scouting and preparing to engage any Nazarai that closed in from the sides. Behind us, the swarm passed the insect-hybrid scholar without slowing.

Unfortunately, the side groups still caught up with us, right before we reached the town exit of Jeruem. Only two Nazarai made it to us. We skidded to a halt, chests heaving, weapons ready. Our fight for survival had begun...