The light from the altar transformed into a pillar of white that pierced through the chamber's ceiling, bringing shattered fragments of stone crashing down around it.
Ethan screamed and tried to yank his hand free from the crystal, but the light only tightened its grip around his wrist, pulling him closer to the altar's surface as though it intended to swallow his entire body.
"Let him go!" Kael leapt forward, both hands glowing gold, and slammed his palms against the crystal's surface right beside Ethan's hand.
An explosion of energy hurled them both backward, sending them crashing into the stone shelves along the chamber wall. Old scrolls tumbled from the collapsing shelves, and dust billowed through the air.
Ethan coughed as he tried to rise, and what he saw made his blood run cold.
From the center of the altar, a shadowy figure began to take shape. It towered above them, its body composed of white light swirling like dense smoke, slowly hardening into the form of a woman in a long robe, with a cracked crown encircling her head. Her eyes had not yet opened, but her lips were already moving, speaking words in a language Ethan didn't understand—yet somehow found strangely familiar to his ears.
[Critical Warning: High-Tier Entity Detected. Name: Queen of Aldmere. Status: Awakening 40 percent.]
"That's not supposed to happen," Kael whispered, his voice trembling between awe and dread. "The Queen of Aldmere should have perished along with this clan's fall a hundred years ago."
The Hollow Guardian that had been standing at the doorway suddenly dropped to its knees, bowing its head low toward the not-yet-fully-formed figure as though worshipping something it had been waiting for all this time.
"Your Majesty," the Guardian's voice echoed. "This servant has guarded this altar as promised."
The figure of the Queen of Aldmere raised one hand, still half-transparent. Light dripped from her fingertips, falling to the floor and forming glowing cracks that spread rapidly across the entire chamber like roots growing in a matter of seconds.
Kael forcibly hauled Ethan to his feet. "We have to go now, before her awakening is complete."
"How?" Ethan shouted back, his eyes still fixed on the cracks of light creeping up the walls, splitting the ancient stone as though it were nothing more than wet paper.
Kael didn't answer with words. He drew a short blade from beneath his torn robe, something that had been hidden there all along, and slashed his own palm without hesitation. Blood dripped onto the stone floor, and instantly, the ancient symbols around their feet ignited red, forming a small circle distinct from the Queen's spreading cracks of light.
"This will get us out," Kael said, his voice tight, "but only one person."
Ethan stared at him, unable to believe what he'd just heard. "What do you mean, one person?"
The Queen's cracks of light drew ever closer, creeping toward both their feet, while the Hollow Guardian that had knelt moments ago rose again, its head snapping toward Ethan with movements far faster than before.
"This one will stop the one who is not the young master," the Guardian's voice echoed, and its body shot forward like lightning, its metal hand raised to strike Ethan square in the chest.
Time seemed to slow again, just as Ethan had felt at the cliff.
[Hidden Ability Activated: Time Fracture] [Duration Remaining: 2 seconds]
But this time, something felt different. The cold sensation that had previously spread only through his wrist now radiated through his entire body, and for a fraction of a second, Ethan could see thin lines of light stretching around the Hollow Guardian—lines that revealed the direction of its movement before it actually happened.
He moved to dodge, not because he'd thought it through, but because the body he inhabited seemed to know exactly how to read those lines, an inherited instinct from its true owner slowly stirring awake under pressure.
The Hollow Guardian's metal fist struck the floor exactly where Ethan had been standing a moment earlier, shattering the stone into fragments that scattered in every direction.
[Duration Remaining: 0 seconds]
Time resumed its normal flow, and Ethan found himself standing three steps from where he'd started, breathless but alive.
Kael stared at him with wide eyes, a mixture of shock and something resembling hope in his gaze. "You just... that's not a basic ability. That's mine."
There was no time to discuss it further. The red circle beneath Kael's feet pulsed brighter, ready to swallow whoever stood within it, while the Queen's cracks of light continued creeping closer from every direction, hemming the two of them into an ever-shrinking space.
"Get into the circle, now," Kael urged, shoving Ethan toward the red light on the floor.
Ethan stepped back hesitantly. "What about you?"
Kael smiled thinly, a smile that offered no comfort at all, like someone who had made his decision long before the question was even asked.
"I'll stay," he said, "because the Queen recognizes me. And if I go with you, she'll hunt both of us to the ends of the world, no matter where you run."
Before Ethan could protest, Kael shoved him with all his strength into the circle of red light, and the world around Ethan exploded into a blinding flash of white.
[Warning: Host Separated from Rightful Owner. Synchronization Locked at 44 percent.]