Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion-Chapter 135: Gate of The Wretched

Ian stopped.

The siblings nearly ran into his back. Their faces... spoke volumes. There was no celebration. No cheers.Only calculation.

And something Ian had forgotten how to muster.

Fear. His eyes narrowed. Will they be trouble?

He wasn’t certain yet.

But he was ready.

——–

They stood before the organizers like figures pulled from the edge of myth and madness—Ian, Lyra, and Caelen.

Dust-streaked. Blood-smeared. Haunted.

And yet—alive.

The assembly before them was anything but ordinary. Clad in robes of deep obsidian, crimson silk, and ash-gray runecloth, the First Circle Coordinators stood in a broad arc, flanked by lesser officials, scribes, and veiled adjudicators.

Each bore a sigil of authority—sewed in gold, silver, bone, or shadow-metal—denoting their dominion over the Reach.

None of them spoke at first.

They studied Ian.

Some with wonder.

Some with barely masked fear.

Others with the curled lips of disgust.

The silence was still—until Ian stepped forward.

He raised a hand.

And with it came a soundless pulse.

From the air behind him, relics began to fall.

First a single bronze thing.

Then another. And another. And another.

They fell in slow succession, like droplets from a storm—until the earth was littered with hundreds.

A tsunami of victory from the soulrealm, pouring forth like tribute before a silent court.

Some of the coordinators flinched. Others leaned forward, muttering in stunned tones as glowing scrolls unfurled and began frantically recording the count.

The lead adjudicator stepped forward.

An aged woman with parchment skin and one glowing eye of sapphire flame. Her voice was brittle, but carried like knife’s whisper across stone.

"You bring forth... one hundred and sixty-two relics. All soul-marked. No forgeries. No ghosts. And no foul touch of magic upon them."

She turned slowly to the others.

"They won."

A ripple passed through the assembly.

Murmurs turned to speech.

Scrolls rolled closed with finality.

A man in a crimson hood snorted and walked away without a word. Another—tall, hollow-eyed, and bearing a blade of bone strapped to his back—nodded with a hint of reverence.

A second figure—rotund, jowled, and perfumed—scowled. "Their methods were unorthodox. Unheard of. He weaponized something evil... manifested a death construct... collapsed a trial zone—"

"But he broke no rules," the adjudicator said, silencing him. "And none were left to contest his victory."

Ian stood silent as they debated, unmoved. Lyra shifted beside him, eyes wide, trying to process what was happening.

Caelen kept a hand on his blade, though his fingers twitched with awe more than caution.

At last, the adjudicator raised both hands.

"By the right of relic and the will of the Reach, we declare you cleared. You will be granted tokens which you may offer to the Empire’s registry in the imperial city."

A second voice spoke, deeper and calmer—an elder man with a gleaming circlet of runes upon his brow.

"You now bear the right to enter the Imperial City—and claim your earned rewards, including... an audience with the Seer."

The mention of the Seer sent a quiet wave of tension through all of them.

Well, most of them.

Ian’s eyes flicked upward at that. He couldn’t care less about any of that.

He came to this tournament for one thing, and he’s gotten it.

"...She’s real?" Lyra asked under her breath.

The adjudicator smiled faintly. "More than real. But not for the unproven."

Then, without warning, one of the robed figures at the far end of the arc lifted a pale hand—and snapped their fingers.

The world shattered.

There was no warning, no transition, no time to speak.

One moment they stood before the judges.

The next—

They were elsewhere.

With all three relics in hand each.

---

A landscape of obsidian.

They stood at the base of a cliff of black glass, the air around them thick with pressure—not heat, not magic, not decay—but evil.

Something primordial.

Before them rose a door.

Massive. Black. Ancient.

It towered above them, seamless and smooth, yet etched with shifting runes that moved when not directly looked at. Like the door was watching them.

Judging. Listening.

There were no hinges. No handle. No keyhole. Just an overwhelming sense that this was not a place meant to be entered.

And yet...

Behind it—they could feel it.

Power.

A pressure that crushed thought.

Completely and utterly made thinking a difficult task.

A presence that made the soul twist and bones itch.

Caelen fell to one knee, gasping.

Lyra grabbed her head, staggering.

Ian did neither.

He stood still, gazing at the door, unmoving even as the air pressed in on him like a hand around his throat.

"...What is that?" Caelen hissed through his teeth.

Lyra shuddered. "I don’t know, but it feels like something’s in there. Something terrible."

Ian knew immediately, this was the last phase of the Reach.

"It’s not something," Ian said. His voice was low. Cold. Reverent. "It’s Xul’Vek. Or... what remains of him."

Even speaking the name made the stone beneath their feet vibrate.

Caelen looked up sharply. "The Wretched. What is it he was?... sealed. Or dead. Or—"

Ian felt something.

Something they did not.

"None of those, he still is," Ian said. "But not entirely. Not here. Not in this reach."

Lyra hugged her arms, eyes darting. "So what now? How do we prove our worth and get out of this literal hell?"

The door pulsed once—barely visible—but the ripple in the air made them all flinch.

The adjudicator’s voice echoed, though she was nowhere to be seen.

"You have passed the Reach. But the path forward has many doors. Some are rewards. Some are warnings."

Ian’s eyes didn’t leave the door.

"This is both."

And then the pressure stopped.

The presence faded—not gone, but asleep once more.

And the door before them darkened.

But the feeling—the echo of Xul’Vek’s hunger—remained.

Ian turned.

"Well, we should go in."

Lyra didn’t move.

"...We don’t have a choice " she whispered. "do we?"

They didn’t.

In Ian’s eyes, something flickered.

A memory?

A warning?

Or perhaps... recognition.