Chapter 349: The Convergence [ 1 ]

As Arthur and his squad exited the final room, they were met with a view that left them awestruck: a humongous hall that was too huge to have been designed by mortals.

It was as though titans had occupied this space long ago and had left their colossal legacy behind.

The vaulted roof swallowed noise like a hungry beast, giving rise to an otherworldly quiet that engulfed them.

Even the guttering torches were daunted by this vast space,small fire burning with long, quivering shadows upon stonework incised with the ancient geometries of an age when arrogance was unchallenged.

The hall itself was in the shape of some cruciform cathedral of a far-off past: four arms projected from a central nave, every passageway tapering into dark recesses.

Pillars rose high like the ribs of some massive leviathan, encased in flaking lichen and scatches of years.

Above them, the ceiling melted into darkness; only hints of its vastness were visible amidst the casting torchlight.

They moved through this huge room like sneaky intruders,an unusual collection of thieves, scholars, and soldiers trading bravado with wariness.

Professor Adrian’s voice was low and charged as he recited proportions and masonry for Clara and Lukas.

Dr. Helena Moritz muttered mortar mixture under her breath; while Kaelen Rhys stroked a rich frieze with his finger, churning with excitement as he described load distribution, such as one who had discovered a living equation.

The archaeologists crept along, cameras and tablets chronicling detail for an audience who might never be able to take on faith that they had discovered it.

“It’s…” Adrian began to say but stopped; words were inadequate in such grandeur. He raised his camera, hands steady despite the tremble in his heart.

Each flash was a jarring flash of light in the cathedral-like stillness.

Pushing his head back so far he almost fell over, Professor Adrian took a deep breath of stunned amazement: “Impossible… this is impossible…”

His voice trembled with naked excitement as his glasses slipped further down the end of his nose as he scribbled furiously into his notebook, eyes darting around in wonder.

“The alignment… look at that curve! The Azurians were centuries ahead…no, millennia!”

Another archaeologist showed a trembling hand to snap photographs with a camera that stuttered in the tomb’s magnetic field; half of them were corrupted simultaneously but he didn’t care.

His eyes glowed like witnessing the dawn of civilization.

In the meantime, the soldiers remained quiet, the magnetic field had also destroyed their electronics: backup gyros ticked away; even Aegis-7 visors reduced to simple optical filters.

They moved with care now,men became carved statues: Gunner’s shadow spread wide and ramrod-straight; Ethan leaned against a pillar with a weary smile that had lost the art of sharpness.

Arthur stood at the heart of the group, his profile standing out against the backdrop of a primeval landscape.

The map in his hand,folded and annotated with symbols known only to him,was a sort of private talisman.

He stood scanning over his people with a detached quietness one might reserve for standing in anticipation of playhouse to begin: alert and waiting.

His attitude suggested a man capable of enduring loss because he knew how to measure it, monitor it, and take account of it.

But even that stoic attitude could not cover up the tiredness inscribed at the creases of his mouth.

Suddenly, footsteps,tattered, wet, and enraged interrupted the holiness of the moment.

There was a limping figure coming from the eastern arm, hobbling like a quilt of pain and ill-will.

Ravik Thorne came into view, the tattered banner of the Crimson Jackals flowing behind him like a thunderhead.

He was all knuckles and teeth: puffed-out face, flesh torn in places, eyes red-raw with fury.

His clothes were tattered; some were missing where traps had grabbed him like hungry animals.

He seemed to be a man who had just come out of hell and thought he’d still laugh about it anyway.

From the western branch crept Caelum Evewood,his step less royal than a bloody travesty of one.

His armor was twisted into raged corners; blood lacquered his chest and forearms, and clumps of hair clung to his white brow as if caught in a storm.

He moved stiffly, pride stitched together with new seams of anger.

They were ghosts burdened with grievances.

The men accompanying them were now all gone, the two frayed silhouettes quivering against worn pillars, bitter faces pinched with cold, hunger, and dread that penetrated deep into the marrow of their bones.

Where banners previously flapped and shouts thundered like trampling boots on stone now extended only broken breaths.

Arthur let that moment linger a solitary heartbeat longer.

“Oh,” he said in a matter-of-fact manner as if greeting familiar friends at a boozy dinner party.

A mocking grin stretched across his face as he deliberately folded the map. “You two aren’t dead yet.”

It was not in a cruel tone; it was just said. “I thought… by now the two of you would have died by now. It seems your luck is truly good.”

Hahahahahah…!.

Ravik’s laughter sliced through the tension like arid knuckles popping together.

“We’re as good as dead as you’ll ever get, Bastard,” he sneered in turn. “You baited us! You led us like pups into a field of butchers.”

He spat onto the floor with heart full of rage.

Caelum’s voice cut through the air as cold. “My men fought to clear a way for a path you might have traveled yourself. Where does your honor lie?”

Every word weighed with contempt, his voice a stinging blend of question and insult, each accent a blow aimed at Arthur.

An electric stillness settled over Arthur’s group. The archaeologists moved back reflexively; Professor Adrian’s hand was frozen in place, caught between wonder and an irrepressible scholar’s imagination.

He felt the history in the air as palpably as he felt in the creaking walls closing in upon them: two opposing forces laid bare in a site that contradicted every element of their world.

Gunner moved a little forward, a measured and guarding movement.

“Keep it civil,” he cautioned, his tone level and even. “You two are broken. Don’t make it worse.”

Ravik’s chest was straining with emotion. Blood had set around his collarbone, badly stitched but still sore.

He took a step forward, anger radiating from him like heat from a flame.

“You knew that those tunnels were the wrong ones and we will die,” he snarled in accusation, his face contorted in a scowl of rage. “You let us endure the worst of it! Why didn’t you tell us…”

“I didn’t choose your path,” Arthur inserted levelly, his tone smooth and even. “You made your own choices.”

Caelum’s eyes grew cold as he glared at Arthur, ” You manipulated us into choosing the wrong tunnels”.

“Hey..don’t blame this on me it was your pride that made you choose the wrong path,”

Arthur shot back, hanging the word in mid-air like a pronouncement, “Your arrogance carried you onto one path and Ravik’s greed carried him onto another. Both were risk-laden and treacherous both you walked them gladly. I didn’t do anything”

The atmosphere was tense as the archaeologist and Gunner and the others all looked at the battered and broken Ravik and Caelum with pity in their eyes.

But when they looked at Arthur, their eyes was full of awe and fear as the way Arthur made these two men lose all of their men and even injured both of them to this extent without even lifting a finger or even being there is quite monstrous.

At precisely this moment, Ethan broke the silence with a weary laughter,a sound too weary to be frivolous yet too human to be ignored.

“Well,” he growled, “someone had to pick the right path! Congratulations, Boss you’re either very lucky or very ruthless.”

Ravik’s laugh was hollow; it echoed off stone walls like despair itself.

He bolted forward as if set on throwing himself at Arthur but staggered instead and fell across a broken block,knees weakened by despair and exhaustion leaving blood and dust smeared across his face

“You brought us to slaughter,” he repeated angrily but now more broken than ever. “You could have stopped it… you could have…my men….my brothers…Jarek”

His voice caught into something akin to a whine before he rid himself of that vulnerability like shedding skin. “But you just let us fall.”

His voice was broken, tears even stream down his cheeks when he remembered how the tomb slaughtered off all his brothers.

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