Chapter 150: His Inner Seal

Zorya stared at Raziel’s chest and kept her shaking finger pointed right at his heart.

She just formed the permanent bond with him using the third Forbidden Gift.

She felt the gold and black energy fighting inside his core through their shared connection, but she also felt something else buried deep beneath the magic.

“The seventh mark is inside you,” Zorya repeated.

Raziel looked down at his own chest.

He placed his hand over and forced his Umbral Paragon core to flare.

He bypassed the holy light and pushed past the dark rot of the Shadow Parasite to search the absolute center of his soul.

He hit a physical wall. It was a literal spiritual vault door locked tight inside his own mana channels.

The blue interface erupted in his vision.

[GIFT 7/?: SEALED.]

[REQUIREMENTS FOR ACCESS: Master Gifts 4, 5, and 6. Unlock the original memory of the Umbral Paragon.]

Raziel read the text and his breathing stopped.

The System added a second block of text right below the requirements.

[WARNING: The Architect DOES NOT know this Gift exists. The Nine hid this code from him.]

[If the Architect discovers this anomaly before the Player masters it… CATASTROPHIC CONSEQUENCE.]

Raziel stared at the floating words while the truth hit his brain.

The Nine dead gods did not just lose the war five hundred years ago.

They sabotaged the game board from the inside.

They hid a weapon inside the game rules and put it in a place the Architect could never monitor.

They put it inside a Player.

Raziel realized what he did.

When he fused the holy Paragon light with the Shadow Parasite back in the St. Sophia dungeon, he did not just get a power upgrade to survive Mother Celestine.

He forged the exact container the Nine designed countless cycles ago.

That explained the blind spots.

The Nine broke the code piece by piece over thousands of resets, and Raziel represented their final play.

Raziel dismissed the interface and looked at Zorya.

“We need to go back up,” Raziel stated.

They left the Founder’s room and climbed the rusted iron rungs of the dark shaft.

They squeezed past the damaged stone and reached the East Basement an hour later.

Lucian and Gideon stood guard by the heavy iron door while Caius sat in the corner and watched the silver runes on the walls.

Raziel walked to the center of the workshop and dropped the bronze map onto the wooden table.

CLANG.

He looked at the group.

He needed them to understand the stakes because the board just changed completely.

He explained the seventh mark to them.

He kept the time loop private but he told them the core truth regarding the magic.

“The final weapon rests inside my own chest,” Raziel explained and pointed at the bronze map.

“Elector Mordecai does not just want to seal the academy to stop the ancient magic. If the Inquisition captures me and dissects my core, they will hand the ultimate power straight to the enemy.”

Lucian crossed his arms and let out a hard breath.

“So we are not just defending a building anymore. We are defending you.”

“Yes,” Raziel answered.

Caius listened to the explanation in silence.

The transfer novice always kept a blank face and showed zero emotion during their operations.

But the news broke his rigid posture.

He walked over to the nearest stone pillar and rested his scarred hand against the cold bricks.

“The Nine…” Caius spoke with a strange voice and sounded older than a teenage boy. “…waited all this time.”

Caius turned his head and looked at Raziel.

“The people who sent me suspected this,” Caius continued.

“They studied the ancient texts and looked for anomalies in the magic but they did not know for sure.”

“Do you understand what this means?” Caius asked.

“It means I am a weapon,” Raziel answered.

“No.” Caius shook his head. “Weapons are used by others. You are a door.”

Caius paused and let the silence fill the dark workshop.

“And what sits on the other side… can close the game forever.”

Raziel absorbed the words.

He did not just have to stop Prince Ayres from taking the throne, and he did not just have to stop Zion from burning the continent.

He had to end the cycle completely.

The bronze plate resting on the wooden table started to vibrate.

VMMMM!

The metal heated up in a fraction of a second. The temperature spiked and scorched the wood beneath the map. Thick gray smoke curled from the table.

Raziel took a step back and grabbed the hilt of his dagger.

Lucian drew his weapon and Gideon raised his fists.

All seven marks on the bronze blueprint ignited at the exact same time.

The six scattered dots and the central seventh dot flashed with blinding silver light. They held the light for three full seconds.

The entire academy resonated in response.

It was not the violent, shaking earthquake from Lithos.

It was a deep and heavy hum that traveled through the foundation and vibrated in their teeth.

The sound carried absolute recognition.

The building recognized a forgotten password spoken aloud after five centuries of silence.

The silver runes across the East Basement walls flared with intense power.

The ancient magic erased the old warnings about the Inquisition. It deleted the suicide protocol completely.

The Academy wrote a brand new message in massive, unified geometric strokes across the bricks.

Raziel, Zorya, and Caius read the ancient syntax at the exact same time.

“The bearer of the Seventh has been found,” Raziel translated the first line.

Zorya stepped closer to the wall and read the next geometric sequence out loud.

Her raspy voice gained strength.

“Update protocol. Maximum priority: PROTECT THE BEARER.”

The low hum in the floor stabilized into a solid vibration.

The academy stopped panicking and stopped acting like a trapped animal. The foundation found a purpose.

Raziel looked at the final sentence burning into the stone.

He read the words and felt the heavy weight of an entire ancient temple standing right behind him.

“Cancel self-destruct protocol,” Raziel read. “New protocol: RESIST.”

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