Forbidden Constellation's Blade-Chapter 161: The Night Creeps In

The King remained standing.

"...Leave us," he said at last.

The advisors withdrew first, along with the rest of the soldiers and attendants.

Only a few remained:

The Miner’s Guild Representatives, Gremory’s Hero Party, and the Dwarven King.

Braum exhaled slowly.

"Well," he muttered. "That wasn’t part of the plan."

Ryn didn’t smile.

Fritz stepped forward slightly, voice lower now that the chamber had emptied.

"...They?" he asked.

Ryn took a glance at Amelia before shaking his head. This wasn’t the time to talk about them yet.

Amelia immediately understood before speaking.

"Right," she said instead, stepping forward slightly. "We can deal with speculation later."

Her eyes moved toward the King.

"For now, we should secure whatever manalite remains in the treasury," she continued. "And redistribute it properly. Along with any other reserves that were... consolidated."

Braum gave a small nod.

"Agreed," he said. "We stabilize the city first."

Fritz glanced between them. "And if the Queen was telling the truth?"

Ryn didn’t answer that.

"Then we’ll need the manalite," he said calmly. "All of it."

***

The treasury doors groaned open under heavy mechanisms.

Inside, stacked crates of refined manalite shimmered a faint blue, casting reflections all over the walls.

Dwarven overseers barked instructions as workers moved in and out, carried under Braum’s direct supervision.

He stood with his arms folded, watching the process with sharp eyes.

Ryn stood beside him, silent.

The amount was frankly bizarre to see with his own eyes. Just this one treasury vault alone would be enough to power all of Gremory for at least a hundred years without issue.

The thought sparked a different concern entirely.

He reached into his storage ring and produced the blueprint.

"Care to give this a look?" Ryn said as he handed it over. "Gordon said you might know something about it."

Braum took it gingerly and unfurled it across a crate.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

His eyes moved quickly.

Ryn watched his expression carefully.

"...This isn’t a weapon," Braum said at last. "Or at least, not in the conventional way."

"What do you mean?" Ryn replied.

Braum traced a section with his finger.

"These junctions... this isn’t about destruction power," he continued. "It’s built in a similar way but more focused on something else—"

Ryn didn’t respond, waiting for the analysis.

Braum looked up.

"It’s built for penetration power, to break through something."

Ryn’s gaze sharpened.

"Break through what?" he asked.

Braum didn’t answer immediately.

His eyes returned to the diagram.

"...That depends," he said quietly.

"On what?"

"On what’s being held back," Braum continued. "But something of this caliber, to achieve what it’s trying to do..."

"Would take a lot of power."

Ryn went silent, putting the pieces together.

Was that why they chose Khaz Vordun? So they can exploit the Queen and get manalite for cheap?

The machine’s use, why would the Cult need something like this?

But another thought settled, one frightening enough to make him shudder.

Was the experimentation on Evernight Beasts, Pisces’ involvement...was it all just a test run for this?

If so, everything Ryn thought he knew about the Cult had been wrong. Completely.

They were far out from simply just ’nipping talents at the bud’. No, this was an elaborate plan with multiple cogs in action.

Braum rolled the blueprint back up slowly.

Before he could speak—

A sound tore through the treasury.

A low, resonant tremor that vibrated through both stone and bone alike.

Dust fell from the ceiling.

Workers stumbled, grabbing onto walls and each other.

"What was that?" someone shouted.

Another pulse followed—

Ryn was already moving.

"Outside," he said sharply.

They rushed out of the treasury, boots pounding against stone corridors. The sound grew heavier with each step.

They emerged into open light.

And saw it.

Out past the harbor.

Out beyond the docks and jagged coastlines...

From the ocean’s center—

A beam.

A massive column of blinding energy shot upward from the sea, piercing through cloud cover and stretching impossibly high.

It didn’t waver or flicker, it held completely still.

Braum stepped forward slowly.

"That’s not—"

The rest of Gremory’s Hero Party appeared beside them a few seconds later.

Everyone was staring, some in awe while others in confusion, or simply...terror.

The beam reached the upper atmosphere before suddenly stopping.

Not because it was malfunctional or stopped working all of a sudden.

No...because it hit something.

Ryn felt it first as suddenly, pain exploded behind his eyes.

"Ggh—!"

He dropped to one knee, clutching his face with one hand while propping himself up with the other.

"Ryn!" Amelia ran forward as she put a hand over his own.

That was when she saw it.

His eyes had turned into a deep black as his pupils were replaced by bright, glowing stars.

His Blessing...had activated on its own.

Ryn looked upwards and saw something he’ll never be able to explain.

The sky itself...cracked, not metaphorically or imaginatively. It spiderwebbed across the sky in a scene that should never have been possible.

The beam pulsed once more as a distortion traveled upward through it.

Like something being pushed through a narrow throat.

The water below churned violently as the column thickened, its light warping and folding around a mass inside.

Ryn’s breathing hitched.

A shape began to form within its center.

Humanoid, suspended in the column of light as if gravity had lost meaning.

Ryn’s Blessing flared brighter.

The stars in his eyes burned painfull as blood dripped down his cheek.

He could see more than the others.

Details no one else could perceive.

The local future, and everything within this point in time had condensed into a single event.

The figure turned, not toward the city or the ocean.

But at him.

Across the impossible distance, through layers of atmosphere and distortion.

Ryn met their piercing golden eyes. His heart stuttered as recognition brushed the edges of his memory.

But no name surfaced.

The figure looked at him for a single second.

Then they turned back to the sky before drawing back one arm.

"NO!" Ryn reached out with one hand.

But it was too late.

KRAAAAAAAK!

Like glass struck by a hammer, the sky shattered.

And from it...a deep and endless night spilled out from above.