SSS-Ranked Trash Hero: I Was Scammed Into Being Summoned-Chapter 58: The Arrival of the Dark Spirit

The Shaman’s voice filled the room again, steady at first but already faster than it had been earlier in the night, the sound of it echoing across the stone walls while it stood at the broken table with both hands pressed against the cracked surface and its staff leaning within reach against the edge.

The rhythm of the words had changed.

Earlier the Shaman had spoken slowly, careful and controlled, but now the pace had shifted and the words came quicker, almost pressing into each other as the ritual moved forward.

Something about it felt urgent.

Like the Shaman was trying to make up for lost time.

The markings on the walls reacted to the voice.

The lines started turning on again, one by one. They lit up from the outer edges of the room and slowly moved toward the middle. The light spread across the stone in thin lines, like small cracks glowing under the surface.

The crack across the table was still there.

The stone had not repaired itself.

But the Shaman had adjusted.

Its hands shifted slightly across the broken surface as it continued speaking, and whatever sequence it was following now had changed. The ritual was not the same as before. The order of the words had changed, the timing of them had changed, and the energy building inside the room felt different.

Not weaker.

Just... redirected.

Hiroshi lay on the floor watching it happen.

His cheek rested against the cold stone. His body felt distant, heavy and slow, like it no longer belonged entirely to him. The strength multiplier had burned itself out completely and what remained underneath it was simply a body that had been pushed too far.

His arms barely responded. His legs didn’t respond at all.

But his eyes were still open.

From where he lay he could see the entire room.

He could see the Shaman standing at the broken table speaking faster and faster.

He could see the glowing markings climbing across the walls.

And he could see the shapes of the dead still drifting through the chamber, moving slowly through the air without direction now that the Shaman’s attention had turned fully back to the ritual.

Hiroshi tried to move his hand.

For a moment nothing happened.

Then his fingers shifted slightly against the stone.

The movement was small. But it was movement.

He focused on the Shaman again.

The speaking was faster now.

The Shaman had tilted its head back, both of its eyes aimed toward the ceiling. The white clouded eye and the yellow one stared upward as the words continued pouring out of its mouth.

The staff lifted off the wall.

It rose slowly into the air beside the table, standing upright without support. The wood rotated gently in place as if someone was holding it there.

The bones and cords hanging from the Shaman’s neck began moving as well.

There was no wind in the room.

But the pieces shifted against each other anyway, knocking softly together as they swayed.

The markings on the walls reached full bright.

For a brief moment they held there.

Then they grew brighter.

Brighter than before.

Brighter than anything the room had produced earlier that night.

The faint red glow that had been mixed inside the light during the first ritual was gone now. What replaced it had no color that Hiroshi could easily describe.

It was light.

But not a light he had ever seen before.

It filled the room in a way that didn’t belong inside stone walls with iron torch brackets and cracked floor.

The shapes of the dead reacted immediately.

Every one of them.

The goblin shapes drifting near the ground.

The human shapes hanging in the air.

All of them stopped moving at the same time.

Then they pressed themselves flat against the walls.

Instantly.

Their forms stretched against the stone as if they were trying to make themselves thinner, pushing as far away from the center of the room as the walls would allow.

It looked like fear.

Like something was about to happen that even the dead wanted distance from.

The Shaman’s voice rose higher.

The final words came out sharp, strong, and louder.

Then one last word followed.

Hard and clear.

Then everything stopped. Silence fell across the chamber.

The staff dropped from the air and struck the floor with a hollow crack.

The markings stayed bright but stopped shifting.

Nothing in the room moved.

The shapes of the dead remained pressed flat against the walls.

The kobolds near the doorway froze where they stood.

Even Elias stopped fighting and turned his head toward the center of the chamber.

For a long moment nothing happened. Then the crack in the table widened.

The stone did not shatter. It opened. Slowly.

The two halves of the cracked table separated for a narrow gap to appear between them.

Light came out of the opening.

The same strange color as the markings on the walls.

But stronger and denser.

It rose from the crack in a thin column that climbed straight upward toward the ceiling.

When it reached the stone above, the ceiling didn’t break.

The light simply passed through it. Like the rock wasn’t there.

The column continued upward.

The Shaman lowered its head.

For a moment it stared at the opening in the table.

Then it dropped to its knees. Both knees struck the stone floor.

The staff lay beside it.

The Shaman bowed forward slowly until its forehead nearly touched the ground.

Then it stayed like that. Completely still.

Head lowered.

Kneeling and waiting.

The column of light above the table began to change.

Something was moving inside it. Something coming downward.

From wherever the light had gone when it passed through the ceiling.

The column thickened. The strange color deepened.

The air inside the chamber shifted in a way that had nothing to do with heat or cold.

The room itself felt different. Like the space inside it was stretching.

Making room for something larger than the room could hold.

Then it arrived.

There was no sound or flash.

One moment the column of light was empty.

The next moment something stood inside it.

A shape that wasn’t truly a shape.

Something tall.

Taller than the ceiling should have allowed.

Dark in a way that ignored the bright light surrounding it.

The Ancient Dark Spirit looked around the room.

The shapes of the dead vanished instantly.

Like they had never existed at all.

The Shaman remained kneeling with its head bowed.

The Spirit looked down at it.

For a moment. Then it reached out.

What happened next was quick.

The Shaman had spent years preparing this moment.

The Shaman had opened the door.

That was its only purpose.

The sound that followed was short.

When it ended the Shaman lay on the floor beside the broken table.

The Spirit straightened again.

The room became quiet.

The kobolds that had been standing near the door were gone.

Hiroshi had not seen them leave.

They were simply no longer there.

The door behind Elias hung open now. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

The tunnel beyond it was dark and silent.

Elias stood alone near the entrance.

The Spirit turned its head and looked at him.

Elias looked back. Neither of them moved.

For a long moment the two of them simply stood there staring at each other.

Then the Spirit looked away.

Its attention shifted downward.

Toward the floor.

Toward Hiroshi.

Hiroshi looked back up at it.

He could barely move now.

Barely breathe.

But his eyes remained open. The Spirit stepped away from the table.

The distance across the room disappeared almost instantly.

One moment it stood near the light. The next moment it stood above him.

Looking down.

Hiroshi didn’t feel fear.

There wasn’t enough strength left in him for fear. His body had already spent everything it had.

All that remained was enough awareness to see what was happening.

The Spirit lowered itself toward him.

Its hand reached out.

Hiroshi felt the pressure before the touch arrived.

It pressed against his skin and moved inward slowly.

It was not painful. But it was absolute.

Like cold spreading through stone.

He tried to speak.

No sound came out.

The Spirit placed its hand against his chest. Something shifted inside him.

Something inside him moved aside.

And something else began moving into the empty space beside it.

His vision faded.

His eyes closed.

The last sound he heard was Elias calling his name.

From somewhere across the room.

Then everything went dark.