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Chapter 44: The Breaking Point
Terakhir Diperbarui:
2025-03-12 18:58:20
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The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 45: The Aftermath
The world wasn’t the same. It should have been. The city still stood. The sky hadn’t fallen. The Council’s bastion hadn’t dissolved into grit. And yet — all of it felt different. Lighter. Heavier. Both at the same time.I had no idea how long I stood there, encircled in Maxwell’s arms, and I’m sure I shook from fatigue. The tether was gone. The Guardian was gone. So why did I still sense her shadow?Jameson exhaled a long, thin breath, shattering the silence. “Alright. So. Not to burst the bubble, but… now what?”No one answered. Because none of us knew. All we had focused on for weeks was this — the breaking the tethers, stopping whatever was buried inside of me from consuming me whole. Now it was done. But the world hadn’t ended. And we were still standing.Soraya rubbed her temples and breathed slowly. “We need to get out of here before the Council realizes what just went on.”Jameson scoffed. “Oh, I’m pretty sure they know already.” He waved at the cracked stone, at the fading imp
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-12The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 46: The Echoes We Cannot Run From
We didn’t stop running. Not as the tunnel behind us shook. Not when the walls creaked as though they were living. Not when the voice—that thing’s voice—kept whispering in my head, winding around my ribs like smoke.Maxwell’s hand on my wrist was iron, pulling me forward, refusing to let me slip back into whatever nightmare we’d just woken up from.” Soraya’s magic crackled at my back, sealing the tunnel as best she could, but it didn’t help. We weren’t simply fleeing a place.We all were running from something ancient.Something I had only just let go of.Jameson cursed quietly, thrusting the exit door open as we fell into the frigid night air. It had begun to rain, lightly but fiercely, the smell of wet stone surging into my lungs as I gasped for air. My chest hurt, whatever had tried to grapple on me still wrenching and clawing against my ribs.I doubled over, hands on my knees, willing myself to breathe.Maxwell was by my side in a second, his hand hovering near my back but not touc
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-13The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 47: The Runs of the Past
The highway in front of us wound through the faded edges of the city, where the buildings had dwindled, one disappearing and the next appearing in short order, before giving in to thick forest and long abandoned property. Beneath centuries of history, behind centuries of distance, the ruins lay a little beyond the treeline, buried a little like a wound the world was unwilling to test.No one spoke as we walked. Not at first. There was too much festering, unvoiced pressure between us, too many unuttered thoughts.For once, Jameson wasn’t making jokes. His knife darted in and out of finger gaps, his idea of latent energy. Soraya kept looking up at the sky, her magic dancing in the air as if waiting for something to follow us. Maxwell … he was quiet, looking at me every few minutes, searching my expression for something.I knew what he was searching for.Signs that I was slipping.That someone who had spoken to me in the Council’s ruins was still whispering in my head.And the truth? It
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-13The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 48: The Call from Below
Soraya whispered, “You didn’t just say that to me.”Jameson gripped his blade tightly. “We need to leave.”But I couldn’t move.Because the voice wasn’t coming from near us.It was coming from below us.And then, when the last of the ruins fell into place, the center of the stone floor split open and revealed the entrance to something deeper.Something waiting.Maxwell pulled me back just as another tremor rocked the earth, dislodging dust and debris to tumble around us.I glanced at him, voice scarcely more than a whisper. “They buried something here.”His expression was grim. “And now you woke it up.”The ruins pulsed once more, thick with expectation of magic.The doorway was open.And whatever lurked inside knew my name.The air around us felt taut, pregnant with the ancient and expectant. The whispering had ceased to be, replaced with a silence that was even louder. I swallowed hard, my heart racing as I looked at the yawning portal in the middle of the wreckage.Maxwell continue
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-13The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 49: Beneath the Ruins
The descent was slow. With each foot we took into the ruins, it was as though we were entering a past that had been expecting us. The air was thick, pressing against my skin, saturated with more than time. It was expectant.Maxwell took the lead, drawn blade, wary steps. Jameson came next, muttering under his breath about how this was the worst idea we’d ever had — which, given our track record, was really saying something. Soraya walked with me, tracing her fingers over the stone walls, feeling the wear of ages past in the sigils carved into the passageway.I walked in the center, my heart slamming with a something I would not name.I wasn’t scared.I was waiting.So was whatever was down here.Jameson exhaled sharply. “Remind me again why we’re heading into a cursed underground tomb?”Soraya sighed. “Because if we don’t, Lena will continue to have visions, we’ll continue to fumble blindly, and eventually, something worse will come knocking.”Jameson scoffed. “Is it worse than whatev
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-13The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 50: Stone holds the truth buried beneath
The chamber was still, but the air thrummed with the resonance of something old, something observed. The woman—if she could be called that—did not move, the cracks of golden light coursing through her body like fibers of power beneath the surface.Her black eyes pierced mine, waiting, expectant."Shall I tell you the truth?"Maxwell’s grip on my wrist was like iron. “Lena. Don’t.”I barely heard him. It reverberated in my ribs, my thoughts percolating between fear and understanding.Because whatever she was, whatever this was, I already knew the truth long before she even said it.She wasn’t just a relic.She wasn’t just a Guardian.She was the first.And she had been waiting for me.I put my arm around Soraya, whose voice was tight. “Lena, we don’t know who she is.”Jameson scoffed. “She just woke up from a stone prison. I’ll bet we know what she is — bad news.”The woman sitting on the throne tilted her head slightly as if amused. “You traveled all this way, risked so much, to pursu
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-14The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 51: The Decision I Did Not Make
The ruins were crumbling. A tremor of magic pulsed through the chamber, breaking like an earthquake that had lain in wait for centuries along the stone. The air was thick with dust that clogged my lungs, but I barely registered it. My blood was thunder in my ears, my skin quivering with something I couldn’t name.The woman — the First — remained still, safeguarded from the turmoil about her. Her void-black eyes were fixed on me. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t running.Because she already knew what was going to happen.And she knew it would be me who had to decide.Jameson coughed, waving the dense air out of the way. “All right, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I vote we run.”Soraya’s magic sizzled, keeping the buckling ceiling at bay. “Agreed! Whatever you’re going to do, Lena, do it fast.”Maxwell reached for my arm and pulled me to him. His grip was tight, urgent. “Lena. We’re leaving.”I didn’t move.Because the second I did, it meant that something was over.The First
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-14The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 52: The Price of the Knowledge
The people around me were a blur. Maxwell holding my shoulders was the only thing keeping me from collapsing, his voice acute and insistent. “Lena! Look at me.”I tried, but my vision swam, my pulse beat too fast, and my body felt too weak. The whispers weren’t gone. They were making themselves comfortable inside me, waiting, curling in the crevices of my mind as if they had always belonged.I had felt them. The Old Ones. And worse — they had felt me, too.Jameson’s voice pierced the fog. “We need to get out of here. Right. Now.”Soraya still clung to her magic, forcing the crumbling ruins around them to stay together by will. “Elena, I’m not sure what just happened, but you need to get up.”I couldn’t move.Because I didn’t know if I was still me.I looked into Maxwell’s eyes, and the same fear reflected in mine. He knew. Even if I had said nothing, he knew something was different.His voice was hoarse, hands clenched on my arms. “Tell me you’re still here.”I swallowed, pushing out
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-03-14
Bab terbaru
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 152: Shattered Lines
The roar of the Firstborn creatures tore across the sanctuary like a living wave. They moved with terrifying grace, shadows with jagged edges, mouths full of teeth too many for any natural being. Their bodies twisted in ways that defied logic, like they had never been meant to walk in a world bound by rules.I barely had time to raise a shield before the first impact hit. Magic flared around us, an unsteady wall of golden light. Maxwell was already at my side, slashing at the nearest creature, his blade singing as it cut into the darkness. But they weren’t easy to kill—every wound sealed almost immediately, the monsters adapting, growing stronger with each blow.“We can’t hold them!” Barin shouted from somewhere to my left, his arms coated in blood—some his, some not.Nima and Elara worked furiously at the boundary, their chants weaving more layers of protection, but the creatures shredded through them like paper. I knew it then. This wasn’t a battle we could win by brute strength.We
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 151: The Crown and the Cost
The magic snapped like a whip through the circle.For a moment, it felt like the sanctuary itself recoiled from what we were trying to do, as if even the earth knew the risk we were taking. But we held the line—Maxwell, Barin, Nima, Elara, and the others—all of us linked not just by magic, but by sheer, desperate will.The vault below the sanctuary pulsed like a second heartbeat, slower and heavier than the First Door, but no less ominous. As we chanted, the bindings on it began to fray, golden threads unraveling into the night air.And then, A crack.Not from the ground this time. From the sky.Lightning forked across the heavens, but it wasn't the natural blue-white of a summer storm. It was black, threaded with red, like the sky itself was bleeding. A smell like burning iron filled the air.Something else had arrived. Something not from our world.Barin staggered, clutching his head. “They’re coming!” he gasped.“Focus!” I shouted, forcing my magic into the next seal layer.Nima’s
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 150: When the Earth Breaks Open
For the first time in my life, I felt powerless.The heartbeat beneath the earth had grown faster, stronger, until the ground vibrated constantly, as though the land itself were straining against invisible chains. Around us, the sanctuary’s wards pulsed weakly, flickering like candle flames caught in a hurricane. Every instinct in my body screamed that the Harbinger’s arrival wasn’t the end of the nightmare—it was the beginning.Maxwell stood beside me, staring into the darkness beyond the tents. His face was a perfect mask, but I knew him too well. I could see the tension in the set of his shoulders, the fear he would never voice unless forced.“We’re not ready for this,” Barin muttered, pacing back and forth. “We built defenses against armies, assassins, the Council’s damn enforcers—but this?” He shook his head violently. “We can’t fight myths, Lena.”“We’re not fighting myths,” I said, my voice hoarse but certain. “We’re fighting the consequences of lies too old to be forgotten.”I
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 149: Whispers of the First Door
For a long time, no one moved.Lior’s body lay unnaturally still, the black veins receding slowly as if whatever force had animated him had finally burned itself out. The silence pressed into my ears like a physical weight, and all I could hear was the wild hammering of my own heart.Maxwell knelt cautiously, checking Lior’s pulse even though we all knew there would be none. “He’s gone,” he said grimly, standing and wiping his hands on his trousers like he could scrub away what he had just witnessed.I stepped closer to Lior’s body, forcing my legs to obey even as every part of me screamed to turn away. My fingers itched to summon my magic, to scan deeper, but something in my gut warned me against it. Whatever had been buried in Lior, whatever had just been unleashed, it had been old. Purposeful. A ticking time bomb planted within him long before he ever set foot inside our sanctuary.Barin's voice broke the suffocating quiet. “First Door?” he said, his tone raw, full of confusion and
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 148: The Door in the Blood
The Seal wasn’t just breaking.It was opening.I could feel it deep inside my chest, pulsing to a rhythm I hadn’t known was mine until now—a calling that wasn’t spoken in words, but written into my bones.Maxwell gripped my arm. “Lena. Talk to me. What’s happening?”I struggled to find my voice. “The Seal... It’s not just a lock. It’s a beacon. It’s been waiting for me. Not to keep it closed—” my throat tightened, “—but to complete it.”Barin burst into the tent, panting hard. “The eastern sentries just reported—cracks. In the ley lines. They’re... bleeding magic. Wild magic.”Bleeding.The word hit harder than it should have. As if something sacred was hemorrhaging, and I could feel every drop slipping away.Maxwell swore under his breath, pacing. “We don’t have time. You have to decide. Now.”But how could I decide?If I answered the call, if I embraced the destiny written into my blood, I risked becoming something else—something not entirely human. Not entirely mine. But if I refus
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 147: The Forgotten Oath
The silence after the stranger’s departure was deafening.Everyone remained frozen, as if moving might crack the fragile shell of reality he had left behind. The air inside the tent was thick with confusion, suspicion, and fear. Real fear. Not the kind that came from facing enemies you could see, but the kind that crawled inside you when you realized the ground you stood on might not be solid at all.Maxwell was the first to move. He grabbed my elbow, steady but firm. “Lena, what did he mean? What oath? What time are we losing?”I shook my head, though the truth gnawed at the back of my mind like a starving animal. I knew something. Something long buried. But my waking memory refused to yield it.“I don’t know,” I said, though my voice lacked conviction.Lior was already pulling on his jacket, moving toward the entrance. “We need to track him. He can't have gotten far.”“No,” I said sharply, stopping him mid-step. “He didn’t come to hide. He came to make sure we heard him. If we chase
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 146: The Ash Beneath
The words that hung in the air settled heavily. I looked at Lior, and then at the others in the tent. They were all waiting, no longer with mere curiosity but with the weight of their expectations. What would I do now? Would I continue to walk this fragile line alone, or would I listen?I exhaled sharply, feeling a mix of frustration and understanding in equal measure. He was right in some ways, but the urgency of the hour didn’t leave room for hesitation or second-guessing. Yet, this wasn’t just about me anymore. This was about all of us. About the future we were building—together, or not at all.“I never intended to be the only one making decisions,” I said, my voice more controlled now. “The sanctity of this place was never meant to be mine alone.”Lior raised an eyebrow. “Then why are we here? Why are we sitting here while you lay the foundation with the very hands that will one day destroy it?”“Because I was trying to protect us all,” I responded, my eyes flicking to the others
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 145: The Word Burned
The word LIAR still smoldered on the earth.Not from magic, but from intention. The burn was too crude, too human. There was no sigil or mystical flair to hide behind. No illusion. Just a raw accusation, left like a scar on sacred ground.Someone hadn’t just defaced the stone—they’d made a statement. And they’d made it here, at the heart of everything we were trying to build.I stood over it for a long time. Too long. I could feel the others watching me—Barin, Maxwell, Elara, even some of the apprentices who had come to help reinforce the foundation wards. They waited for a command, a reaction, anything to show them what I would do now.I didn’t give it to them.Not yet.Because inside me, there was a storm I couldn't afford to unleash—not until I knew where the crack had started.Maxwell stepped closer, voice low. “You think it’s someone inside?”I didn’t look at him. “If it were an outsider, the outer wards would have flared.”He swore under his breath. “Then we’ve been infiltrated.
The Blood Bound Legacy Chapter 144: A Covenant of Fire
“You called me reckless,” I continued. “You sent dreams and threats and doppelgängers to test my integrity. And I passed. Not by your standards—but by surviving, intact, through the kind of grief most of you would’ve buried. I faced my worst self and didn’t break.”A pause.“Can any of you say the same?”Silence.Then Elias spoke again, quieter. “And what do you propose, then? A Council of one?”“No,” I said. “A new covenant. Shared authority. A seat at the table for those you’ve excluded. A place where power isn’t feared—but shaped, taught, and trusted.”He didn’t move. “You’re asking us to rewrite centuries.”“I’m telling you,” I said, “they’re already rewriting themselves. You can participate—or you can be left behind.”The room held its breath.Then Elias smiled.It was small. But real.“You’ve grown,” he said. “Far more than we expected.”“I’m just getting started.”The chamber stayed silent for a moment after I spoke those words, but it wasn’t the silence of resistance—it was th
