For a long moment, neither of them moved. The hum from the relic filled the air, low and rhythmic, like a pulse beneath stone. Dust floated between them in trembling beams of light.
Chuka crouched again beside the tablet, brushing away more soil until a new series of symbols appeared along the base. The carvings formed scenes—men kneeling, fire rising, hollow-eyed figures wrapped in spirals of clay.
"These aren't just records," he said. "They're warnings."
Amara joined him, the flashlight steady in her hand.
"What kind of warnings?"
He began translating aloud, his voice slow and careful.
> "When the gods refused to kneel, the wise bound them in flesh of earth and breath of men."
"Thus was born the armour of the Nok—vessels of divinity and doom."
"Whoever wears the shell of heaven shall wield its might—but carry its curse."
Amara's breath caught. "Curse?"
Chuka nodded. "It says the armour gave mortals the strength of the gods, but it consumed them. Their bodies hardened like clay, their souls burned away until they became what they worshipped—statues."
He traced another image—a figure standing proud in a glowing suit, then sinking to its knees as cracks spread across its skin.
> "Power is the gift and the punishment," he read softly. "No man may command a god and remain human."
The chamber felt colder. The hum beneath their feet grew louder, almost like a whisper of laughter from below.
Amara swallowed. "If this armour cursed everyone who used it… then why would anyone want to find it?"
Chuka hesitated, then flipped open one of the old ledgers stacked near the pedestal. The pages were brittle, covered in her father's handwriting. Equations, sketches of the same circle-of-fire symbol, and notes scrawled in the margins:
"Energy yield = limitless."
"Biological interface—human host required."
"Control through bloodline resonance?"
Amara froze. "That's my father's handwriting."
Chuka looked up at her grimly. "He wasn't just studying the site. He was trying to recreate the ritual—to harness the armour's energy."
Amara shook her head in disbelief. "No… He wanted to protect this. He said it was dangerous—"
"He said that to you," Chuka cut in gently. "But look." He pointed to a final line at the bottom of the page:
"Roman Energy will hold what the gods could not."
Silence swallowed the chamber.
Amara's voice broke when she finally spoke. "He wanted to make himself a god."
Chuka closed the book. "Or at least use divine power as a weapon."
The hum deepened again, the relic glowing faintly between them—as if amused by their discovery. The carvings seemed to shift under the light, the figures on the stone flickering with faint movement, their hollow eyes almost alive.
Amara stepped back. "If he tried to control it… then he's the reason the fracture happened."
Chuka nodded. "Whatever he awakened back then—it's still alive down here. The Nok gods weren't destroyed. They were imprisoned in these armours, waiting for anyone foolish enough to wear them again."
Amara's gaze lingered on the cracked pedestal. "And now we've opened their prison."
A low rumble passed through the floor, dust drifting down from the ceiling. For a heartbeat, the chamber seemed to breathe.
Chuka grabbed her hand. "We have to leave. Now."
They turned toward the stairway, the sound of the relic following them—a slow, deliberate rhythm, echoing through the tunnel like footsteps chasing them upward.
When they emerged into the cool Jos night, lightning forked across the horizon, throwing silver light over the valley. The wind smelled of rain and iron, and somewhere deep below, the hum continued—steady, patient, alive.
Amara looked back toward the ridge. "He tried to command gods," she whispered. "And now they're awake."
Chuka's jaw tightened. "Then we'd better learn how to stop them—before the curse finds someone new."
They stood for a moment beneath the vast, trembling sky of the plateau.
Behind them, beneath the earth, the relic pulsed once—bright and blood-red—before fading again into silence.
The relic's hum lingered in the air long after they closed Chief Roman's notebook. Each vibration seemed to crawl under their skin, sinking into their bones. The more they tried to ignore it, the louder it became—like a second heartbeat, steady and mocking.
Amara stood motionless, staring at her father's handwriting. The torchlight trembled slightly in her hand.
"I spent years defending him," she whispered. "Telling people they misunderstood him. That he wasn't the kind of man who'd destroy just to own something."
Chuka said nothing. The silence between them was thick with unspoken grief.
She turned to him suddenly, her eyes bright with tears and fury. "Do you know what it's like to realize your father tried to play god? That he traded souls for ambition?"
Chuka met her gaze. "Maybe he believed he could control it. Men like your father always think they can."
He hesitated, his voice softening. "But maybe he also knew it would destroy him—and that's why he kept it secret from you."
Amara looked away. The chamber's shadows danced across her face, streaks of gold and black. "If he knew it would destroy him," she murmured, "then he still chose power over peace."
Chuka's flashlight flickered. He tapped it, and for a brief instant, the beam fell directly on the relic again.
The carvings pulsed faintly, and a shimmer ran along the stone as if it had come alive under Amara's voice.
The hum changed pitch. Deeper. Sharper.
Then, without warning, the relic flared with a brief flash of light.
Amara gasped, stepping back. The glow spread across the symbols and formed a faint outline—a mask-like face emerging from the surface, its hollow eyes staring at her.
Chuka grabbed her arm. "Don't move."