The morning mist hung low over the valley, veiling the distant hills of Jos like a dream only half remembered. Chuka stood barefoot on a ring of smooth stones, his breath steady but his heart racing. Before him, his mentor, the old professor and archeologist known as Kalu Nwankwo, traced slow, deliberate lines on the ground with a staff carved from iroko wood. Each movement left behind faint trails of golden light that shimmered briefly before fading.
"Energy," Kalu said, not looking up. "It does not vanish — it shifts, it transforms, it remembers." He struck the earth lightly, and the air around them quivered. "Your steps must remember where you've been, even when your body no longer stands there."
Chuka nodded, though the meaning still tangled in his mind like a knot. He had trained his body to move faster, to read the pulse of life around him, but teleportation — stepping between spaces — was different. It wasn't about speed. It was about alignment.
"Close your eyes," the old man instructed. "Feel where you stand — the weight of the air, the breath of the trees, the pull beneath your soles. To move without losing yourself, you must know yourself in every place."
Chuka obeyed. The world fell into silence, except for the murmur of wind through tall grass. In that quiet, something stirred inside him — a vibration that wasn't his own heartbeat. He felt threads connecting him to the stones, the soil, even to the faint hum in the air above the plateau where he had once fought for his freedom.
Kalu's voice flowed through that silence like a river. "Now step forward… but not with your feet."
For a heartbeat, everything blurred. Chuka's breath caught — he was no longer standing on the stones. The world around him shimmered like rippling water, and when it cleared, he was ten paces away, the scent of the earth sharper, the air charged.
He gasped and stumbled to one knee.
Kalu smiled faintly. "Not bad. But you forced it. The Divine Steps cannot be willed — they are heard. You must listen until the path reveals itself."
All through the day, the training continued. Chuka learned to anchor his spirit in movement — to breathe through space rather than fight against it. Each attempt left him trembling, as though the world itself resisted being rewritten.
By dusk, the valley had turned golden, and sweat glistened on his skin. He sat by the stream, staring at his reflection. For a moment, the water darkened — and in its depths, he saw faint echoes of something vast: a city beneath waves, lights pulsing like veins, and a relic glowing deep within the ocean's cradle.
He jerked back, startled. "I saw something," he whispered.
Kalu's expression hardened slightly. "You've begun to touch the threads. The relics are stirring again — your connection to them is not a gift, Chuka. It is a burden the Maker left behind."
Chuka's thoughts tangled — the relic, the visions, the ancient voice that sometimes whispered in his dreams. "Why me?"
"Because your blood remembers," Kalu said quietly. "And because fate chose through the chaos of bloodlines. The plateau was only the beginning. To master the Divine Steps is to master passage — not only through space, but through what lies between worlds."
Night fell softly around them. The stars emerged, scattering across the sky like shards of forgotten truths. Kalu drew a circle of ash and salt, and in its center, lit a small blue flame. "Tonight," he said, "you will step again — but this time, to a place of memory."
Chuka stood at the circle's edge, the air around him charged with quiet power. He inhaled deeply, then exhaled, letting the world slip away. The ground vibrated underfoot, the flame expanded, and suddenly — he was falling through light.
When his vision cleared, he stood upon an endless plain of silver dust. Towering pillars rose in the distance, etched with spirals of light that moved like living script. A wind whispered across the expanse — carrying voices he did not understand.
Then he saw it — a shadow in the form of a man, waiting for him at the center of the plain.
"Who are you?" Chuka called out.
The figure turned, and though its face was obscured, Chuka felt something inside him stir — familiarity, fear, awe.
"I am what remains of the First Walker," the voice replied. "And you, Chuka Nworie, walk the path I once failed to finish."
The silver plain trembled beneath his feet. The world began to dissolve, light curling back into darkness.
He awoke on the valley floor, gasping for breath. Kalu crouched beside him, eyes grave but calm.
"You met him, didn't you?" the old man asked.
Chuka nodded weakly. "He called himself the First Walker."
Kalu's gaze drifted toward the horizon. "Then the cycle has begun again. And the relic beneath the sea will soon awaken fully."
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Meanwhile — Pacific Trench
Far beneath the churning surface of the South Pacific, Roman's private expedition had descended into the trench's shadowed heart. Massive floodlights from the deep-sea submersible Aegir-9 cut through black water, illuminating spirals of coral and basalt structures that no one could explain.
Inside the craft, Dr. Elise Navarro adjusted the controls, eyes darting between erratic readings. "Sir, the scanners are useless. Magnetic interference keeps spiking every few seconds. It's like something down here is… breathing."
Roman's voice crackled through the comms from the surface command vessel Leviathan. "Keep your position. The relic should be below the trench's third shelf — two hundred meters down."
"Except the trench doesn't have a third shelf," Navarro muttered. "It's forming in real time."
Then the sea began to tremble. Not violently — but rhythmically. A pulse rolled through the depths like a heartbeat. The sonar screens lit up with concentric waves forming a symbol none of them recognized — a spiral intersected by a line of light.
"Sir, we're getting resonance!" an operator shouted from the deck. "The ocean floor — it's responding to something external. Electromagnetic pattern originating from— wait— Africa. Central plateau region."
Roman froze, his reflection staring back from the glass. "Jos," he whispered.
As he spoke, the trench walls began to glow faintly with golden veins, the same pattern etched on the artifact they'd recovered months ago. Sediment lifted, spiraling upward in columns of light.
In the Aegir-9, Navarro gripped the armrest as the submersible shook. "What in God's name—?"
Then the floor opened. A massive chamber unfurled beneath them — smooth, carved from black stone, and breathing with faint light. At its center floated an orb encased in translucent crystal, radiating a pulse that matched the tremor echoing from Jos.
Roman's voice was steady. "There it is. The Pacific relic."
On the surface, waves surged outward in perfect concentric rings. The anomaly was visible even from orbit — a living pattern expanding across the sea.
Back in Jos
Chuka collapsed to his knees, clutching his chest. The air shimmered with heat, the ground vibrating as if the world had just exhaled.
Kalu steadied him, his face pale. "Do you feel it?"
"Yes," Chuka gasped. "Something… broke free."
Kalu's voice was grave. "No, not broke free — was found. Your training has awakened it. Across the ocean, they now see what they were never meant to find."
Chuka looked toward the night horizon, a strange pressure filling his lungs — the same pulse echoing faintly through the stars. Somewhere deep in his spirit, he felt the relic's song calling him, merging with the rhythm of his own heartbeat.
Far across the world, Roman stood at the edge of his ship's deck, staring at the storm forming above the trench. Lightning laced the clouds, spiraling downward toward the sea — as if answering an unseen signal.
The relic had awakened.
And now, both men were bound to it — one by blood, the other by ambition.
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