Whispers of the Severed Hall
It me your boy, Richie gold.pls vote after reading.
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Sabre stood frozen.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't think.
He could barely breathe.
His boots felt glued to the shattered tiles beneath him, and his pulse hammered so violently it felt like something was trying to claw its way out of his ribcage. The vast hall, once filled with the intimidating presence of the Elders, was now soaked in a silence too heavy to bear—an unnatural, suffocating stillness, as if the very air had been forced to mourn.
The Astryx's words kept replaying in his skull, echoing with a sharpness he couldn't escape:
That voice… that inhuman coldness… that creature he had somehow summoned—without meaning to, without expectation, without desire. Sabre felt the memory dig into him like hooks. His breathing hitched. His vision blurred around the edges.
Slowly—terrifyingly slowly—he lifted his gaze from the cracked floor.
And it landed on them.
The heads.
The neatly arranged heads.
The elders' lifeless faces stared back at him, eyes wide open, mouths frozen in the final shapes of their screams. Blood had dried into dark, ugly stains, and the severed necks sat so cleanly cut it was as if the blade had never even touched flesh.
Sabre's stomach twisted.
His throat tightened.
Something hot and violent surged up the back of his neck—
"AAAAARGHHH!!!"
The scream tore itself out of him, raw and guttural.
It echoed across the hall like a wounded animal's cry, bouncing off the marble pillars, shattering whatever remained of the previous order that once lived there.
He clutched his head with both hands, nails digging into his scalp, trying to squeeze the memory away—trying to convince himself this wasn't real.
But it was.
Everywhere he looked, reality shoved itself into him with brutal honesty. Bodies lay where they had fallen. The stench of iron and burnt space pierced the air. Even the torches flickered unevenly as if afraid to shine too brightly in a place so desecrated.
His breathing spiraled out of control.
This is real…
This is real…
This is real.
Sabre staggered back a step, legs trembling.
He knew—deep in his bones—that the life he once wished for, the life he had begged the world for… a simple, peaceful, NORMAL life… it was gone. Gone permanently. Gone without warning. Gone the moment that monstrous entity burst through the cracked space and slaughtered the strongest elders in seconds.
He would be hunted for this.
Feared for this.
Hated for this.
He could already imagine the accusations.
"He summoned it!"
"He brought the Astryx here!"
"He's a danger to us all!"
No matter how much he explained…
no one would believe he didn't control the creature.
And deep inside… he wasn't even sure if he believed it himself.
His fingers tightened.
His heartbeat refused to slow.
"I… need a weapon."
The words slipped out before he even realized he had spoken them.
Not spoken — pleaded.
Sabre didn't think.
He simply moved.
His body acted on pure instinct—fear sharpened into survival. He ran, stumbling slightly, toward one of the fallen elders. His breath rasped through his throat like sandpaper as he dropped to his knees beside the corpse.
The elder's hands were cold.
The robe was soaked in blood.
But the weapon…
The arcane blade—long, wrapped in metallic threads, pulsing with faint blue energy—still hummed weakly, as if refusing to die with its owner.
Sabre hesitated only a single heartbeat.
Then he grabbed it.
A jolt of heat surged up his arm, the weapon reacting to his touch with a flicker of resistance before accepting him. He swallowed hard, fingers trembling around the hilt. He didn't feel powerful holding it. He felt desperate.
He turned his head to look at the hall once more.
Silence.
Complete.
Graveyard silence.
It was so quiet, so wrong, that his skin crawled. If not for the lingering scent of blood, he would've thought the massacre had been nothing but a nightmare.
Even now, he half-wished it was.
Sabre rose shakily to his feet.
Ignoring—barely—the fact that he had just summoned a monster capable of wiping out this hall's strongest figures within seconds… he forced himself to keep moving.
Every instinct screamed at him to run.
Not out of cowardice.
Out of logic.
If the Astryx could tear through space once… it could do it again. If it could enter this hall… it could enter anywhere.
And if someone saw Sabre here, alone, surrounded by corpses and a bloodstained blade in his hand…
They would kill him on sight.
His breathing slowed into a cold, mechanical rhythm as he took long, purposeful steps toward the exit. His pace was steady, controlled — but inside, he was unraveling, barely holding himself together with fraying threads of shock.
He didn't know where he was headed.
He had no plan.
No destination.
No clear thought.
Only one truth rang clearly in his mind:
If I stay here, I die.
He pushed open the massive doors.
Cold night air washed over him, chilling the sweat on his skin. The outside world seemed so painfully normal compared to the horror he had left behind. Somewhere in the distance, the wind whistled softly, unaware of the bloodshed that had just shifted the fates of entire kingdoms.
Sabre stepped out into the night.
And the hall behind him remained silent.
Too silent.
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Far away from Sabre—far beyond the mortal lands—inside a chamber carved entirely from obsidian and woven space, the remaining Astryx leaders gathered.
The air shimmered, bending unnaturally around their forms. Black mist curled around their feet like living shadows, and faint echoes of distant screams vibrated through the walls — a sign of the dimension they inhabited.
A towering figure, cloaked in shifting darkness, spoke first.
"Earth… a fragile world. Soft. Unguarded. And yet…"
His voice rumbled like collapsing mountains. "…it resists us."
Another Astryx leaned forward, six glowing eyes narrowing.
"Its barrier is weakening. The boy has touched it."
A low murmur spread across the chamber.
"The boy…"
"The human vessel…"
"The unstable one…"
At the far end of the table, one of the leaders extended a claw-like hand, summoning a projection made of distorted light. Sabre's image flickered into view—breathing hard, face pale, eyes haunted.
"He survived the summon."
Surprise rippled through the room.
"Impossible."
"A mortal shouldn't endure that creature's presence."
"Unless…"
The voice that followed was soft—too soft—but every Astryx shuddered when they heard it.
"…Unless the Astryx responded to him."
Silence.
The chamber froze.
Then one leader hissed sharply.
"We cannot allow him to grow. If he becomes aware of what he carries—"
"—the balance between our worlds will collapse."
"We must reach Earth."
"And we must reach him."
The shadows around them tightened, twisting into violent shapes.
"Prepare the breach."
"Earth will open."
"The boy will be found."
The last leader leaned back, eyes glowing brighter than the rest.
"And if he resists…"
A thin smile spread across his face.
"…we will make him wish he hadn't."
The room plunged into deeper darkness.
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