Chapter 102: Protocol V – The Ancients Awaken
—The Tribunal Responds—
The east had vanished.
Not burned.
Not occupied.
Not conquered.
Vanished.
And within twenty minutes, the Spirit Tribunal's Core Assembly was fully active.
Not the public chamber.
Not the diplomatic forum.
This was the Citadel Below—the sanctum no civilian would ever see.
Here, beneath Soul Island's central crust, layered in soulsteel and veiled with twenty-nine ancient bindings, the true council convened.
Only three seats were occupied.
There were only ever three.
Elder Daizo Ennin, silent and timeless.
Elder Ruhmal San, veiled in crystal lattice, speaking only in harmonic frequency.
Elder Mae Olorun, once a battlefield tactician, now the Tribunal's executioner.
A fourth figure stood before them.
Not a member.
Not a guest.
Kamharida.
The First Shadow.
Daizo's voice broke the silence—calm, like ice melting in slow motion.
"Do you confirm the entity responsible?"
Kamharida nodded once.
"Mirex. The Shrouded."
Ruhmal hummed, voice like broken chimes:
"Void signature aligned. Darkness attribute consistent. Probability 94.2%."
Mae tapped her gauntlet against the tribunal table.
"One act. Twenty-six facilities lost. No declaration. No demand."
Kamharida stepped forward, cloak trailing behind her.
"It was not about territory. It was about memory. He's telling us the old world has returned."
The room did not react.
It calculated.
Daizo inhaled through aged lungs.
"Then we enact Protocol V."
Silence.
Even Kamharida's posture shifted. Slightly.
Mae's tone was dry:
"You're certain?"
Daizo nodded.
"We cannot risk a second uncontained war between light and abyss."
"The line must be drawn now—before the Dark Soulbornes rally fully."
Ruhmal's core lit faintly.
"Command confirmation recognized. Protocol V unlocked."
Kamharida's brow furrowed.
"You're activating the Ashen Vault?"
Daizo looked her in the eye.
"Yes."
Kamharida didn't speak for a moment. Then quietly:
"We sealed those names for a reason."
Mae Olorun, face sharp and unreadable, gave a thin smile.
"And now we're unsealing them. For the same reason."
Daizo raised one hand.
The soulsteel floor beneath them shifted.
A panel opened.
From it emerged a vertical prism of glass and pulsating bindings—faint names etched along its surface in Soulscript, each one blackened out except for the top three.
Kamharida stepped forward. She read them.
Her lips barely moved.
"Harak of the Veinless Flame..."
"Selene the Hollow Warden…"
"And Oro of the Spiral Core…"
Ancient weapons.
Soulborne extremists locked away after the War of Roots.
Neither dark nor light. Just dangerous.
Kamharida exhaled.
"You're waking them?"
Daizo's voice never rose.
"If we do not answer shadow with fire, we will lose Soul Island by inches. Mirex struck first. We will not wait for the second blow."
---
Above them, across the city, soulstorm signals lit the air. Quiet, coded, and understood by only those old enough to know:
The Tribunal had moved.
Protocol V was live.
---
Elsewhere, in a crumbling Veil sanctuary deep within a dead zone of Soul Island's northern rim, Mirex paused mid-conversation with the remaining Eight.
He smiled beneath his entropy-veiled mask.
"They've opened the vault," he murmured.
"I was wondering how long it would take."
Nyel the Cursed Child asked, voice trembling with amusement:
"Do we fear them?"
Mirex shook his head.
"We remember them. And that's worse."
He stood.
The room darkened.
Not in shadow—but in expectation.
"Let them unleash their monsters."
"I've already begun calling mine."
---