Chapter 109: Three Steps in Shadow
—Every Move Has Its Mirror—
The Veil didn't look like a fortress on the inside.
It looked like a cathedral left behind by a dead god.
Walls made of weeping stone.
Ceilings high enough for echoes to lose themselves.
Air that pulsed like a forgotten heartbeat.
And Muna Ikemba was already inside.
She walked with no stealth, no cloak, no pretense.
She didn't need to hide.
She was the warning.
The corridor narrowed as she approached a crosshall shaped like a ribcage.
The air shifted.
Someone stood waiting.
A figure cloaked in soul-wrapped smoke, face veiled beneath a silver visor, aura stitched with layered curses.
Voth.
The Hollow Knight.
One of Mirex's Nine.
He stepped forward without ceremony.
Sword of inked soulmetal drawn from the very ground beneath him.
"You do not belong here."
Muna stopped three paces away.
Eyes calm. Hands behind her back.
"Neither do you."
And with that, she moved.
Her hand flicked—
Lightning surged through the air, not as thunder but as threads, precise and near-invisible.
Voth blocked the first six.
The seventh cut through his side.
He twisted—releasing a wave of hollow soul energy that coiled around her torso like smoke and razorwire.
But Muna didn't break pace.
She let it wrap her.
Then shattered it with a pulse from her inner core—silent, raw, and mechanical.
The corridor bent.
Ceiling cracked.
Light flickered.
Voth stumbled backward, aura leaking shadows like blood.
"She warned us about you," he said.
Muna's eyes didn't flicker.
"You should've listened."
She struck once—
And he vanished into the wall, retreating with cracked armor and limping pride.
She exhaled softly.
"One down."
---
Elsewhere, seated above the storm, T`halem watched the soul map flicker.
Muna's progression wasn't halted.
It was allowed.
Behind him, two black-armored shades awaited orders.
He gave none.
Instead, he whispered to himself.
"Every strong soul finds its origin in grief."
"I let her come… because it will complete the shape."
Nyel entered quietly.
"She's progressing fast."
T`halem nodded.
"As expected. But that's not the point."
He looked to the glowing chamber below where the two girls remained under passive surveillance.
"I need them to see her."
"Why?" Nyel asked.
T`halem didn't answer.
His eyes softened, just barely.
"I need a reaction.... something."
---
In their holding chamber, Karen was no longer sitting.
She stood beside Cassandra, back rigid, aura subtly reactivating.
"That explosion—"
Cassandra nodded.
"My mother's fighting."
Karen tightened her grip on her scythe.
"Then this is our window."
"We can't get far," Cassandra said plainly.
"I know. But we don't need to get far. Just out."
Cassandra's eyes narrowed.
Her Null Field pulsed once—muted, but dense.
"Give me a two-second gap. I'll shatter the eastern intake seal."
"After that?"
"We run."
---
As they spoke, a shadow bloomed behind the wall.
T`halem stepped through—but silently.
He watched the two young Soulbornes for a moment.
Then he turned away, satisfied.
"Good," he murmured.
"Make your choice under fire."
And he vanished again, leaving the pressure of his presence behind like a scar.
---
Elsewhere, Muna breached the heart corridor.
Her coat torn. One shoulder bleeding.
But her pace steady.
She felt Cassandra's soulprint close now.
And something else.
Something colder.
Older.
Watching.
"You look like her too." came a voice.
Muna froze.
Her gaze flicked left.
But there was no one.
Only words shaped from air.
T`halem's voice.
Still distant.
"She chose him. But I—"
"I never stopped carrying her memory like a wound."
Muna clenched her fist.
"Shut up and come face me."
Silence.
And then—
A door unlocked by itself.
---