Chapter 143: The Mind Sovereign
The last echoes of the Weaver’s psychic death scream faded into nothingness. The vast temple chamber was finally, truly silent.
The oppressive, malevolent presence that had suffocated the Whispering Mire for a thousand years was gone, leaving a clean, empty quiet in its place.
Rhys stood in the center of the room, the unconscious form of Emma held securely in his arms. He looked at the massive stone pillar that had been the Weaver’s anchor.
The sickly green and purple light within it had vanished, and the strange, crystalline material it was made from had crumbled into a fine, glittering dust that now covered the floor. The battle was over.
He looked down at Emma. She was pale, and her breathing was shallow, but her face was peaceful. The strain of the long psychic battle was gone.
The torrent of raw energy she had absorbed had pushed her to her absolute limit, but she had survived.
He could feel a new, powerful but stable energy radiating from her, a calm, golden light that was visible only to his spiritual senses. Her trait had evolved. She was no longer just a reader of minds. She was a sovereign.
He carried her to a clean, dry spot at the edge of the chamber, away from the glittering dust of the dead Weaver.
He gently set her down, her back resting against the smooth, cool stone of the wall. He took a high-potency healing pill from his spatial pouch, crushed it into a fine powder, mixed it with a little water from his waterskin, and carefully poured the mixture into her mouth.
Her body instinctively swallowed, and a faint, healthy color began to return to her cheeks.
He sat down beside her, a silent guardian in the quiet, dark temple. He did not rest. He stood watch, his senses expanded, listening for any sign of a new threat.
But there was nothing. The Whispering Mire, without its malevolent master, had returned to being just a simple, ancient swamp. The whispers were gone.
He waited. Hours passed. The only sound was the soft, rhythmic sound of Emma’s breathing. Rhys’s mind was a calm, quiet lake.
He did not think about the Seal, or the tournament, or the long, dangerous path that still lay ahead. He simply focused on the present, on the single, simple task of protecting his partner while she recovered.
It was a strange, unfamiliar feeling. For the first time in a long time, he was not fighting, not planning, not running. He was just waiting.
It was nearly dawn when her eyes fluttered open. Her green eyes, now clear and bright, blinked a few times, adjusting to the dim light of his Voidheart Flame. She looked around, at the vast, empty chamber, at the glittering dust on the floor. The memory of the battle came back to her.
"We did it," she whispered, her voice a little rough.
"You did it," Rhys corrected her. "You found its core. I just delivered the final blow."
She sat up, a look of confusion on her face. She touched her head. The usual, dull ache that came after using her Soul Inquiry trait was gone.
In its place, she felt a strange, new clarity. Her mind felt sharper, bigger, as if a wall she never knew existed had been torn down.
"I feel... different," she said, looking at her own hands as if they were new to her.
"Your trait has evolved," Rhys explained simply. He told her what he had sensed, what the System had once called a Mind Sovereign.
He described her new abilities: to create mental shields, to project stable illusions, to attack the consciousness of an enemy directly.
She listened, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and awe. She closed her eyes, focusing inward. She reached for her power, and she felt it. It was no longer a sharp, painful tool that she had to force herself to use.
It was a calm, deep well of golden energy, a part of her that she could command with a simple thought.
To test it, she focused on Rhys. She did not try to read his mind. She simply tried to feel his presence. She saw him, not with her eyes, but with her mind.
She saw the calm, quiet surface of his consciousness, but she could also feel the vast, deep, and terrifyingly empty void that lay beneath it.
It was like looking at the calm surface of an ocean that was a million miles deep. For the first time, she truly understood the profound loneliness that was at the core of his being.
She pulled her senses back, a new, deeper respect for him settling in her heart.
She then tried something else. She focused her will on the empty space in front of her. A small, perfect, and completely silent image of a glowing, golden butterfly appeared, fluttering its wings in the dim light.
It was an illusion, a thought given form. It was so real, Rhys could almost feel the gentle breeze from its wings.
She had become a master of the mind.
"We should go," Rhys said, his voice pulling her from her state of wonder. "We need to find your mother’s secret."
They stood up. The temple was no longer a dangerous lair. It was just an ancient, empty ruin. They walked out of the central chamber and back into the maze of curving, green-stone corridors.
Emma, with her newly evolved senses, could now feel the faint, residual psychic energy in the temple. She could feel the echoes of the past not as a chaotic, overwhelming storm, but as a quiet, ordered library.
She led him through the temple with a new confidence. She was no longer just following a map. She was following the faint, psychic trail her mother had left behind a decade ago.
It was like a thread of golden light that only she could see, leading them deeper into the most secret parts of the temple.
They finally arrived at a small, hidden chamber at the very heart of the sunken structure. The entrance was not a grand archway.
It was a simple, unmarked section of the wall. Emma placed her hand on it. She did not use her bloodline. She used her new power.
She focused her mind, creating a complex, psychic "key," a specific pattern of thought and intention that she could feel was the lock. The wall hummed for a moment, and then a single, seamless door of green stone slid silently open.
The room inside was small and bare, except for a single, stone pedestal in the center. On the pedestal, there was no book, no scroll. There was just a single, small, and perfectly smooth moonstone, identical to the one Rhys wore around his neck.
Emma walked to the pedestal. She knew, with an instinctual certainty, what she had to do. This was the final lock. And her own mind was the key.
She placed her hand on the moonstone. She closed her eyes. She did not try to read it. She projected her own consciousness into it, following the path her mother had created for her.
She found herself standing in a familiar place. The secret library, deep in the crypts beneath her family’s castle.
And standing in front of her was a woman with kind eyes and a gentle smile. She had the same piercing green eyes as Emma.
It was her mother.
It was not a memory. It was an echo, a perfect, sentient copy of her mother’s consciousness, left behind as a final message.
"You have come," her mother’s echo said, her voice full of a sad, proud love. "I knew you would. I am so sorry, my child. I am sorry for the life you have had to live. I am sorry for the burden I have placed on you."
Emma could not speak. Tears streamed down her face. She had thought she was strong, that she had buried her grief. But seeing her mother again, even just as an echo, broke through all of her defenses.
"Do not cry, my little moonbeam," her mother said, her ghostly hand reaching out to gently touch Emma’s cheek.
"You have been so brave. You have become a woman I am so very proud of."
She then grew serious. "I do not have much time. This echo is fading. You have found my research. You have found the path. But there is one final, terrible truth you must know."
The echo of her mother then explained the final piece of the puzzle. The portal network was not a free ride. It was powered by the life force of the user.
A weak person might only be able to make a single, short jump before their energy was completely drained.
The backdoor to the Seal, the final portal, was the most draining jump of all. It required a colossal, almost impossible amount of pure life energy to activate.
"I could never make the journey myself," her mother’s echo said, her form beginning to fade.
"My life force was not enough. I left this research for you, my daughter, hoping that you would one day find a partner, a companion with a will and a power strong enough to fuel the final journey. That is my last, and only, hope for you. Find your freedom, Emma. Live."
The echo of her mother faded into a shower of golden light, leaving Emma alone in the silent library of her mind.
She opened her eyes. She was back in the small, stone room in the temple. Rhys was standing beside her, his expression calm and unreadable.
"I have the final key," she said, her voice a little shaky, but full of a new resolve. "I know how to open the path to the Seal. But... it requires a sacrifice. A price that I cannot pay."
She explained what her mother had told her, the impossible cost of the final portal.
Rhys listened, his expression never changing. When she was finished, he was silent for a long moment.
Then, he looked at her, and for the first time, she saw a genuine, unguarded emotion in his pitch-black eyes. It was a look of quiet, profound understanding.
"Your mother was a wise woman," he said, his voice a low, steady rumble.
"She knew you would need a partner for this journey. She just did not know that you would find one with a life that is truly, and completely, endless."
He met her gaze, and in that moment, she understood. His unique constitution. His strange, inexhaustible power. He was the fuel they needed.
"This is no longer your mission, Emma," he said, his voice full of a new, shared purpose. "It is ours."
He looked towards the dark corridor that led out of the temple, towards the world that was waiting for them.
"We have the key. We have the map. And we have the fuel. It is time to leave this mire."