Kael slid a single file down the stair, fingers trailing along the carved wall.

The whispering wrapped around him like a cloth.

He reached a landing where the chamber widened into a hollow.

In the center stood a low false altar, its surface blood-dark in the old stain of time.

It was not a place for miracles—it was a place saints had sealed because the world could not bear what sat below.

Kael bent, studying the marks.

He had been looking for proof—anything that might explain why this place felt like the edge of the world.

He found a shallow notch where a relic once fit.

A small stone, round and dull, set in the curve of the altar like an eye.

It hummed when his fingers passed close, answering to him with a faint ache.

Above, Elysia eased down, almost in silent.

Her fingers curled around the talisman in her sleeve.

She imagined pressing the runes and watching him breathe his last—imagined that moment before guilt could even bloom.

But the chamber was not as barren as she expected.

On the far side, half-hidden among ruined carvings, a second figure moved—an unexpected silhouette, wrapped in a cloak and holding a staff that drank the light.

The figure stepped forward only once Kael’s eyes found the relic. He looked up.

Elysia froze. The stranger’s voice was low and close like gravel.

"He was not meant to be alone," it said. "The winding chooses its own company."

Kael’s hand didn’t move away from the relic.

"Who are you?" he asked. His voice had the evenness of someone who had faced storms and found them smaller afterward.

"Name matters less than intent," the cloak answered.

"You feel the old pull. Don’t touch what was sealed for a reason."

Elysia’s hand tightened on the talisman.

The moment hung, taut as a harp string.

If she struck now, the stranger could intervene—or worse, the relic could answer with a curse that did not care for bargains.

Kael’s jaw worked. "If this place hides answers, I will open them," he said. "Even if the saints feared it."

The stranger laughed, a small, humorless sound. "Many who pry into saintly fear find themselves swallowed by the asking."

Far above, rain began to whisper against the ruined stones.

The soft fall sounded like the start of something unkind.

The whispering that had called to Kael tightened into a single voice, clearer than before.

The relic before him thrummed in answer, as if pleased.

Elysia allowed herself one final breath.

She could strike, end a life here, bury a secret in a shaft of stone, and no one would trace the hand.

The talisman’s runes hummed faintly against her skin, as if eager for release.

A shadow detached from the stranger’s cloak and moved like water.

The staff tipped once toward the altar.

Kael reached out.

Time narrowed to that single movement—finger meeting stone—and everything held its breath.

The whispering beneath the altar grew louder, vibrating through Kael’s chest like a heartbeat beneath the earth.

The relic before him pulsed faintly in response to his red crystal shard, the shard that always glowed when danger or fate intertwined.

Dust rained down from the ceiling as the altar stones began to grind and shift.

Elysia, still hidden in the shadows behind a pillar, froze when she saw the red light blooming from Kael’s palm.

The glow wasn’t natural — it pulsed like a living thing, alive with the color of blood and fire.

"What... is that?" she whispered, tightening her grip on her sword.

Kael’s eyes narrowed as he pressed his palm harder onto the stone surface.

The runes carved into the altar began to rearrange themselves, like serpents waking from slumber.

Each symbol flared a different color: crimson, emerald, gold, violet, and black — Wrath, Envy, Greed, Lust, and Sloth.

Kael stepped back as the runes coiled into the shape of an enormous stone door and its edges cracked.

The whispers turned into faint, distorted laughter echoing through the chamber walls.

"This... can’t be," Kael said.

"This shouldn’t appear until the second year event..."

He had read about this place in the novel.

The Abyssal Gate — the seal of the five deadly sins.

According to the story, the gate was supposed to open only after a series of trials during the second year, when the academy was strong enough to handle such horrors.

But now, it was awakening early — and it was his shard that triggered it.

The crimson crystal at his chest glowed brighter, cracks spreading across the seal.

The ground beneath his boots trembled violently.

"Damn it..." Kael whispered. "It’s reacting to me."

Before he could back away, a faint tremor shook the entire ruin.

From behind him, Elysia stepped out from the shadow.

"Step away from that gate, Kael," she said sharply, her voice echoing through the underground hall.

Kael turned his head slightly, surprised but not shocked.

"You followed me?"

"You shouldn’t open things you don’t understand," she said, though her tone trembled slightly from the pressure of the cursed mana in the air.

Kael’s eyes narrowed, the red glow reflecting in his irises. "Neither should you point a sword at someone you don’t plan to kill."

Elysia’s grip tightened around her blade.

The faint hum of her sword filled the silence between them.

She wanted to strike, to end him while she still had the chance — but before either could move, the seal cracked fully.

A deafening boom erupted through the chamber.

The ancient door split down the center, light and shadow spilling from the crack like liquid night.

A wave of cursed mana rushed outward, throwing both Kael and Elysia backward.

The pressure was so intense that Kael had to drive his sword into the ground to steady himself.

Then, one by one, they emerged.

Five figures stepped out of the gate — humanoid yet not human. Their forms shifted between solid and spectral, eyes glowing with unnatural brilliance.

The first was Wrath, a demon with molten skin and blazing eyes, his body dripping with streams of fire.

The second, Envy, looked almost human — a mirror-like creature whose skin shimmered silver, constantly morphing to copy Elysia’s own appearance.

The third, Greed, was a hulking figure whose veins glowed gold.

Every step he took made the earth groan, and the air shimmered as though even mana wanted to belong to him.