Chapter 692: One out of Ten.

Thoren left the edge of the ledge and began walking toward the center of the island.

The ground beneath his boots was wet and uneven. The black lake had drained away, and what remained was a wide, silent basin of mud and bones, pale shapes half buried in the dark.

His undead stayed behind him, their soul fires burning steadily as they waited for his command.

Dust from the Mother still drifted through the air. He pushed through it without looking back.

The island was smaller than he had thought.

As he drew closer, the scattered bones began to gather into piles, and the piles rose into a low mound of skulls and ribs stacked with care, as though someone had once taken the time to arrange them.

At the very top, resting in the hollow of the cairn, lay the object that had pulled at his attention since the moment he stepped into the chamber.

It was the bone plate, undisturbed through the entire battle.

Thoren slowed as he reached the foot of the cairn.

Something was carved into a stone.

Small and worn, half hidden beneath the dust. He crouched and brushed the dirt away with his fingers.

It was an inscription.

’This is one piece of ten. The Vigil split the way out among ten houses so that no single hand could hold it. Whoever takes this piece will break the seal on this house. Run.’

He read it once, then a second time.

The words were simple, but they carried a weight that made the air feel heavier.

One piece of ten.

Whatever had been done here, the Vigil had done it, and these houses had paid the price.

His eyes dropped to the last word.

’Run.’

A seal would break when he took it.

Thoren stood still for a moment, his gaze steady on the plate.

He had come to the Weeping Ossuary for one reason. To find a way out of this cursed world. With everything he had encountered and over, did he still need to care about some seal.

He scoffed inwardly and he climbed the cairn.

Bones shifted under his boots, and he steadied himself against a pale skull as he reached the top.

The plate lay before him, gray and cold, its edges worn smooth by time. Without hesitation, he stretched out his hand and closed his fingers around it.

It was heavier than it looked.

The surface was rough beneath his palm, and a faint chill seeped into his skin. He lifted it from the cairn and turned it toward the dim light.

Lines had been etched across its face, fine and precise, running in winding curves and sharp angles.

Rivers, passages and hills, drawn in a delicate hand.

It was a map, but it was incomplete.

Entire sections were missing, ending in jagged breaks, and several routes stopped halfway as if the rest had been torn away.

Only a portion of the whole remained, but the lines that were there led toward something, a place at the edge of the plate where one path ran off into nothing.

Thoren studied it for a long moment, his thumb tracing the grooves.

Slowly, the corners of his mouth began to rise.

It started as a faint curve, then widened into a bright, unguarded grin, the kind he had not worn in a very long time.

He held the plate firmly in both hands.

’This is it...’

Just then, a slow tremor ran through the cavern.

It was faint at first, a low vibration that crept up through the soles of his boots. A few pebbles rolled down the side of the cairn.

He paused with the plate still in his hands, and his smile faded.

Then the tremor grew.

The ground shuddered harder, and the skulls stacked around him rattled against each other.

Dust fell from the ceiling in thin streams, then in thick clouds, and somewhere in the dark above, stone groaned like a living thing in pain.

The words on the inscription surfaced in his mind.

’Run.’

He did not hesitate.

Thoren jumped down from the cairn and sprinted across the island, bones cracking under his boots.

He kept his balance and ran straight toward the passage where he had entered. Only for him to realize the exit had been closed.

He had totally forgotten about the gate being closed.

To defeat the Mother, he had closed the Sluice Gate and now, his path had been cut off.

’Dammit.’

Thoren slid the plate into his inventory and turned to look at the cavern.

His mind raced.

The undead Storm Tyrant was on the other side, too far away to lift the gate from here, and even if it could, there was no time.

The tremor kept growing, and the chamber was coming apart around him.

Crack!

A fissure split the ground at his feet, running across the lakebed in a jagged line.

Another opened beside it, then another. Mud and bones slid into the gaps and vanished into the dark. Larger stones fell from the ceiling, striking the floor with deep, shaking thuds.

Thoren gritted his teeth. "Return."

One after another, his undead vanished into his undead space. Even the undead Storm Tyrant outside the gate vanished into thin air.

Finally, he stood all alone in the chaos.

His eyes swept across the cavern.

The walls, the ceiling, the broken floor, every possible route.

Nothing looked like an exit.

The ceiling sagged.

The ledge where he had fought crumbled into the abyss. The fissures kept widening.

’I don’t believe there wouldn’t be a way out of this goddamned place...’

He had found the map.

He had killed the Mother.

He was not going to die buried under a ruin like this.

The tremor roared louder, and the destruction spread in every direction. A pillar snapped and fell, shattering across the ground.

Cracks raced up the walls.

The whole cavern seemed ready to collapse.

Under the illumination of the Soul Lantern, Thoren searched every corner without missing a thing.

Just then, the glow caught something.

At the deep corner of the dried lakebed, half hidden in shadow, something was there.