Chapter 8: Awakening

The absolute silence of the plaza remained unbroken as Llewellyn walked up the massive stone steps.

As he ascended, the boy who had just finished his awakening was descending the staircase. It was one of the branch house children, his chin held high, fresh from manifesting a Legendary Martial Soul.

He intentionally altered his stride, veering slightly to the right to intercept Llewellyn’s path. The branch child glanced at Llewellyn and said in a mocking, low tone, "I hope the Main Line’s little genius doesn’t disappoint us."

Sigurd didn’t stop. He didn’t blink. He didn’t even turn his head. He simply walked straight past the boy, his dead-grey eyes fixed entirely on the iron gates ahead.

Sigurd wasn’t trying to deliver a cold, silent insult. He literally had not processed that the child was speaking to him.

His mind was fully occupied with calculating the structural dimensions of the hall and bracing for the unknown variables of the upcoming ceremony.

To a man who had spent a lifetime dealing with professional contracts and life-or-death operations, the prideful taunts of a five-year-old simply did not register on his radar.

The branch child froze on the steps, his face instantly flushing into a dark shade of red as intense embarrassment caught him.

He stood there awkwardly, his mouth half-open, completely ignored in front of thousands of onlookers.

Down in the plaza, Sylvia watched the interaction.

Though she couldn’t hear the exact words from that distance, she knew the branch child must have said something provocative. Seeing Sigurd pay absolutely zero attention to the boy made a proud smile form on her lips.

She quietly muttered to herself, "That’s my small puppy."

Sigurd reached the top of the stairs. The lead elder stepped back, offering a polite nod. "Tenth Son, please enter."

"Thank you," Sigurd replied cleanly.He finally got a closer look at the grand entrance of the Martial Soul Hall.

The doors were a staggering marvel of metalwork, standing nearly eighty feet tall and forged from an unknown, dark alloy that seemed to swallow the light. Intricate, deep-set engravings covered the entire surface, depicting thousands of roaring beasts, shattered weapons, and swirling stellar constellations that seemed to subtly shift if stared at for too long. ℴℴ𝘮

Heavy iron rivets, each the size of a man’s head, pinned the plates together. The gigantic metallic gates slowly creaked, groaning under their own immense weight as they opened inward.

Immediately, a strange, violent tug vibrated deep within Sigurd’s soul. His expression shifted slightly, his brow twitching. He took a single, deep breath to steady his pulse and stepped through the threshold.

Behind him, the gates shut with a loud, deafening bang that echoed across the plaza.

Sylvia’s hands clenched tightly into fists the moment her son’s figure disappeared into the darkness of the hall. The rigid poise of a main-line noblewoman cracked, replaced by the raw anxiety of a mother.

"Please," she whispered under her breath, her eyes locked on the iron doors. "Don’t let anything happen to my baby."

Inside the hall, the darkness receded.

When Sigurd’s vision adjusted to the interior, his eyes widened slightly, and he sucked in a sharp, quiet breath.

The scale of the structure was completely unnatural. Standing near the entrance, Sigurd looked like a microscopic ant placed on a vast obsidian floor.

The ceiling was so incredibly high that it disappeared entirely into a dense, swirling grey mist, making it impossible to see the roof. Supporting this impossible space were fifty gigantic pillars, spaced evenly along the outer perimeters of the hall.

Every single inch of the walls was covered in intricate, glowing runic inscriptions carved directly into the dark rock.

The runes emitted a strange, pulsing power that made the air feel heavy, thick, and highly pressurized. But the most striking feature was the center of the hall.

To call it a pond would be a massive insult; it was a gigantic, perfectly circular lake. The body of water was massive enough to comfortably accommodate ten full-sized boats.

Floating lazily across the surface were hundreds of oversized white and pink lotus flowers, their petals glowing with a faint, natural light.

The water itself was mesmerizing, its color continuously shifting and swirling between deep sapphire blue, pure white, and liquid gold.

From the four cardinal directions of the hall, beautifully crafted bridges made of pale, polished stone stretched out over the water, connecting the outer floor to the center of the lake.

Where the four bridges met, a large circular stone platform floated perfectly stationary above the liquid. Sigurd’s mouth remained slightly open for a few seconds as he took in the sheer grandeur of the architecture.

It was entirely beyond anything he had witnessed on Earth. He quickly brought his expressions back under control, took another deep breath, and stepped onto the nearest stone bridge.

His small boots made no sound against the pale rock as he walked toward the center.

The closer he got, the more he felt the strange tugging sensation in his chest intensify.He finally stepped onto the central stone platform. It was large, spacious enough to easily accommodate more than twenty grown men.

Engraved deeplyinto the surface beneath his feet was a massive, highly complicated network of magic runic circles.

The lines were so dense and intricate that staring directly at them for more than a second made his head spin with a brief wave of dizziness.

These runic diagrams seemed to act as a central hub, physically connecting the four bridges, the shifting lake, and the glowing inscriptions on the distant walls into a single, massive circuit.

The millisecond Sigurd stood completely still in the center of the platform, the entire hall reacted.

The liquid gold and blue lake started to shake violently. Massive waves crashed against the sides of the stone bridges, spraying foam into the air.

The water illuminated into a blinding, magnificent fusion of blue, white, and gold light.

The scene was simply too shocking and mesmerizing at the same time.