The pillar continued to whirr subtly, as if waiting for the black devices to finally trigger it, which were now being activated one by one by the cloaked individuals.
Their fingers moved with eerie grace, shifting and raising through the air as they kept writing ancient symbols using their own dark, corrupted eidra.
The glyphs flickered in and out of view, pulsing with low energy like sothing alive.
"Everything is going as planned, my lord," Verkaryon said, the way he spoke full of reverence.
"Soon, you shall obtain the power of the Muradryn!"
Malgareth didn’t respond at once.
His gaze remained fixed on the center pillar, as if his thoughts were far from the voices around him.
The violet light from the monunt bathed his armor, reflecting across the sharp ridges of the black tal.
A mont passed, and then he finally spoke.
"What is power?"
The question hung in the air like a thick fog.
No one answered.
Even the cloaked ones paused for a mont, as if the question demanded silence.
"Power is sothing to be us—" Verkaryon began, but his voice faltered as Malgareth suddenly walked past him without another word, his heavy steps echoing across the stone floor.
He moved towards Jinn slowly, each step deliberate, like a judge approaching a prisoner before sentence.
When he finally stopped in front of Jinn, he stood tall, towering like a shadow-crowned statue, the kind you’d find in ruins long forgotten.
His helted face stared down, eyes as deep as void, unreadable, unmoving.
Jinn didn’t move.
He didn’t flinch.
He stared right back, matching Malgareth’s gaze with one just as steady.
His wrists were still bound by dark eidra, his strength mostly gone—but his spirit wasn’t.
His eyes stayed sharp, locked to the armored tyrant above him.
There was no fear behind them.
His lips parted, slow but sure.
"Power is sothing to be used," Jinn said, his tone calm but firm.
He furrowed his brow as he spoke, not out of anger, but conviction.
"It’s sothing to be used to get what you want... whether it’s to kill your enemy or to protect soone you care about."
The words were quiet, but they hit hard, echoing slightly beneath the hum of the growing energy in the chamber.
Malgareth didn’t move, not even a twitch.
But sothing in the air seed to shift—subtle, cold.
Jinn held his gaze, not looking away for even a second.
Malgareth’s eyes flickered for a brief mont, almost like they were shocked—like the answer Jinn gave stirred sothing he hadn’t expected.
"Mhm," he humd under his breath, low and dry.
"You’re not as naive as you look, child."
He took a step closer, the echo of his armored boot ringing across the floor.
"Then tell ," Malgareth continued, his voice deeper now, quieter, "If soone were to take those you held dear from you... and you had that power—what would you do?"
He leaned down slowly, towering even lower, his helt inches from Jinn’s face.
His eyes, deep and empty, locked onto Jinn’s like a predator staring straight into its prey—but it wasn’t just hunger in that gaze.
It was sothing else.
As if he was trying to look past Jinn’s skin, into whatever truth was buried inside.
Jinn didn’t speak right away.
He paused.
His mind pulled him to thoughts of his friends—Ophelia and her stubborn light, Hector with his grounded strength, Kain and his struggle to be brave, Vox’s endless questions, Verhedyn’s quiet sharpness, Orinn’s temper and even Nevi, who always found a way to lighten up the mood with her stories.
They were loud, flawed, reckless.
But they were his.
And yet, even as he imagined what could be taken from him... he already knew the answer.
His jaw tightened.
His eyes slowly narrowed.
"What do you think?" Jinn replied, his voice calm but edged, eyes staring back without hesitation.
For a second, it was silent.
Malgareth didn’t respond, not with words at least.
His eyes flickered again, not from shock this ti, but recognition.
It was like he saw sothing he hadn’t seen in a long ti.
The expression Jinn wore—bold, wounded, and burning with quiet resolve—it was familiar.
It was the sa look Malgareth once wore when he too had lost everything he loved to the empire.
"You... have you—?" Malgareth began to speak, but was suddenly cut off as Verkaryon gave a sharp yank to the leash of dark eidra wrapped around Jinn’s hands.
"Don’t listen to this cur’s words, my lord!" Verkaryon snapped, his voice loud and filled with venom as he pulled the leash again, causing Jinn to stumble forward, hitting the ground with a dull thud.
Jinn grit his teeth, lifting his face from the ground as he stared up at Malgareth.
His voice ca out steady, rough but strong.
"What’s the point of chaining like this when my fate’s already sealed? Why don’t you talk to ?"
*bzzzzz...!!!
Before Malgareth could respond, a loud and synchronized hum echoed through the chamber.
All the black-frad devices had begun to glow, their symbols coming to life one by one.
Beams of dark energy shot out from each of them and slamd into the central pillar, causing it to awaken fully.
The ancient runes etched into its sides lit up in sequence, crawling higher and higher as the pillar rumbled to life.
Malgareth turned away from Jinn, facing the growing power that surged at the center of the apex.
His voice ca out flat but firm.
"No," he muttered. "Keep his leash tight, servant. We must not even give him the smallest chance."
"By your will, my lord," Verkaryon answered with a bow before yanking Jinn once more, this ti even harder.
"Urgh!" Jinn groaned as his body scraped against the cold floor, dragged like a dog, landing just beside Verkaryon’s feet..
Verkaryon leaned down, glaring at him with pure hate in his blood-red eyes.
"My lord isn’t so gullible fool, boy," he sneered.
"You really think your pathetic little talk could sway him?"
Jinn didn’t answer imdiately.
He looked up at Verkaryon with a sharp, quiet stare.
Jinn’s eyes narrowed, his brows drawing together as the weight of the mont settled in his chest.
He realized now that his initial plan wouldn’t work so easily.
Still, Jinn wasn’t without options. There was sothing—an advantage—that lingered quietly in the shadows of the situation.
Verkaryon.
The man’s reverence for Malgareth was more than loyalty.
It bordered on obsession.
And that obsession made him blind.
Verkaryon didn’t know he was being watched—analyzed.
He didn’t know that Jinn had no intention of escaping through brute force.
No.
Jinn’s target wasn’t to fool Malgareth in the first place.
It was Verkaryon himself.
Just one slip.
That’s all Jinn needed.
One mont of distraction, one mistake in his arrogance, one shift in his overconfidence—and Jinn would turn this entire situation upside down.
He only needed to wait for it.
Yet in that quiet space of thought, Jinn didn’t know sothing else.
Sothing that would soon tip the scales even further.
He wasn’t alone.
Help was already on the way—storming the levels of the tower with fury and weapons drawn.
And leading them...
Was Venedix herself.
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