"Phantom Rebirth: The Last White Raven’s Path to the Ultimate Assassin" Chapter 277: The Bound Horror – Part 3

The Unsettling Silence

Seraphis stood in her dimly lit chamber, staring at the soulstone resting on her desk.

It pulsed faintly, the dark energy inside shifting like a trapped storm.

Even though the entity was contained, she could feel it.

Not just its presence—but its awareness.

It was still watching her.

Waiting.

She had to understand what she was dealing with before it was too late.

Step One: Breaking Down the Soulstone

Seraphis retrieved a set of arcane tools, designed for analyzing magical cores.

She placed the soulstone into an enchantnt reader, a device that could decode magical energy.

The results ford in the air as glowing text:

✔ Corrupted Essence – The creature’s magic didn’t match anything in recorded history. ✔ Unstable Signature – It wasn’t a single soul, but multiple, bound together. ✔ Unnatural Binding – The thod used to create it was forbidden. ✔ Foreign Energy – There was sothing else inside. Sothing older.

Seraphis narrowed her eyes.

"Sothing older?"

That was impossible.

Magic had rules. Even forbidden spells followed a pattern.

But this…

This was outside any system she knew.

And that ant whoever created it was far more dangerous than she had thought.

Step Two: Researching the Vision

The shrouded figure. The massive gate. The whispered, fragnted words.

She had seen them all during her brief connection to the creature’s mories.

But what did they an?

Seraphis turned toward her bookshelves, scanning for ancient tos that ntioned:

✔ Gates and portals between realms. ✔ The fusion of multiple souls. ✔ Lost languages or forgotten magic.

She pulled out a dusty leather-bound book—one that she had taken from an assassination target long ago.

It was titled "The Abyssal Gate: A Study of Lost Magic."

Her heartbeat quickened.

She flipped through its brittle pages, her eyes scanning the faded ink.

Then—she found it.

An illustration of a gate, eerily similar to the one she had seen in the vision.

It was labeled:

"The Seal of the Naless."

Step Three: Uncovering the Forbidden Sigil

Seraphis examined the etched symbols surrounding the gate in the book.

They weren’t in any language she recognized.

She flipped to the next page—and found sothing even more disturbing.

A forbidden sigil.

It was drawn in black ink, with notes written beside it:

✔ This sigil binds souls into one entity. ✔ It cannot be undone once completed. ✔ The creator must sacrifice sothing of equal value.

Seraphis’s fingers tightened around the book.

This was how the creature had been made.

And worse—this sigil was designed to create more of them.

Which ant…

The entity she fought might not have been the only one.

Step Four: The Whisper in the Dark

As she turned the page, a sharp pulse shot through her mind.

She gasped, grabbing her head as a voice whispered in her thoughts.

"You were not ant to find this."

Her blood ran cold.

The voice was not the entity inside the soulstone.

This was soone else.

Soone connected to it.

Seraphis stood, dagger drawn, her senses heightened.

But the room was empty.

Only the faint pulse of the soulstone remained.

She forced herself to steady her breathing.

Soone had noticed her research.

And that ant…

She was being watched.

Step Five: Checking the Magic Tools

Seraphis turned her focus to the other artifacts she had taken from the ancient ruins.

Among them was:

✔ An enchanted dagger—its blade still humming with strange energy. ✔ A broken talisman—engraved with the sa sigil from the book. ✔ A locked box—covered in chains of an unknown tal.

She reached for the talisman, running her fingers over the sigil.

The mont she touched it—

A wave of cold magic rippled through the air.

The soulstone on the desk shook violently.

The whispers returned.

"You have gone too far."

Seraphis’s eyes darkened.

"No."

She wasn’t stopping now.

She had too many questions left unanswered.

Step Six: Deciphering the Chain-Bound Box

She turned her attention to the mysterious box.

It was sealed shut, bound by arcane chains.

Seraphis traced her hand over the inscriptions, whispering an unlocking spell.

Nothing happened.

She tried a second spell.

Still nothing.

Then—she noticed sothing.

The chains had the sa markings as the gate.

Which ant—

The box wasn’t locked by normal ans.

It was bound by the sa forbidden magic that created the creature.

The Final Realization

Seraphis stepped back, staring at the soulstone, the book, the sigil, and the box.

They were all connected.

The forbidden creature. The lost language. The naless figure behind the gate.

This wasn’t just an experint gone wrong.

This was a deliberate act.