Crack!
A loud crack reverberated throughout the dark hallway, disturbing the cold, hollow silence present there.
Bones shifted, and a single finger twitched inside a dug-out, open stone casket, scraping against the lining in an irritating tone.
A moment later, the bones of an entire skeleton shook violently, swaying away the dirt present on it and regained their previous luster.
Immediately after, flesh bloomed across bare white bones, like smoke reversing back into the skin, veins threading through the marrow, muscles weaving in fast.
Following that was the skin, which crept up the muscles out of nowhere, covering the entire body, and regained nails, hairs, and other remaining body parts.
This entire process took less than ten seconds, and the body was whole again.
The body belonged to none other than Remiel St. Clair, the Strongest Exalt of the Era of Dusk.
Naked. Weak. Breathing.
Alive.
…
'Was I dreaming?' A frown appeared on Remiel's face, but as he looked around, he noticed that he was in a stone casket. 'I guess not.'
He lay there for a while, eyes analyzing his surroundings, blinking warily in the dark.
No light, no noise, no heartbeat but his own.
His thoughts were slow, muddled, and unclear at first, but clear enough to recognize the familiar weight of existence, that he wasn't in a dream.
'Cyrus!' His eyes darkened as the first thing that came to his mind was his brother's betrayal.
In complete honesty, he felt at fault as well, since he kind of expected a betrayal from his brothers for the throne, but didn't do much against it.
This was also one of the reasons he stepped out of the Crown battle. It was all a big hassle he didn't want to partake in.
What was truly out of his expectations was his father's sudden decision to declare him the crown prince.
'Something doesn't fit right here.' He clicked his tongue as he put these thoughts in a corner of his mind to first grasp the current situation.
Remiel looked around again.
Something was amiss.
Remiel felt quite strange for a few seconds, and that's when it hit him. 'My powers.'
He couldn't feel his spiritual powers. There was no spirit energy inside him anymore.
He lifted his hand slowly and weakly, trying to channel the energy, but as expected, it didn't work.
He pinched the bridge of his nose as he sighed in sheer frustration.
Sigh!
'Is this the cost of my resurrection?' He ruminated, his thoughts getting thrown into an endless spiral of accepting his current situation and planning his future.
He closed his eyes, exhaled once, and pushed the tomb lid aside.
Urgh!
His face winced as every fiber of his body was assaulted with a sharp pain and grogginess.
But Remiel pushed through, as he had faced worse pain than this before.
As his pupils got more used to the surroundings, and everything started to be dimly visible to him, he noticed the hallway he was in was grand and exaggerated.
'At least that snake knows how to keep his promise.' He scoffed, looking around at the familiar architectural style of the Solstice Empire.
The rounded dome at the top, with an intricately designed and heavy chandelier right in the center, shimmering with the beautiful moonlight, the murals etched on the rest of the roof, even more murals on the walls, and the pristinely crafted tiles on the floor.
But as he looked closely, he noticed a few more things he didn't understand.
'Are those lamps? They look quite small to be able to enlighten this entire hallway. How do they light it if it's sealed like that?'
Moving forward, he analyzed those 'lamps', where red ribbons hung between two waist-high poles.
He passed under the shimmering chandeliers in slow, deliberate steps, his bare feet slapping against the cold floor, with every step of his echoing in the eerily silent building.
The walls were lined with his face.
Statues, murals, paintings, and whatnot.
Each one of them was more exaggerated than the last—some giving him sharper cheekbones, some making him stand a foot taller than he truly was. Even his sword was twice the size of the one he used.
The exaggeration was to the point that he didn't even recognize himself in them.
'So dramatic,' He chucked dryly. "Could've at least gotten my sword right."
He brushed past a golden plaque mounted on a pedestal of his statue.
Letters were carved on it in a font and language he was unfamiliar with. It was sharp, clean, and too uniform to be handwritten.
The language was the one they used, but they had some changes he understood, but was unfamiliar with.
'I don't know these words, but I can read them?' He grimaced at the bizarreness of the situation.
'What the hell is a… QR code?'
He reached another set of twin poles with red ribbon, and he simply stepped over them. It didn't necessarily stop him, so they must not matter.
A metal box mounted on the wall was glowing faintly as he passed by it. He turned around to study it and found it bizarre how the glowing paintings on the glass panel were changing and emitting a flickering light.
'Is this some sort of cursed mirror?' He didn't like how it hummed and produced strange noises.
The next room he entered was smaller, but the walls had the same cursed mirrors lined one after another.
'No flames. No crystals. No heat. Just that low, unsettling hum.'
'I should get out of here.' He backed down, wondering if he had entered some sort of hidden quarter with a lot of cursed mirrors and other items.
Given his current weak state, he didn't want to risk anything.
There was a strange bucket in the corner emitting a pungent smell, and it was filled with a lot of strange scraps, mainly consisting of abnormally shiny papers, crumpled and twisted.
The paper was full of unnatural colors, which were glossier than any painting he had ever seen.
His patience was wearing thin.
The place felt so unnatural and foreign that his heartbeat couldn't help but beat faster and faster.
He didn't focus on his surroundings anymore, as he strode his way out and finally reached a pair of glass doors, framed in awesome polished metals.
But just as he got closer to the doors, they hissed and slid open automatically.
He stopped, baffled.
He looked at the doors.
Then he looked back at the hallways.
'These opened on their own.' He gulped, amazed at the grandeur of the place. 'Cyrus must have spent a fortune on this artifact.'
Artifacts were rather rare in the empire, and all of them were unique.
To think that Cyrus would waste one just for show for his mausoleum was truly surprising.
He stepped through them warily, already expecting them to bite him, but they never did.
His hand brushed the wall as he passed. Just to feel something real.
Stone was still stone. That, at least, hadn't changed.
Finally, he saw the sky.