From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 92: Flamevault

The path opened like a scar.

Jagged, narrow, breathing smoke. It cut downward from the chamber’s rear, beyond the throne, spiraling into the bones of the mountain. The air thickened with silence. A silence that pressed against their thoughts like a hand across the mouth.

Leon led with sword drawn, though the flame at his side had dimmed. He felt it still, humming faintly in the blade’s core. As if it too felt the throne.

Elena walked behind him, her fire unstilled. Her steps no longer wavered. She did not hesitate when the darkness deepened, nor when the stone underfoot grew slick with ash.

Torchlight was useless here. The vault did not allow flame other than its own.

Mira pressed close to Tomas, one hand never leaving her pendant. Callen moved like a ghost, still murmuring names under his breath, too low to be heard. Alden scribbled again, but only in symbols now—strange, flowing curves like the ones from the sixth seal’s parchment.

No one spoke.

Not until they reached the first gate.

It stood ten feet tall, forged from blackened bone and rusted chain, etched with a single mark—a hand turned inward, fingers curled to grasp something unseen.

Elena touched it first.

The gate shook violently then opened.

Inside, a chamber of glass and blood.

Visions flickered against the walls—fights fought and lost, sacrifices made. Tomas turned pale. Mira gasped.

A voice echoed through the vault. A Female. Cold. Yet familiar.

"Here begins the vault. Here ends the lies."

Leon tightened his grip.

Figures stepped from the walls. Shadow-formed, fire-eyed.

They were not monsters nor demons.

They were reflections.

Reflections of themselves.

Each bore a weapon and moved with knowing steps. Each attack came without pause.

Steel met steel.

Flame met flame.

Leon clashed blades with himself—a version younger, more ruthless, scarred from choices never made. The fight wasn’t clean. It was brutal. Elena faced a version who had never burned, never lost, never learned to accept defeat. Tomas was driven to a knee by his other, until Mira stepped in, her dagger finding the gap.

Alden bled first.

Not from sword but from words. His reflection did not fight.

It simply told him what he’d written.

And what he never would.

Only Callen stood untouched, staring at a wall where no reflection formed.

The gate behind them vanished.

There would be no turning back.

They pressed deeper.

And above, far above, the fire in the Flamehold flickered once—then surged high again, brighter and hotter.

Because the vault had opened and the eighth seal had begun to stir.

The descent twisted lower.

The walls grew slick with a black sheen—like oil and ash fused together—absorbing light, sound, even breath. Their boots no longer echoed. Even the scrape of steel against stone came muffled. It felt less like they were walking and more like they were sinking.

The path veered suddenly left, narrowing to the width of one. When Tomas tried to follow close behind, the stone shifted—gently, but decisively—forcing him back. Leon frowned, pressing forward to close the gap, but the vault refused. One at a time. That was the rule now. fгeewebnovёl.com

Ahead, Elena passed through another arch—this one formed not of stone or bones, but fire frozen mid-bloom, its petals licking upward in perfect symmetry. Her figure vanished behind it.

And then she was alone.

The chamber greeted her with silence.

It wasn’t large. Barely a dozen paces across. A circle. A pit in its centre, no wider than a man’s shoulders, ringed by runes that pulsed white-gold.

She stepped toward it.

The pit filled instantly—with a vision.

Her mother.

Smiling, unharmed by the flame.

Her hair undone. Her voice a whisper through the silence.

"Elena."

Elena knelt. Her body shook. But she did not speak. She closed her eyes and placed both palms to the stone beside the vision. The moment shattered.

And the flame did not burn her.

It receded.

Behind her, the path reopened.

Leon was next.

His chamber was larger.

Colder.

At its centre stood a table. A war table—metal-rimmed, etched with maps of battlefields that never were. Names he recognized. Places he’d fought in. But not as himself.

At the far end stood a man in black.

he had no face.

Just voice.

"You had power. You had time. And yet you still chose rage."

Leon stepped forward.

The man moved too. Mirroring.

Step for step.

Until they stood at either end of the table.

And Leon saw now—it wasn’t a man.

It was a mask.

His.

From the night he left home.

From the night he swore he’d never kneel again.

The mask spoke. "Who do you lead, Ashblade? What’s left to follow you?"

Leon didn’t answer.

He simply drew his sword and placed it across the table in offering.

The mask cracked down the middle.

And the table dissolved.

His path reopened.

Tomas went third.

His chamber had no light.

Just wind.

A gale that screamed with every choice he’d silenced, every moment he’d chosen survival over honour. His father’s voice rang once—then faded. A boy’s hand reached for him.

He turned away.

And the wind died.

Mira’s turn followed.

Her chamber was music.

All music.

Thousands of voices. Each hers. Singing every song she’d never dared share. Every confession. Every scream. Every prayer. Her knees gave out halfway through. But she stayed. And listened. And when it ended—

She gave a low smile.

Callen entered last.

His chamber had no walls.

Just stars.

And every star was a face.

The ones who died when he ran.

The ones who waited when he didn’t return.

He stood in silence for a long time.

Then whispered every name again.

When his voice broke—

The stars fell.

And the vault welcomed him through.

They emerged in the same hall—one by one.

Leon first.

Then Elena.

Then the others.

Every one of them bore a trace of their trial—an ember on a wrist, a thin burn across the cheek, a gold fleck in the eye. Proof. Not of passing the trial.

But of enduring.

The hall they now entered was not stone.

It was molten glass, hardened beneath their steps.

And at its far end—

A door.

Tall.

Fractured.

Cracked not from force, but from age.

Leon’s pulse quickened.

"That’s not part of the vault," he said.

Elena stepped beside him.

"No," she agreed. "That’s the eighth seal it seems."

And behind them, the Flamevault sealed.

Because ahead, the true test waited.

And the end had begun to wake.

The door at the far end did not move.

With each second, its surface rippled—like something behind it stirred but hadn’t yet risen. The cracks along its frame pulsed, veins of dull gold threading outward with the rhythm of a slow, patient heartbeat. No sound echoed. No wind moved. But every breath they took tasted like the moment before a storm.

Leon stepped forward first. "It’s not sealed."

Elena shook her head, her voice barely audible. "Not anymore. It’s waiting for us."

Alden approached the threshold, eyes fixed on the door’s edges. "This wasn’t carved by man," he whispered. "It’s older than the vault. Older than the throne. This was... left behind."

Tomas circled once, sword out, though his hand trembled. "We’re not ready."

"No," Elena said. "We never are."

Callen stood still, then slowly reached out and touched the edge of the frame.

It didn’t burn him.

But the mark on his wrist flared—ember-red, bright and sharp, like a chain pulling tight.

"Whatever’s behind here," he murmured, "it knows we’re here."

The air thickened again.

Then, the door opened.

There was no sound.

Just light.

But not light like flame. A flood of colourless brilliance poured out across the hall and swallowed the group whole.

And in the light—shapes began to form.

Moments.

They stood now on a field of ash and ice, with a sky the colour of bruised iron stretched above. Around them, thousands of torches flickered in ghost hands. Soldiers. Dead ones. Standing in silence.

They seemed to be waiting.

A voice rose above the silence.

it wasn’t female or male. It wasn’t human either.

Just old.

"You broke the seventh seal. You wear the crown of flame. But the eighth is not a throne."

The ghost soldiers turned.

And stepped forward.

But not toward Leon.

Nor Elena.

Toward Mira.

She gasped—then fell to her knees as the ash around her stirred, revealing a face in the dust.

Her sister.

"You left me," the figure said. "You walked out of the fire alone and left me to die."

Mira reached forward, eyes wide, trembling.

"I didn’t know you were still—"

The figure vanished.

And the ash screamed.

Dozens of voices rose, not in rage—but mourning.

Callen staggered. The names he had spoken? They answered.

They circled him now, reaching, grabbing at his wrists, his throat, his chest. Not to kill. To remind him of their pain and suffering.

Leon reached him first.

He slashed once—clean—and the ghosts fell back.

Then Elena stepped to the centre of the field.

The crown of flame on her shoulders burned white now. Unseen by most. But the ghosts saw it. And they halted.

Every one.

The old voice returned thundering.

"The Eighth is not a gate."

The sky cracked.

Above them, the clouds split—revealing a mirror.

And in it, the world was burning.

Not in the far future.

But now.

Fires rising from far coasts.

Storms gathering in broken capitals.

A girl with no name standing on a cliff of bone, holding a weapon too big to carry.

The eighth wasn’t coming.

It had already begun.

Leon looked to Elena.

She didn’t speak.

But her fire surged higher.

And across the mirrored sky, another seal cracked.

The image in the sky dimmed— cloaked behind a shimmer of smoke. The ghosts knelt In grief. Then one by one, they began to fade, their torches snuffing out like stars drowning in mist.

Mira stood last, breath shuddering. Her arms trembled as she touched her pendant once more, pressing it to her chest. "She was already gone," she whispered.

No one answered.

Because behind them, the field had begun to peel away. Not collapse—peel, like a page being turned. The ground dissolved into starlight, the iron sky fragmenting into fireflies. And then the world around them blinked—gone.

They stood in a chamber of obsidian.

No doors. No exit. Just silence. But this time, it wasn’t empty.

At the centre, rising from the floor, a pedestal of black flame began to grow. Slow. Intentional. Upon it—

A single shard.

Glass? No. Bone? Maybe. But it pulsed.

Alden stepped forward, voice hollow. "That’s not an artifact."

"No," Leon said. "It’s a piece of the seal."

The eighth seal.

Elena didn’t move. She was still staring at the mirror that once filled the sky, now just a curve of smoky glass above them.

Leon walked to the pedestal. His fingers hovered above the shard.

"Careful," Callen said. "If it’s the seal, it might not be whole."

Leon nodded. "That’s the point."

He touched it.

And pain rippled through the floor.

Not into Leon—but out of him. The flame in his sword screamed—high, shrill, desperate. The shard drank the cry, and then began to glow. Words formed along its sides.

Branded.

A name.

Elena stepped closer. She read it.

And went still.

"You know it?" Leon asked.

Her voice cracked. "It’s... mine."

The eighth wasn’t just a seal.

It was a name.

A truth buried so deep it took fire and mirror and death to pull it free.

And now, it was free.

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