From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 120: The Choir of Ash

The halls sang without voice.

No words. No melody. Just a feeling—a pressure behind the ribs, a scraping at the back of the eyes. The silence had weight now, clinging to skin like damp smoke, growing thicker with every step Leon took toward the light.

The ruins around him pulsed faintly, not with magic, but memory. Windows framed scenes from lives long gone: kings dissolving into ash, lovers weeping into the void, cities crumbling without sound. No screams. No music. Just grief played on loop.

Mira walked beside him, blade ready, jaw tight. She hadn’t said anything since they crossed the gate. Couldn’t. The silence swallowed more than noise—it devoured thought. Leon kept one hand over his chest, where both shards throbbed against his heartbeat, guiding him forward, deeper.

Behind them, Tomas trailed close, scanning every shadow. He mouthed something once—probably a curse—but even that was useless here. Kairis remained at the rear, a cold flicker in the dust, her presence barely solid, as if this place remembered *her* differently than the others.

The hall opened suddenly.

A circular chamber.

The source of the glow stood at its centre: a single stone altar, shaped like a child’s cradle.

And in it—something small.

Breathing.

Barely.

Leon took a step forward.

Mira grabbed his arm.

But he didn’t stop.

He already knew what it was.

The wraith wasn’t a monster.

It was a boy.

Or at least it looked like one.

White hair like frost. Skin pale and cracked like dry porcelain. Eyes closed. Chest rising in slow, painful pulses. Around him, fragments floated—books, bones, old royal seals—all turning lazily in the still air, orbiting like ghosts.

Leon approached until the silence became unbearable.

Then—

"Leon."

His name wasn’t spoken.

He heard it inside himself. A thought not his own. A sound without air.

The child’s eyes opened.

Black pools. No whites. No pupils. Only void.

"You brought him home," the boy whispered. "The Hollow King. He was lonely."

Leon flinched. "You... know who I am?"

"I know what you’re becoming."

The child sat up in the cradle.

No menace. No rise in power.

Just sadness.

"You carry two voices now. Do they argue?"

Leon hesitated. "Not yet."

"They will. The more you take, the more you stop being you."

Mira stood just inside the doorway, watching. Tomas edged further in, his expression shifting from alarm to something near pity.

The boy reached out a hand.

Palm up.

And floating just above it—another shard.

A third.

This one wasn’t blue or red. It shimmered with alternating colours. Like oil in water. Like sorrow made visible.

Leon stared at it.

"What’s the price?" he asked.

The boy blinked.

"There’s no price. There’s a choice."

"What’s the difference?"

The boy tilted his head. "A price is paid once. A choice... echoes."

Leon stepped closer.

The shard hovered higher, pulsing now. The others inside his chest answered, pulling him forward. Tempting. Urging. Pleading.

But something in Leon’s gut twisted.

This one felt different.

The first had been rage. The second, regret.

But this?

This was surrender.

The kind that came after too many wars, too many nights alone, too many memories clawing at the back of your skull.

It was the shard of giving up.

Leon closed his eyes.

He remembered Arden’s voice.

He remembered his father’s silence.

He remembered every face that fell when they realised the world would not save them.

And then he opened his eyes again.

"No."

The boy blinked. "What?"

"I’m not ready for that one."

The shard stopped pulsing.

Leon backed away.

"Keep it," he said. "That voice doesn’t belong to me. Not yet."

Mira let out a breath—barely audible. Tomas gave a small nod, like he’d been hoping for that answer.

The child tilted his head again. "Then why come?"

Leon looked at him.

"I came to see if it would break me."

"And?"

"It didn’t."

The boy smiled.

And the chamber began to tremble.

"You chose. That’s rare," the boy whispered. "Most don’t."

The floating objects slowed. The shard dimmed.

"You’ll need this someday," the child added. "The song never ends. But I’ll hold it for you."

Leon nodded once.

"Then we’ll meet again."

The child laid back in the cradle.

And as they turned to leave, the silence began to break—like a cracked shell.

Voices returned. Footsteps echoed.

And behind them, the choir of ash... fell quiet. The moment the air shifted, Leon knew they weren’t alone.

He didn’t draw his blade—not yet. But his hand drifted toward the hilt, muscle memory working faster than thought. Mira had already turned, eyes narrowed toward the far side of the chamber where dust rose—not unnaturally, not violently, just enough to mark movement.

Tomas muttered, "We’re done with lullabies, right? Please tell me we’re done."

They weren’t.

The echo that followed wasn’t a voice. It wasn’t even a word. It was a note—drawn out, sharp and wrong, like a harp string snapped under too much tension.

Leon pivoted.

The child remained still in the cradle, eyes closed again, but the light around him flickered.

Kairis glided across the chamber and stopped beside Leon. "You feel that?"

He nodded.

"It’s not coming from him," she said.

And she was right.

The note struck again.

This time lower.

Deeper.

The kind of sound that made bones hum.

Mira stepped forward. "It’s underneath us."

"No," Kairis corrected, voice barely a whisper. "Behind us."

They turned.

The temple chamber had no door. No obvious exit. Just the one they came from.

But now... there was a second archway.

It hadn’t been there before.

Leon’s breath caught.

It wasn’t carved into the stone.

It had grown there. Thick roots curled into a frame, pulsing faintly like muscle, and beyond it—darkness.

Not absence-of-light darkness.

A living dark. A waiting dark.

Tomas cursed under his breath. "I liked it better when it was quiet."

Leon stepped toward the arch.

Kairis raised a hand. "Wait."

He stopped.

"That isn’t part of this temple," she said. "That’s something... else. Something that answered your refusal."

"I thought choosing was the right thing," Mira muttered.

"It was," Kairis said. "But choices have consequences."

Leon studied the archway. "It’s a door."

"It’s an invitation," Kairis said.

"From what?"

Kairis didn’t answer.

But the child in the cradle did.

"You said no to surrender," the boy whispered, eyes still shut. "So now something else will offer it again. Louder. Crueller. It thinks it knows what you truly are."

Leon stared into the dark.

He saw nothing.

But he felt it.

The way you feel someone looking at you in a crowded room.

It didn’t feel like the Hollow King’s shard.

Or the first shard, the one that burned.

This one was colder.

Heavier.

Patient.

Mira shifted closer to him. "We’re not going in there. Not unless we have to."

Leon exhaled slowly. "I don’t think it wants us to go in."

Tomas raised a brow. "That’s comforting."

"No," Leon said. "It wants me to bring it out."

The arch pulsed again.

A shadow formed at the threshold.

Not stepping forward.

Just pressing against the edge.

It had no face. No limbs. Just shape. Just pressure.

And it sang.

Not with sound—but memory.

The crash of metal. The smell of blood. The ache of standing too long at a grave you didn’t dig but still blamed yourself for.

Leon staggered back a step.

Mira caught him.

Kairis moved in front of them, her hands glowing faintly now—magic warping the air around her like heat over coals.

"I know this," she whispered. "This is the Forfeit. A remnant of the shard never chosen."

Leon steadied himself. "A fragment?"

"A shadow of a shadow. It wasn’t supposed to be real. It shouldn’t be real."

The arch quivered.

Something behind the pressure was trying to speak.

Not through words.

Through Leon.

His voice cracked without his will. "I understand you. I remember—"

Then he bit down on the rest.

Kairis turned sharply. "Don’t answer it."

Leon nodded, fists clenched. His skin felt too tight. The veins along his neck glowed faintly again—blue and orange, the first two shards reacting.

Mira raised her sword and pointed it toward the arch. "If it’s not real, let’s break it."

"It is real now," Kairis said. "Because he made it real. When he said no. When he chose."

Tomas shook his head. "So what, every decision makes a demon now?"

"In this place?" Kairis said. "Yes."

Leon stepped forward.

Not too close.

Just enough.

He spoke aloud this time.

"I chose not to carry it. I meant that."

The shadow flickered.

Once.

Then began to unravel—slowly, like paper curling in fire without burning. The arch stayed. But the presence withdrew.

And then it was gone.

The arch remained—roots still pulsing, still curved—but now inert.

Quiet.

Kairis stared at Leon.

"That was dangerous."

Leon nodded. "I know."

"Why didn’t it take you?"

He looked back toward the cradle.

The boy was asleep again.

Then he looked at his friends. Mira. Tomas. Kairis.

"I wasn’t alone," he said.

Silence.

Then Mira broke it with a soft laugh. "Well. If you ever do decide to crack, warn us first so we can back up."

Tomas grinned. "Or film it. Might make a great tragic ending."

Leon rolled his eyes.

Then he looked at the arch one last time.

And turned away.

Whatever lay west... it would be worse than a phantom memory.

But at least now, he knew how to walk past it.

Without listening.

The arch behind them no longer pulsed.

But the memory of its hum lingered, vibrating in the bones, like an itch too deep to scratch.

Leon didn’t speak as they exited the chamber. No one did. Not until the twisting corridor began to narrow again, the ruins collapsing back into fractured halls of broken altars and long-dead prayers.

They didn’t walk in silence. The silence followed them.

Kairis glanced behind once, her expression unreadable. "It won’t be the last time."

Leon didn’t ask what she meant.

Because he already knew.

The shadows he walked with now weren’t just the ones cast by firelight. They were choices—splinters of possibility—each one waiting for a moment of weakness.

Tomas broke the mood with a mutter. "So we’re just gonna pretend none of that just happened? The singing cradle ghost, the trauma arch, the thing trying to wear Leon like a coat?"

"Sounds better when you say it out loud," Mira said dryly.

"It wasn’t a ghost," Leon murmured. "And it wasn’t trying to wear me."

"No?" Tomas arched a brow. "Then what was it?"

Leon glanced at the shard inside his chest, pulsing quietly beneath his ribs. "It was the part of me that wanted to stop."

They reached the outer archway again. Light from the real world bled through the broken stone, cold and grey. The sky beyond the ruins hadn’t changed. Still storm-hung. Still painted with ash clouds. But after what they’d just seen, it felt... grounded. Easier to breathe.

Almost.

Mira stepped through first, and the wind hit her face like a slap. "West, right?"

Leon nodded.

She pointed toward a faint ridge in the distance, jagged and veiled in drifting soot. "That’s a full day’s walk. Maybe more if the ground’s unstable."

"Will be," Tomas said. "Places like this always rot everything around them. And I’d rather not be stuck out there if that lullaby kid wakes up again and wants a rematch."

Leon cast a glance back at the temple ruins.

No movement.

No presence.

But that didn’t mean safety.

Nothing here ever meant safety.

"We keep moving," he said. "There’s still three shards left. The next one’s west."

"Do we even know where west?" Tomas asked. "Or are we trusting whatever invisible magnet is currently spooning your soul?"

Leon smirked faintly. "I trust the pull."

"And if it leads you into a sinkhole filled with singing bones?"

"Then I’ll hum back."

Mira snorted and started walking. "I hate that that’s our standard now."

They descended into the valley, the sky growing darker with every hour. No birds. No beasts. Just wind and the occasional groan of old stone settling. By dusk, they reached the edge of a long, blackened plain—a battlefield scorched so long ago the ground had turned to brittle glass.

Kairis crouched and touched the earth. "Here."

"What is it?" Mira asked.

"Blood," she said simply. "But not recent."

Leon crouched beside her.

The pull in his chest had grown steadier. Not stronger. Just more certain. Like a thread being reeled in. His head throbbed with the rhythm of it.

"Whatever happened here..." Tomas scanned the field, brow furrowed. "It wasn’t a battle."

Leon looked up. "Then what?"

Tomas pointed ahead.

At the hill.

A lone hill, barely more than a rise.

And on top of it—a tree.

Or what used to be a tree.

Now it was just a husk. Burnt black. Hollowed. With symbols carved deep into its bark—symbols Leon had seen before.

In the Hollow King’s memory.

Mira breathed, "It’s one of the Places of Fall."

Leon nodded. "The place where a fragment first shattered."

Kairis stood. "Then the shard was born here."

Leon touched his chest.

The rhythm shifted again.

Closer.

Hungrier.

"No," he said. "Something worse."

And above them, the clouds opened.

Just slightly.

Enough to reveal a crack of twilight—and a streak of something silver cutting across the sky.

Falling.

Not a star.

Not a comet.

A shard.

Descending.

And every fragment inside him screamed in recognition.

He didn’t need directions anymore.

West was no longer a direction.

It was a summons.