Chapter 18: Chapter 16 : The Ruins of Vasthera

Time stopped.

Lin no longer knew how long it had been since the White Queen led him into the throne room. His body was no longer his own, and her voice still whispered in his mind—like a slow, unrelenting poison.

Then… he opened his eyes.

The room was dark. The ceiling was gone, and the walls were cold, as if they had inhaled the frost itself.

And she was there. Standing before him.

The Great Serpent Queen—the beast that devoured his companions and brought him here.

She approached with steps that caused a subtle tremor in the ground, as if the walls themselves trembled in fear. With each step, terror crept into Lin's limbs, paralyzing his fingers, leaving his heart pounding in unbearable chaos.

He tried to retreat, but the cold in his feet overtook him, and his back struck the icy wall. There was no escape.

Her slender hand reached out like a demonic shadow and rested on his shoulder. It felt soft, like a writhing snake, but the pressure was enough to make his knees give way. He collapsed to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

She leaned closer, her eyes glowing with a lifeless red gleam. And slowly—as if time itself had halted—she began to transform...

Her skin faded, turning into smooth scales. Her spine stretched, shifted, and rose until she became a white serpent large enough to swallow the entire room.

She coiled tightly around him, as if grasping a piece of her lost past.

Then she sank her ivory fangs into his neck—not like a lover, but like a primal creature performing a sacred rite.

And her venom… It wasn't ordinary.

It was cold, yes—but alive. As if every drop carried a tiny heart, beating against his blood, whispering an ancient song whose meaning he could not grasp.

Then her voice came—soft as a whisper, slithering like a hiss:

"Ssss... your delicious blood pulses with mana... I truly can't wait for our wedding night."

She laughed—a quiet laugh, like ashes falling on a corpse—and added in mocking softness:

"Ssss... sadly, you're still too weak. You wouldn't survive me. Otherwise… I would've begun without ceremony."

Lin tried to resist. He screamed inside, begged his limbs—but his body didn't respond. It felt foreign. He was like a small mouse between the jaws of a predator.

Each pulse of the venom was like a letter in an eternal curse. Slowly, his limbs dulled. Then, his voice vanished. He wanted to scream, to curse, to cry—but he couldn't.

Then a sound emerged. Weak. Torn. A lone scream pierced the silence of the room, like glass shattering in an abandoned temple.

The queen returned to her human form—her wavy white hair, her royal cloak, and her merciless eyes.

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She grabbed the collar of his tattered white coat and brought her lips to his ear:

"I've paralyzed your body, my dear. We still have to go to Vasthera... to begin your induction as my husband."

…

As they walked, the path to Vasthera was silent—decayed, as if time itself had abandoned it and forgotten to pass through.

The stones crumbled beneath their feet, cracking as if breathing ancient pain, while gray mist cloaked the ground, slipping between the cracks like lost souls searching for a way out.

On both sides, leaning pillars trembled silently, etched with curses in a dead language—one that could not be read, only felt. As if they screamed without sound at all who came near.

From afar, the gate's ruins looked like a fallen mountain from the sky, shrouded in stillness and surrounded by a black aura like a crown of eternal curse.

No birds. No wind. No life. Only the queen's footsteps dragging him behind her, as if walking toward an unavoidable fate.

With each step, his heart slowed—not out of fear, but as if the place planted fear into those who saw it.

Then… they arrived.

The gate was massive, pale, covered in rust and rot. Known as the "Gate of Ruin"—the only entrance to the Ruins of Vasthera.

The queen placed her hands on the gate and closed her eyes, then began to chant a hymn in a strange language. Her words were like whispers from a forgotten age, slipping from her lips like a curse resurrected from the underworld.

Lin didn't understand a single word—but her voice... it stirred something inside him that he didn't know existed.

Then… the gate breathed.

The darkness around it trembled, and cracks of faint blue light crept through its worn stones. The gate inhaled a single breath… as if something buried behind it had awakened.

She lifted Lin's body like a dead child and tossed him into a stagnant pool of water… called the "Pool of Ruin."

She said, her gaze cold as if casting a curse upon him:

"The Gates of Ruin, my dear husband... will not open for thirty days."

Then she shut it behind him, and left the darkness to consume him.

The water was cold—colder than ice, colder than frost. It wasn't water… It was a shroud. Alive. Breathing around him, above him, inside him.

Only silence remained in the dark ruins—silence, and Lin's attempt to move.

And then… the red eyes of the statues began to glow.

From hidden pipes, a black liquid crept in—slow, viscous, as if darkness itself had melted.

It wasn't just venom.

It was a primordial substance, created for one purpose: to erase all that is human.

It invaded from every direction… his skin, his eyes, his ears, even the pores of his bones. Every drop was like a silent lightning bolt.

The queen's venom still lingered within him, lodged in his marrow, resisting. But this… this was stronger. Deeper. Older.

It overran, submerged, and overwhelmed.

And suddenly… Lin regained his body. But it wasn't a victory.

He began to devour it.

Spots of his blood ignited, as if the poison was burning his history. His ribs exploded with toxins. His veins caught fire—then went cold. Every cell in him screamed in silence—screamed to death.

The venom was spreading through his body—not just to kill him, but to steal time, memory, and identity.

Time began to dissolve from Lin's awareness. He could no longer distinguish between night and day, nor between a minute and an hour. Days became gray masses slipping through his fingers without meaning, and every moment resembled the one before. His mind slowly eroded under the weight of silence and solitude, until he felt like a prisoner trapped in a temporal bubble, detached from the world—where nothing moved… except pain.

His hair began to change—its black hue deepened, like a mourning shroud.

His fingers were the first to rebel.

Then his eyelids twitched.

Then bubbles burst from his chest, as if his lungs had caught fire.

And then… he moved.

But the body that rose wasn't Lin.

His skin was covered in venom.

Lin tried to stand.

At the edge of the pool, the statues watched.

As if witnessing the birth of a being… long forgotten.

But the body that rose from the pool… wasn't him.

His skin wasn't just cracking—it was peeling away, layer by layer, as if his body were shedding its old self.

He was transforming like a serpent, casting off its scales to wear a form more pure, colder… and stranger.

White. Blindingly white.

A color that did not belong to humans, but to a statue made to be revered—not to live.

As he crawled out of the pool, his body leaned over the still water…

And he saw himself.

The first thing that struck him were the eyes—pale like moonlight, yet deep as if they had witnessed the birth of death.

His face was no longer his own… it had become hauntingly beautiful.

A sharp, frozen beauty—not pulsing with life, but radiating a quiet danger.

As if nature had adorned itself with ruin.

The bones of his face were perfectly sculpted, his flawless white skin hiding something unspeakable beneath.

His lips, trembling without pause, looked like they were mouthing a curse yet to be uttered.

His beauty was not human…

It was the beauty of a fallen angel—one who had walked through hell and emerged purer than when he entered.

At the edge of the pool, the ancient statues stared at him… as if bearing witness to the rebirth of something lost to time.

Lin began to climb out of the pool, ready to leave this place.

And suddenly, from the ruins—a shudder of time.

From the depth of the darkness, a great creature slithered forth.

A black serpent—its ends immeasurable, its steps uncountable.

It glided over the water's surface without causing a ripple, as if the world itself acknowledged its dominion.

Its eyes were blue, glowing like twin moons in the dark.

They did not ask, they did not ponder… they judged.

One glance was enough to shatter the soul.

It was pure night—royal, silent terror made flesh.

It was the embodiment of despair, as if it devoured Lin's final hope of moving… and crushed it.

Escape? A laughable idea before such a monster.

The serpent extended its long tongue and coiled its massive body around Lin.

It squeezed—hard—as if it were wringing out the last traces of his humanity.

Then… it sank its fangs into him.

Lin screamed.

A scream that filled the void, shattered the silence, as if a soul had been torn from its body.

The serpent… was not merely biting him.

It was trying to enter him.