Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 838 - 840

Chapter 838: Chapter 840

Jude’s legs were numb by the time they reached the thicket beyond the ridge. Nyra had collapsed once, coughing up dust and pain, but she pushed forward again with a grim look in her eyes. There was no time to rest. The High Table would not hesitate. Without the Heartstone binding their power, the entire hierarchy would fall into panic, but before that came fury. Jude helped Nyra onto a fallen tree trunk, crouching beside her while scanning the trees for movement. The silence was deceptive. Nothing had hunted them yet, but they both felt it: a tightening, a heaviness crawling behind the wind, as though the very world had become a blade poised against their throats.

"We can’t go back to the city," Nyra whispered. "Leonork’s not safe anymore." Jude nodded. "The Table will raze it if they think we’re hiding there. They’ll take no chances." She looked at him, eyes heavy but sharp. "Then where?" He pulled out a torn piece of cloth from his satchel, unfolding it to reveal a crude map inked in ancient tongue. "East," he said. "Past the Iron Hollow. There’s someone who can help." "Who?" "A stranger who refused the Table’s summons. Lives in the Whispering Peaks. They say he’s mad. But they also say he speaks with the remnants." Nyra narrowed her eyes. "The remnants are dead." "Not all," Jude said quietly.

They moved through the forest like ghosts. Every branch snapped too loudly, every gust of wind threatened to reveal them. They took turns keeping watch during the night. When dawn broke, the clouds above looked bruised and bloated with storm. On the third day, they saw the sky tear open, columns of fire falling on a distant hill, consuming what looked like a village. Jude froze. "They’re not hunting us," he said. "They’re cleansing the land." "To erase our trail," Nyra added. "They don’t need to find us. They just need to burn everything until we’re ash."

By the time they reached the Iron Hollow, hunger had clawed at their ribs, and sleep came in fragments. The Hollow was worse than the stories, massive metallic bones stretched across the canyon, remnants of a time before memory. Machines that once roared with energy now lay in twisted, rusted silence. Jude helped Nyra down the slope carefully. They moved under the skeleton of a collapsed walker, its limbs wrapped around the cliff like vines. Strange symbols glowed faintly on its surface. "This place hums," Nyra murmured. "Like something old and angry still breathes here." Jude placed a hand on one of the pillars. "It’s more than that. The machines still remember."

A sound broke the quiet. Not from the cliff or the ruins, but from behind. Jude turned just as a figure dropped from above, landing in a crouch. A woman, tall, cloaked in blackened armor, with a scar running down her cheek like lightning frozen in flesh. Her eyes locked onto Nyra, then Jude. She didn’t draw a weapon. "You’re late," she said. Nyra tensed. "You know us?" "I know your smell. You lit the spark. The Table’s panicking." Jude stepped forward, wary. "And who are you?" "Mira," the woman said. "I was one of the Vaultborn. Before the Table decided to erase us." Nyra’s mouth twitched. "Then why are you here?" "Because the remnants want to speak with you," Mira said. "And because you’re not the only ones tearing holes in the world."

She led them deeper into the Hollow, past crushed engines and faded banners. Eventually they reached a cavern, carved not by tools, but by something older. Inside, dozens of shapes moved, some armored, some robed, some cloaked in nothing but shadow. And in the center was a man wrapped in threads of blue light. His skin was marked with glyphs that moved across his body like rivers. His voice came not from his mouth, but from the space around them, echoing through bone and thought. "You’ve shattered the first anchor," he said. "You’ve made war inevitable." Jude swallowed. "It was the only way to break their hold." "Yes," the voice said, softer. "And now the world will begin to break as well."

Nyra stepped forward. "We came to find help. If the Table falls, we need to be ready for what follows." The man turned slowly. "What follows is worse than the Table." Jude frowned. "What do you mean?" "They were not the first rulers," he said. "Before them, before the Heartstone, there were the Bound. And before them, the Hollowed." The light dimmed slightly. "And now that the stone is gone, the Hollowed stir again. The roots of this world remember their masters." Mira stepped beside the glowing man. "The High Table may not survive this war, but the cost will be steep. The land is already shifting. The old seals are cracking."

Jude stepped back, shaking his head. "Then what’s the point? We remove one evil, and another worse one comes crawling up?" "The point is choice," the man said. "You broke the chain. Now you choose who rebuilds it, or if it should be rebuilt at all." Nyra clenched her fists. "Then give us something we can use. A weapon, an army, something." The man turned toward a curved wall. From its surface, an image began to form. Not a map, not a face, but a gate. Massive, sealed, with dozens of locks carved into the air itself. "This is the Vault of Echoes," he said. "It holds the Sorrowsteel, the last weapon made by the Forger before the Tables began. Only one may wield it. One who has broken a system, and has yet to build a new one." His glowing eyes turned to Jude.

Jude felt a pull in his chest. The kind he hadn’t felt since the war, since the fire at Leonork’s edge. He stepped closer. "Where is it?" "North," the man said. "Past the Withered Sea. But beware. The Hollowed have already sent their first claw."

Before they could ask more, the cavern shook. Dust fell from above. Screams echoed from the entrance.