The Last Spellcaster

The Spell Eater

Chapter 7

The Spire loomed in the distance, tall, jagged, and broken at the top, like the gods had tried to rip it from the world and failed.

Kain couldn’t stop staring at it. Even from miles away, it called to him. The mark on his arm pulsed in rhythm with something inside the Spire, like a forgotten drumbeat echoing across time.

But Seris wasn’t looking at the tower. She stared at him. You absorbed it, she said. The soul shard. I saw it enter you.

Kain didn’t deny it. It felt… familiar. Like it was always meant to be mine.

Seris’s voice was low. Or maybe it’s rewriting you. They didn’t speak much after that.

By the next day, the landscape began to change. The ground was cracked and veined with glowing lines, like the world itself had been stitched together after breaking.

And the further they walked, the more wrong things felt.

The wind whispered words again. The ghostlights didn’t return.

Then, just before dusk, the air screeched, a sharp, impossible sound that made blood leak from Kain’s nose.

Something landed in front of them.

It wasn’t the Null.

It was worse.

A creature draped in black wrappings, its face hidden behind a mirrored mask. Its fingers were long and metal-tipped, and it wore a coat stitched with hundreds of glowing glyphs, ripped from other spellcasters.

Seris froze. A Spell Eater. Kain’s stomach turned. What is that?

They were created by the Null Order after the Spellcaster’s fall. Their job is to find magic and consume it. They wear what they take.

The creature bowed mockingly. He speaks, it rasped. The boy with the mark. The last one.

Its voice echoed with layered tones, male, female, and something… else.

You’ve absorbed one shard, it hissed. And you’ll never reach the rest.

Without warning, it struck. Faster than any human should move.

Seris met it mid-air, her blade barely catching its claws. The two tumbled across the rocks in a blur of sparks and blood.

Kain raised his hand to help, but the magic inside him was… resisting. Trembling. As if the Spell Eater’s presence was poison to it.

You can’t fight me, little heir, the creature sneered. You carry stolen power. You don’t understand it.

Kain grit his teeth. Then teach me.

He slammed his palm to the earth.

The glyph in his arm flared. A burst of ancient light exploded outward, not an attack, but a command.

Bind. Chains of glowing energy erupted from the rocks, wrapping around the Spell Eater mid-lunge. It howled, thrashing violently.

But it wasn’t enough.The creature screamed and ate the chains, devouring them like threads of silk.

Seris grabbed Kain’s arm. Run!

But, RUN! They fled through the ravine, the howls echoing behind them. The Spell Eater didn’t follow immediately.

It wanted him to know it could have.

That it was only waiting for the right moment to strike again.

By nightfall, they were hidden beneath the roots of a collapsed tree. Kain’s hands still shook.

I thought the mark would protect me, he said. Seris bandaged her arm. The mark makes you a target. You’re becoming stronger, but that’s exactly what they fear. And fear hunts hardest.

Kain touched the symbol glowing faintly on his arm. So what now?

Seris looked toward the horizon.

We reach the Spire before the Spell Eater does. Before the rest of the shards fall into the wrong hands. WBut what’s inside the Spire? Kain asked.

Seris hesitated. The truth. Maybe a key. Maybe a weapon. Or maybe just a memory powerful enough to rewrite everything.

Kain stared into the night. And the mark, now joined with two glyphs,whispered:

The soul is not whole. The seal is not safe. The Spire must remember.