Chapter 78:
THE DARKNESS THAT CLAIMED ME
The world disappeared.
No sound. No light. Just an endless, consuming void swallowing me whole.
I wasn’t falling.
I wasn’t moving.
I simply existed in the nothingness, weightless, lost.
Then, slowly, something began to shift.
A whisper.
Not from outside me, but from within.
It curled around my mind, passing through my thoughts.
“Little Keeper.”
A voice. Ancient. Familiar.
The Forgotten One.
I gasped, trying to move, to fight, but my body wasn’t mine anymore. I had no form, no sense of direction. Just floating, trapped inside the void it had created.
“I have waited for you.”
The whisper was soft, almost gentle.
But I wasn’t fooled.
I clenched my fists or at least, I tried to. I couldn’t feel my ha
