The tunnels reveal a central nexus.
All red bloodline territories connect underground to this chamber, because branching corridors extend outward in multiple directions like spokes of a wheel, and faint pulses travel along them in rhythmic waves that echo the tremors felt across regions.
“The original rising began here,” Simon says quietly as he steps into the chamber and feels the convergence point with instinct rather than sight.
The platform at the center glows faintly, not red but something darker and more metallic in tone, and the air above it shimmers with distortion that suggests something pressed against it from below.
“This was the anchor,” Axel says slowly as he studies the carvings that encircle the platform. “Not the temple above.”
The temple was distraction.
The true sea
