Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 86

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 86.
The Island of the Survivors (27)
July was the month when the Chilwon Ceremony was held once every ten years, and the entire Island bustled with frantic activity. Only after the ritual concluded could everyone finally catch their breath and find time to think of anything else.
During that period, Daphnen had visited Morpheus’s House a few times as promised, but he hadn’t paid particularly close attention to what the priest was doing.
Even if he had stared intently, he lacked the ability to understand it, and he assumed that if any meaningful results emerged, the priest would inform him.
Morpheus’s House bore the appearance that justified why Priestess Despoina called it a “ransacked laboratory.”
Every book had migrated from its shelf and wandered about the floor, while fragments of parchment covered in mysterious writing drifted through the air. The enormous table was crowded with vessels and medicine bottles of unknown purpose—one careless touch threatened to send them cascading to the ground in a chain reaction.
Yet deeper within the house lay a space separated by heavy curtains, and that interior remained immaculate, not a speck of dust disturbing its pristine state.
Behind the curtain sat an elongated black stone that resembled a tombstone. Its surface gleamed like a mirror, polished to a reflective sheen.
Whenever Daphnen arrived, Morpheus would immediately cease his work and retreat behind the curtain. There, he would accept the Winterer and place it upon the black stone.
While Boris waited in a chair positioned to one side, Morpheus would bring forth different objects each time and conduct his experiments.
The first and second attempts yielded no reaction whatsoever. On the third attempt, I glimpsed something resembling a luminescence, but nothing more.
On the fourth visit, Morpheus Priest brought a large copper ring and fitted the sword between its curves. Grasping one side of the ring, he chanted the runes as he always did.

Ban. Sia. Damor. Zaldi.

Though Daphnen understood nothing of magic manifested through runes, the combinations Morpheus chanted had begun to feel strangely familiar.
Morpheus had explained that if two objects shared even the slightest fragment of a common past, they would resonate with one another.
According to his unwavering conviction, the Winterer was a blade forged at least several centuries ago, possibly over a thousand years. The copper ring, he claimed, came from their Old Kingdom.
Light began to emanate once more. A circular radiance spread around the ring, then gradually diffused across the entire blade.
The light intensified progressively until, in a sudden moment, it leaped into the empty air—much like water splashing upward when a great stone is hurled into a lake.
Crackle!
Boris jolted from his seat in alarm. The luminescence that had erupted showed no sign of subsiding, undulating in the void as though possessed of its own life.
This outcome appeared to have caught even Morpheus off guard. Excitement flickered across his solemn features.
“At last….”
The light danced wildly for a time before gradually coalescing into a more defined form. First, it became a towering mountain. Then it stretched upward in a slender line, transforming into the sharp shape of a spear.
Beneath the spear, the outline of a hand grasping it materialized. With such clarity, as though some terrible entity lurked within, wringing the light at its whim.
The spear’s form scattered. The light briefly transformed into thousands of minute points, dispersing like snowflakes. No—it seemed determined to conjure an actual blizzard.
The glimmering particles that drifted downward dissolved and vanished upon touching the black stone, only to be born anew in the void and fall again in endless repetition. Daphnen’s eyes widened as he beheld this spectacle.
Presently, the luminous flakes began to spiral, then suddenly converged toward the center, transforming into something resembling a spire. Then it flattened once more, taking on the shape of a shelf.
After that, the light suddenly convulsed violently, thrashing about in chaotic, frenzied bounds. It surged and plummeted like a beast impaled upon a sharp spear. Had it possessed a voice, its screams would surely have shattered the house.
Daphnen found himself strangely unsettled by the emotion radiating from that light. Though he understood nothing of it, he felt profound sorrow and anguish.
After a considerable time, the light gradually faded, settling low upon the stone floor.
The sudden thought that something momentous was about to unfold swept over Daphnen.
Daphnen turned to look at Morpheus Priest and attempted to speak, but it suddenly occurred to him that Morpheus seemed as distant as the Continent itself—no matter how loudly he called, the priest would not answer.
In that very moment, the brightly lit chamber abruptly transformed into absolute darkness, where nothing could be seen even an inch ahead.
Yet it was clearly midday?
All he could hear was his own breathing. Something strange had occurred. Though he could not fathom what it was.
“Huff, hah, huff, hah….”
He tried to turn toward the window to see if the outside world remained bright, but his sense of direction had vanished, leaving him uncertain which way to look. Daphnen forced his voice out and called to Morpheus.
“Morpheus! Morpheus! Morpheus! Please answer me! Where are you right now!”
As I had feared, no response came.
A chill ran through my entire body. I wrapped my arms around myself and shrank back.
I couldn’t move. Everywhere except the ground beneath my feet seemed to be a bottomless precipice—the slightest motion felt like it would send me plummeting into the abyss. I had never imagined that fear born from absolute darkness could be so overwhelming.
The absence of my sword in my hand only deepened the anxiety.
No—wasn’t this entire catastrophe caused by that very sword?
Scritch, scritch, scritch…
A scratching sound echoed nearby. Dangerously close.
Grrrrr…
It was the sound of the swamp’s mud churning and boiling. Without thinking, I stumbled backward. Mercifully, there was solid ground behind me.
Drip. Drip-drip. Drip.
I knew with desperate certainty that these were the sounds of blood falling.
Then it happened. Something detonated inside my mind with a thunderous roar.
Kaboom!
As the echoes of that cataclysmic sound faded, a voice pierced through. It resonated only within my skull—a voice that sent shivers down my spine.
Compared to this, the phantom’s voice that had once burrowed into my consciousness at Emera Lake seemed like a child’s trivial game.

Who calls upon me?

It was the voice of a power that transcended the limits of the living, an infinite and eternal force—a terrible, overwhelming ‘presence’ itself speaking to me for the first time.
I lost consciousness. The second time in my life.

“Are you awake?”
The moment I opened my eyes, I saw light and felt relief wash over me. The darkness had vanished.
“Are you alright? If you are, try sitting up now.”
Despite being the priest responsible for medicine, Morpheus spoke with blunt directness. Yet Daphnen rose from the bed just as naturally, as though it were the most obvious thing to do.
The bed where I had been lying was tucked into one corner of Morpheus’s cluttered research chamber.
“You seem fine.”
My body certainly appeared to have no serious injuries. But what I had seen and heard just moments before….
I seized Morpheus’s arm urgently.
“W-what happened? What was that sound I heard? What did you see, Priest?”
Morpheus fell silent for a moment, his expression growing somber, then rose and disappeared behind a curtain. He returned shortly, carrying something in his hands. At first, I couldn’t even recognize what it was—its form had changed so drastically.
It was Winterer.
But the hilt and crossguard had vanished completely. The scabbard was gone as well. All that remained was the blade, gleaming with an icy white radiance. The tang that had once been embedded in the hilt appeared to be forged from the same material as the blade itself.
Morpheus set the towel-wrapped Winterer beside me and spoke.
“I hardly know what to say. First, I apologize. I never imagined something like this would occur. And what troubles me even more is that despite experiencing this incident, I’ve learned absolutely nothing about this blade’s history.”
Shameless candor was Morpheus’s specialty. But what came next was far more astonishing.
When I had witnessed the darkness, it wasn’t merely the room that had been engulfed—the entire Island had been plunged into shadow for several minutes.
The Island’s inhabitants had been thrown into panic and confusion. An emergency assembly of priests had already been convened at the Town Hall. Yet no one could explain what had transpired.
In other words, I hadn’t lost consciousness mere minutes ago. It was already night.
The assembly was still ongoing. Morpheus had slipped away under the pretext of tending to his patient.
“Let’s make one promise.”
“W-what is it?”
I stared down at Winterer, now reduced to its blade alone, and shuddered with an eerie chill. When I looked up, Morpheus was watching me with eyes that seemed almost mad.
“Don’t speak of what happened today to anyone. Not your friends, and certainly not Nauplion Priest. When I went to the priest’s assembly earlier, I told them I have no idea how this occurred. This is for your sake, not mine. I might lose my priesthood as the price for conducting a dangerous experiment—though I harbor no regrets about such things anyway. But you—you could lose your blade, and worse, you might be cast out from the Island entirely.”
Morpheus paused, his already frightening eyes widening further.
“Do you understand what I’m saying? I am the one who drew you into this, thoughtless as you were, so I feel responsible. I don’t want you to suffer harm because of this incident.”
I listened to his words in a daze, unable to fully comprehend them even as I heard them.
Suddenly, Morpheus gripped my shoulders and shook me, raising his voice.
“Do you understand me! In the worst case, you could face execution! Wake up! You cannot speak of this to anyone!”
The word execution jolted me back to full awareness.
“Why, why would it be so severe…?”
I stammered, barely managing to speak. Morpheus shook his head several times before asking.
“You… what sound did you say you heard earlier?”
“Yes, a strange voice….”
“I heard nothing. I only saw darkness, and I quickly lit the lamps. But no matter how brightly I illuminated the room, I couldn’t dispel that black fog shrouding the blade. And that was… the same for you. You too were engulfed in that dark mass, unable to see even the tips of your hair. This blade doesn’t truly respond to copper rings or such trifles. It responds to you—to you yourself!”
A chill ran through me again. I shrank back. Morpheus continued.
“I don’t know how it came to be this way. But you won’t easily escape the blade’s power. That’s why the Island will either cast you out or, in the worst case, kill you for bringing such a dangerous object here. It can’t happen. It mustn’t. Today never happened. But….”
At that moment, I felt a dormant premonition awakening within me for the first time in ages, and I spoke.
“You’re saying I should keep coming back, aren’t you? That no matter what else happens, you’re determined to uncover this secret…?”
Morpheus nodded firmly.
“Hmph, there’s a reason I’m called a fool. Let’s see this through to the end like fools do. You’ll come with me, won’t you?”
In Morpheus’s eyes burned a will that seemed almost mad—a determination for which death itself held no terror, all in service of uncovering the truth he sought.
But Daphnen was afraid.
What would happen once the Winterer’s true identity was revealed? What if something even more terrible than what they faced now came to pass?

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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