The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort-Chapter 339 Beneath the Streets of Luthadel (2)

The data vault was at the very bottom of the Spire—a reinforced chamber humming with concealed power. The entrance was unlike the rest of the Spire. Instead of cold metal doors, this one was made of dark stone, laced with arcane glyphs that pulsed faintly. Security had increased, with two enforcers stationed at the entrance and a surveillance drone hovering near the ceiling.

Cerys muttered a curse under her breath. "Subtlety isn't an option."

Vyrelda's hand moved slightly toward her sword, but Cerys stopped her with a light tap on the arm. "Wait. Let me try something first."

She stepped forward, her expression cold and commanding—the same presence she used when delivering orders on the battlefield. The enforcers straightened immediately at her approach.

"You two," Cerys barked, her voice sharp with authority. "I need this door open immediately. Security command wants an internal status check on the archives."

The taller enforcer hesitated. "We weren't informed of—"

Cerys cut him off with a glare. "Because the command doesn't have time to relay every little change. Do you want to be the one who slows down an emergency containment review?"

That did it.

The second enforcer immediately stepped to the panel, pressing his palm against a glyph-etched plate. The stone door shuddered before sliding open with a low, grinding sound. The enforcers made a move to follow inside, but Cerys turned sharply.

"This is a classified inspection," she snapped. "Remain at your post."

The taller one frowned but nodded. "Understood."

The moment they stepped through, Vyrelda muttered under her breath, "Impressive."

Cerys smirked. "You just have to sound angrier than their superiors."

The vault was dimly lit, stretching before them in a long corridor lined with crystalline servers that flickered with contained energy. Unlike the rest of the Spire, this chamber had an unsettling stillness. There were no enforcers inside—just the hum of unseen power thrumming beneath their feet.

"Find the terminal," Cerys said quietly. "I'll keep watch."

Vyrelda moved swiftly, reaching the main console at the center of the room. The control panel glowed as her fingers danced over the haptic interface, bypassing layers of security with practiced efficiency. She was calm, methodical, her breath steady even as the screen pulsed with lines of encrypted data.

Cerys kept her stance relaxed but alert, eyes scanning the entrance. No movement. No sounds beyond the distant hum of the vault.

Then, Vyrelda inhaled sharply. "I'm in."

Cerys turned just as the files began flickering across the screen.

PROJECT AEGIS.

THRONE PROTOCOL.

MIST NETWORK—UNSTABLE.

Cerys narrowed her eyes. "What the hell is Throne Protocol?"

Vyrelda tapped the screen, pulling up a fragmented report. Lines of corrupted data scrolled past, but enough was intact to piece together something unsettling.

"'Initiated as a fail-safe in the event of destabilization…'" Vyrelda read. "'Connection to the Serewyn system remains… incomplete. Attempts to replicate the mistborn entities… catastrophic failure…'" Her eyes flickered with something rare—uncertainty. "They weren't just experimenting. They were trying to replace something."

Cerys clenched her jaw. "They knew the mist wasn't natural. They knew they were playing with something they didn't fully understand."

Vyrelda nodded grimly, scrolling further. Then she froze.

Cerys stepped closer. "What?"

Vyrelda's voice was barely above a whisper. "They've been tracking him."

Cerys's stomach twisted. She didn't need to ask who him referred to.

Mikhailis.

His name was listed under several reports, linked with anomalies in the mist pattern. A series of observations, some spanning months. The most recent entry was marked with a priority alert.

Vyrelda frowned. "They don't just suspect him. They're certain."

Before she could copy more data, the vault lights flickered.

Then the alarms blared.

A loud, pulsing sound echoed through the chamber, red emergency lights flashing along the walls. Cerys cursed. "Someone tripped a failsafe."

Vyrelda swiftly inserted a storage drive, copying whatever she could in the few seconds before the entire system locked her out.

The vault door trembled, the security glyphs pulsing erratically.

Cerys drew her sword. "How fast can you move?"

Vyrelda yanked the drive free, stuffing it into her uniform. "Fast enough."

Heavy footsteps sounded from the corridor outside.

Cerys gritted her teeth. "Time to go."

____

The air itself seemed to break.

A deep, resonating thrum shuddered through the ruins as the mistborn entity fully emerged, pulling itself free from the underground chamber that had imprisoned it for centuries. The swirling tendrils of mist writhed unnaturally, coiling and expanding, shifting between incorporeal and solid like an unstable dream given shape.

It wasn't a beast.

It wasn't bound by flesh or form.

It was something older, something raw—an embodiment of the mist itself.

The battlefield fell into stunned silence.

Even the masked warriors, so calculated and methodical in their strikes, faltered at the sight of it. The remaining Crownless forces staggered back, some frozen in place, others scrambling to flee, but there was nowhere to go. The mist had them surrounded.

Mikhailis could feel it.

Not just see it. Feel it.

The way the mist pulled at the edges of reality, warping the air in erratic pulses, as if the city itself was suffocating under its presence. The pressure against his skin was unnatural, neither hot nor cold, but wrong, like something that didn't belong here was forcing its way into existence.

A sound, deep and inhuman, vibrated through the ruins.

The mist-born entity shifted—its form fluctuating between towering tendrils and something vaguely humanoid, as if it were trying to remember what it once was.

Mikhailis took a step back, breath steady despite the rising tension in his chest. His fingers flexed at his sides, a near-instinctual motion, but he wasn't reaching for a weapon.

He already knew.

A blade wouldn't do anything to that.

A flicker of movement to his side—Lira, standing just within reach. Her usual composed mask remained, but he caught it—the slight clench of her jaw, the faint tightening of her grip on her hidden knives.

She was preparing for a fight.

But this wasn't a fight they could win.

A rustle of fabric behind him. Rhea's voice, sharp and urgent. "What in the name of every god did they just wake up?"

No one had an answer.

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Then, in the distance, the unmistakable sound of heavy boots on stone.

The Technomancer enforcers had arrived.

Not in scattered units like before.

This was an organized force.

Lines of black-clad enforcers flooded the streets surrounding the ruins, moving with precision, their formation practiced and disciplined. Helmets gleamed under the dull glow of arcane lanterns affixed to their armor, the lenses in their visors scanning the battlefield like soulless eyes.

They weren't here to stop the mistborn entity.

They weren't even aiming at it.

Instead, they moved like vultures, sweeping in toward the fallen Crownless members, detaining the survivors in brutal efficiency. Some fought back, weakly, but it was clear—they weren't resisting because they thought they could win. They were resisting because they knew what happened to people who got taken.

Mikhailis's stomach twisted.

They had planned for this.

Every move, every reaction.

The lockdown. The sweeping arrests. The sudden absence of Crownless allies. It was never about suppressing rebellion. It was about this.

A voice crackled to life over the city's speaker system.

"Containment Protocol is now in effect. All units, move to secure the breach."

Mikhailis's pulse pounded against his ribs.

Containment? He turned his gaze back to the mistborn entity—its form still twisting, still feeding off the mist in the air. The way it pulsed and expanded wasn't natural.

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It was reacting.

Growing.

And the Technomancers…

They weren't trying to stop it.

They were waiting.

Rhea shifted beside him, muttering a curse under her breath. "They knew this was coming."

Mikhailis didn't answer, not immediately.

Because his mind was already racing, piecing together fragments of information, drawing connections that hadn't been clear until now.

The ruins.

The sealed chamber.

The ancient systems buried beneath the city—the same ones the Crownless had tried to control.

They hadn't been trying to contain power.

They had been trying to break it free.

And now it was here.

Across the city, within the depths of the Technomancer Spire, Cerys and Vyrelda stood in front of a glowing screen, the emergency alarms flashing red against their faces.

Lines of data flickered across the interface as Vyrelda worked quickly, copying everything she could before security forces locked down the vault.

Then—

A final line of text flashed across the screen.

"The Serewyn system was never a prison—it was a guardian. If it falls, Luthadel falls with it."

Cerys's fingers curled into fists.

A guardian.

Not a weapon. Not a power source.

A last line of defense.

And the Crownless had just destroyed it.

She turned sharply to Vyrelda. "We need to get this information to Mikhailis. Now."

Back at the ruins, the mistborn entity let out a sound—a deep, shuddering noise that was neither scream nor roar, but something between.

The mist trembled.

Tendrils of it lashed outward, striking the ground with enough force to crack stone.

The air twisted.

Mikhailis felt it shift. A pull, a weight pressing against him that didn't belong to the physical world.

His head pounded.

His vision blurred for a split second—flashes of something else.

Not memories. Not dreams.

Something… buried.

He clenched his fists.

He knew there was no stopping this.

The enforcers wouldn't stop it.

The masked warriors had already started pulling back, their mission—whatever it had been—seemingly complete.

Lira was watching him now, her expression unreadable.

He could feel her waiting.

Waiting for his move.

Mikhailis took a slow breath.

And then—he stepped forward.

The moment his foot touched the shifting mist, something changed.

The weight in the air shifted.

The mist—wild, unstable—suddenly paused.

Like a tide pulling back before a wave.

A sharp gasp from Rhea.

The enforcers stopped what they were doing.

The entire battlefield froze.

The mist curled around Mikhailis, tendrils hovering just inches away from his skin.

It wasn't attacking.

It wasn't pushing him back.

It was recognizing him.

The realization sent a chill through his bones.

Then—

Eldris's voice reached him, distant, knowing.

"He's waking up."

The words echoed through the heavy silence.

Mikhailis barely had time to process them before a rush of something unseen crashed over him like a wave.

A pull, deep and ancient.

A voice—whispering, layered, countless voices speaking as one.

"Return."

And then—

Everything turned black.