NOVEL WEB Chapter 20: Chapter 19 — The Bell That Binds the Sky
The bell rang again.
Distant, deep, and slow.
A sound older than language, yet Kael knew what it meant.
Not a summons.
Not a warning.
A threshold.
Something—somewhere—had been unlocked.
He stood at the lake's edge, the water still shimmering with the aftermath of Skyfire's truth. The flame inside him was steady now, no longer burning for control. It burned with direction.
And the bell... gave it one.
---
Kael turned northeast.
Toward a place few dared name:
Caelureum Monastery.
Once, it was called the Skybinding Temple—a divine observatory sealed atop the Celestial Divide, where monks watched the heavens for cracks.
Now, it was dead.
Sealed.
Forgotten.
Because one day, the stars whispered too loudly… and the monks went mad.
---
The journey took two days.
Through scorched valleys, shattered plateaus, and frostbitten plains where nothing grew.
Kael didn't rest.
The bell rang again on the second night—closer this time. The sky itself vibrated. Clouds cracked apart in spiraling patterns.
And when he reached the foothills of the Divide, the wind stopped.
Not a single bird flew above. No beasts stirred below.
The entire mountain range was listening.
---
He climbed.
The monastery loomed above, carved into the peak itself—an open cathedral with no roof. Giant stone rings hovered in the sky above it, turning slowly like mechanisms made of fate and time.
Kael passed the broken archway and stepped into the ancient grounds.
The bell stood in the center.
Enormous.
Wrought from moonstone and stardust. Covered in sigils that pulsed like a sleeping heartbeat.
No monks.
No guards.
Only one figure knelt beneath the bell—cloaked in ash-white robes, a staff laid across his lap.
He did not raise his head when Kael arrived.
> "You carry the mark," the man said.
> "You heard the bell," Kael replied.
> "We all did," the man murmured. "But only one ever comes."
---
Kael circled the bell slowly.
Its surface was cold. Too cold.
He felt the Primordial Brand in his palm respond—tingling faintly, as if something on the bell remembered it.
> "Why now?" Kael asked. "Why ring it after silence?"
The robed man exhaled, voice quieter now.
> "Because the stars are bleeding again."
Kael looked up.
And he saw it.
High above, barely visible in daylight—one star dripping, its trail like a wound across the sky. Red and gold, spiraling downward.
> "A prophecy left unfinished," the man whispered. "One written in fire. Spoken through a blade. Breathed into a child born without prayer."
Kael's jaw tightened.
> "Say it."
The man finally raised his eyes.
And smiled.
> "The Sovereign of the Hollow Heavens... has begun to cast his shadow."
---
The bell pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
And on the third, it sang.
A deep, spiraling tone that didn't come from metal—but from memory.
Kael's vision blurred.
He saw a temple in flames.
A mountain falling.
A girl screaming his name.
He saw gods retreating.
He saw himself, sitting on a throne made of silence.
And above that throne?
Nothing.
Not sky. Not stars.
Not even light.
Just emptiness.
A kingdom of absence.
And it welcomed him.
---
Kael blinked.
The bell went silent.
The man was gone.
Only the staff remained where he'd knelt.
It pulsed once, then faded—leaving behind a single phrase carved into the stone floor:
> "He does not pray. He does not bow. He does not stop."
Kael looked up.
The bleeding star was brighter now.
And it was falling.