Black Phoenix Heir

Chapter 75: Chapter 75 — Echoes of the Past

Chapter 75 — Echoes of the Past

As Victor and Moonlight rounded a corner through the village, Moonlight suddenly led him away from the main path.

Victor followed her between several of the larger huts until the village wall came into view.

At first, he didn’t see anything unusual.

Then he noticed the cave.

It had been carved directly into the stone wall surrounding part of the settlement, its entrance dark and narrow compared to the open cavern beyond. When Victor’s eyes moved upward, however, his attention settled on something carved above the entrance.

An upside-down flask symbol.

Victor slowed.

Unlike the cleaner markings he had seen elsewhere in the village, this one looked ancient. Time had worn away parts of its edges, while the surrounding stone had darkened with age.

Victor stared at it for several seconds.

Moonlight turned toward him.

”Come,” she said softly. ”It’s in here.”

Victor glanced at her.

Then back toward the symbol.

”Okay.”

He followed her inside.

The cave was cooler than the village outside. Their footsteps echoed softly against the stone as they walked deeper into the darkness. Luminescent stones embedded along parts of the walls cast a pale glow throughout the passage.

As they continued forward, Victor’s eyes slowly widened.

Paintings covered the walls.

The colors had faded in places, and some of the images had been worn down by time, but enough remained for Victor to make them out.

Moonlight stopped beside the first one.

She raised her hand.

”This,” she said, pointing toward the painting, ”is the oldest history of Samal.”

Victor turned toward it.

The image showed a man standing before a large group of people.

Something immediately stood out.

They weren’t wearing tribal clothing.

The people stood and knelt in disciplined formation, dressed in structured uniforms and pieces of armor. Even through the faded paint, their organization was unmistakable.

They looked like a force.

At the front of them stood Samal.

Victor’s eyes narrowed.

The man held a red flame in one hand.

Even in the faded painting, the crimson color remained striking.

In his other hand was the upside-down flask symbol.

The same symbol was visible on his chest.

Victor’s eyes moved across the painting.

The people kneeling before Samal bore the symbol as well. Some displayed it on their sleeves, while others had it marked across the backs of their armor.

Victor studied the image silently.

These people hadn’t originally been tribal villagers.

They had been something else.

Something far more organized.

His eyes slowly returned to Samal.

Then his expression changed.

The longer he looked at the painted face, the more familiar it became.

He had seen that face before.

Not in a painting.

In the underground cellar.

Victor remembered the statue.

The same calm expression.

The same facial features.

The same figure holding a flame in one hand and the upside-down flask symbol in the other.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

So that statue had definitely been Samal.

Moonlight had already begun walking toward the next painting.

Victor followed.

The second painting was noticeably different.

Samal was gone.

The organized uniforms from the first painting had disappeared as well.

The people were now dressed in something much closer to the earliest forms of tribal clothing.

But that wasn’t what caught Victor’s attention.

An enormous bird towered over the people gathered beneath her.

Her body was dark, while flames surrounded her face and trailed from her tail.

Victor stared at the painting.

The Guardian Spirit.

The people were kneeling before her.

Victor stared silently at the painting.

The tribe had known about the Guardian Spirit for generations.

She hadn’t appeared from nowhere when she descended upon the village.

She had been part of their history.

Victor’s gaze moved from the Guardian Spirit to the people kneeling beneath her.

In the first painting, everyone had followed Samal.

But now...

Samal was gone.

The Guardian Spirit stood in his place.

Victor frowned slightly.

What happened to him?

The paintings didn’t answer.

Moonlight continued deeper into the cave.

Victor followed.

The third painting waited farther ahead.

And this one was different again.

The Guardian Spirit was gone.

There was no enormous bird.

No Samal.

Instead, the central focus of the painting was something Victor recognized immediately.

The upside-down flask symbol.

It was prominently displayed before the tribe.

A shaman stood beneath it, holding a staff with the same symbol carved into its top.

Behind him, the tribe was gathered together.

Kneeling.

But they weren’t kneeling toward Samal.

They weren’t kneeling toward the Guardian Spirit.

They were kneeling toward the symbol.

Victor stood quietly.

His gaze moved between the paintings behind them.

Samal.

The Guardian Spirit.

And now the symbol.

Somewhere along the way, the people had forgotten what they were originally following.

Victor continued staring at the painting for several moments before following Moonlight farther into the cave.

Eventually, they reached the fourth painting.

Victor immediately understood what he was looking at.

This was the tribe he knew.

Or at least...

The beginning of what it had become.

A shaman stood before a large stone altar.

His staff bore the upside-down flask symbol.

The same symbol had been carved directly into the altar itself.

Below the platform, the tribe knelt together.

And lying upon the stone altar...

Was a sacrifice.

Victor’s expression became serious.

Something had changed.

Samal had disappeared.

The Guardian Spirit had vanished from the paintings.

The symbol remained.

And by the time this image had been created...

Sacrifice had become part of the tribe’s tradition.

The Festival of Mana.

Victor stared at the image for a long time.

The paintings had already spoken for themselves.

Eventually, Moonlight began walking again.

Victor followed.

They moved deeper into the cave.

But there were no more paintings.

The walls eventually became bare stone.

The history ended.

Victor continued walking beside Moonlight until they rounded another corner.

Then he stopped.

At the very end of the cave...

Something stood in the darkness.

Luminescent stones embedded throughout the walls cast enough light for Victor to see it clearly.

And there, resting silently at the end of the ancient cave...

Was a statue.

Victor didn’t move.

He knew that statue.

It was identical to the one he had seen in the underground cellar.

Pristine.

Untouched by time.

Samal stood with a flame held in one hand.

In the other was the upside-down flask symbol.

The details of his face were perfectly carved.

Victor stared at the statue in silence.