"When the gods speak in thunder, it is not only the sky that listens, but the bones of those born to defy it." — Aro Oracle Recordings, Fragment 9
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Somewhere deep in the Nsukka Wastes — Two Days Later
The wind howled like an ancient war cry, sweeping dust and red soil into spirals that danced violently across the broken plains. Even the sun, a pale disc drowning in haze, seemed afraid to shine too brightly on this cursed land. This was not a place of the living, but a memory turned graveyard. Ancient trees stood petrified, stripped of bark and life, like witnesses who'd seen too much horror to speak.
Obinna crouched by a fractured stone pillar—one of many ruins that dotted the forgotten shrine complex. The pulse in his arms beat to an unfamiliar rhythm. The divine runes that had etched themselves across his forearms after surviving the first Realm now glowed with faint, flickering light. His eyes were tired but alert. His muscles, sore yet primed. War had taught him pain, but the Nine Rings demanded something far worse: surrender.
Behind him, the soft rustle of fabric.
Adaeze approached, her movements careful and unhurried, like someone walking between tombstones. She wore a cloak of ochre woven with thread so fine it looked like sunlight itself had been stitched into the seams. Her face was half-hidden by a ceremonial veil, and yet even that couldn't dim the force of her gaze.
"This place... it used to be sacred," she said without turning.
Obinna stood slowly, dust rising from his legs. "Now it's just broken stones and angry winds."
Adaeze finally turned to him. Her eyes shimmered faintly with violet energy, a hue that pulsed in rhythm with the dying land.
"Broken stones still whisper. Angry winds still carry messages. You just don't know how to listen yet."
Obinna studied her. "So teach me."
Her lips parted, but instead of mocking him as she might have days ago, she only nodded. "That's the first time you've asked."
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They walked in silence to a central ring of cracked stone where nine sigils were carved in a circle, each one radiating a different kind of energy. They glowed as Obinna stepped closer.
"Nine Rings," Adaeze murmured. "You've touched their outer layer. But you haven't walked them. Not truly."
Obinna hesitated. "Then all that I've felt till now... was just the unlocking?"
She nodded. "You were chosen, yes. But choice is the beginning, not the journey. Every Ring is a death and a rebirth. A trial of the soul."
Obinna clenched his fists. "So what's the first Ring?"
Adaeze didn't blink. "Memory."
As she spoke the word, the air collapsed inward like a held breath. The sigils ignited in flames. The wind howled louder, screaming with the voices of the past.
The shrine vanished.
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Ring One: Memory
Obinna found himself kneeling in his family's compound.
Before the war.
His mother sat under the mango tree, humming as she peeled cassava. His father whittled wood nearby. His younger sister, Chinaza, danced barefoot across the clay floor, singing a nursery rhyme that had long since faded from Obinna's conscious memory.
Everything was too real. The smells. The colors. The heat.
He tried to speak, but his voice caught in his throat.
He ran to Chinaza and held her tightly.
"Obi! You're back!" she chirped. "You were gone so long!"
Obinna trembled. "I missed you. I missed all of you."
He turned to his mother, who smiled warmly, and his father who looked up with pride.
But as he blinked, it all began to dissolve.
His mother's eyes filled with blood.
His father's face turned to ash.
Chinaza's doll fell from her hand and burst into flames.
The sky cracked with thunder. Warplanes screamed overhead.
Obinna clutched his sister, crying out. "No! Not again! I won't lose you again!"
The world didn't care.
The fire consumed everything.
Obinna screamed—but his voice echoed in silence.
Then came the chains.
A glowing chain of light wrapped around his torso, dragging him backward, binding him to his agony.
> "You cannot change it," Adaeze's voice echoed. "Only walk through it."
> "Why must I relive this?!" he shouted.
> "Because grief is a chain. And you can't ascend while shackled."
Obinna's eyes glowed gold. He gritted his teeth, bracing against the weight.
He walked into the fire.
Each step forward, the ash lifted. The flames weakened. His scream turned to a roar of defiance.
And the world shifted.
---
Back in the Real World
Obinna gasped, collapsing onto the cracked stone.
Adaeze caught him before his head struck the floor. His skin steamed. His eyes shimmered with gold.
She placed a palm on his chest, and a rune glowed beneath her fingers.
"You did well," she whispered.
Obinna opened his eyes. "That... was just one?"
She nodded. "Eight more await. Each deeper than the last."
He looked to the horizon.
"Then we keep walking."
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Meanwhile — Abuja, Nigerian High Command
In a dark bunker beneath the capital, General Aruna Bello watched footage from the Spirit Satellite.
It showed a single boy standing in a dead land.
Nine sigils.
One activation.
The French envoy beside him crossed his arms. "The Nine Rings are real. He is walking them."
General Bello didn't blink.
"Find him. Capture him. Or kill him. Before Biafra sends one of theirs."
"And if they already have?" the Frenchman asked.
Bello exhaled slowly. "Then we unleash the Reaper."
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The Spirit Grove Camp — Nightfall
Obinna sat before a low fire, wrapping bandages around glowing scars. Lightning danced along his forearms.
Adaeze returned with a small satchel and knelt beside him.
"Here. This will dull the pain."
Obinna accepted the herb paste and smeared it over his shoulder. It burned, then cooled.
"Thank you," he muttered.
Adaeze hesitated. Then she removed her veil.
Obinna blinked.
Her face bore ancient glyphs—divine, sacred. Not painted. Not scarred. Branded.
"What are you?" he asked.
"I am the last daughter of the Aro bloodline," she said. "We guarded the Spirit Paths until they were betrayed. Until war burned our temples."
He reached out slowly. She did not pull away.
His fingers brushed one of her glyphs. It pulsed.
"You walked the Rings?"
She nodded. "I died in one of them. And I rose changed."
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Elsewhere — Above the Clouds
A masked figure stood in the air, robes fluttering around him. A scythe taller than a man rested on his back.
The Reaper had no voice. No face. Only purpose.
He turned west.
Toward the Eagle Boy.
And began to descend.
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End of Chapter 10
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Mini-Dictionary
Ring of Memory: First trial of the Nine Realms. Forces the cultivator to face their deepest sorrow.
Spirit Satellite: A hybrid of magic and technology used by the Nigerian High C
ommand.
Reaper: A mysterious assassin with divine links. Possibly resurrected from ancient Oyo traditions.
Aro Bloodline: Guardians of the old Igbo sacred paths, known for spiritual training and ancestral glyphs.