Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I'm Stuck as Their Baby!-Chapter 133: The Pact

But for the rest of the walk down that corridor, I could still feel the ghost of her touch cool, quiet, lingering like a secret only we were allowed to keep.

Velka didn't speak again, and neither did I. Aria was ahead of us, clutching the journal with both arms like a wounded bird she didn't trust the sky with. Riven, of course, hummed a funeral march and tried to turn every flickering torch into a dramatic spotlight.

"You know," he said casually, "if I get turned into a goat by the end of this week, I'm haunting all of you."

"Please," Aria muttered. "Like you're not halfway goat already."

Velka didn't laugh, but I saw the corner of her mouth twitch. Barely.

The corridor narrowed until the air pressed against us like thick cloth, damp and woven with ancient breath. The further we walked, the quieter everything became. Even Riven fell silent, his jokes trailing off as if the stones themselves had begun to listen.

And then, just before we reached the spiral stairwell leading up, Velka touched my arm again.

I turned. Her crimson eyes, usually hard and unreadable, flickered with something quieter. She glanced toward the others, then tilted her head slightly. A silent request.

Can we talk? Alone.

I hesitated. Then nodded.

"I'll catch up," I told Aria and Riven. "Tell the ghosts not to start anything without me."

"Famous last words," Riven muttered, dragging Aria by the elbow before she could ask questions.

Once they were gone, Velka led me through a side passage I hadn't noticed before half-hidden behind a rusted armor stand and a tapestry depicting something suspiciously demonic. The hallway twisted once, twice, and then opened into a circular alcove lined with blackened stone and cold iron sconces. No magic lit this place. No torches flickered. The darkness felt… natural.

Like the absence of life.

Velka turned toward me, her voice low and deliberate.

"There's something you should know. Before we go further with this… whatever this is."

I raised an eyebrow. "You mean the cursed passageways and invisible tattoos?"

She didn't smile. "I'm not like the others here. Not even the vampires."

I waited.

"My family was exiled centuries ago. Northern coven. Old bloodline. Dangerous. Not because we were cruel though some were but because we knew things. Things the Council didn't want known."

I studied her carefully. "Like what?"

Her gaze dropped briefly to the floor. "Like the names of gods buried in stone. The language of binding. The true use of blood in the Old Rites."

A pause.

She looked up, and something flickered behind her eyes shame, maybe. Or fear.

"I wasn't supposed to be admitted to Arcanum. But someone pulled strings. I was told to observe. Watch for changes."

"And you think this school is what? A cult now?"

Velka's expression turned grim. "Not a cult. A vessel. Someone's using it. I think… I think they're trying to wake something."

I blinked. "Define something."

She didn't answer. Just pulled a folded slip of parchment from her sleeve and handed it to me.

I unfolded it carefully.

It was a sketch rough but hauntingly precise. A stone chamber, etched with sigils I didn't recognize, and at the center: a massive slab of obsidian, jagged like a coffin cracked open from within. And atop it, drawn in sweeping strokes of charcoal a heart.

Not symbolic. Not poetic.

A literal, petrified heart, embedded in the stone. Black as night. Veined with glowing silver.

I stared at it for a long moment. Then I said, very softly, "That's not real."

"It is," Velka murmured. "I've seen it. Once. Years ago. My family knew of its existence. But it was buried sealed far beneath the foundations of the old temples. Lost."

"Until now."

Velka nodded once.

I felt cold in places I didn't even know could feel cold. Like something inside me was backing away from itself.

"And this… thing. It's under the school?"

"I think so. And someone is feeding it."

I folded the sketch again, hands shaking slightly.

"This is insane."

"Probably."

I took a breath. "Then we investigate. Together."

Velka's eyebrows lifted. "Just like that?"

"I'm not saying I trust you," I replied. "But I trust danger. And you seem to attract it as much as I do."

That earned a quiet snort.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fгeewebnovёl.co𝙢.

I held out my hand.

She stared at it for a moment. Then, after only the faintest hesitation, took it.

Our palms met warm and cold again and for a moment, the mark on my hand pulsed faintly beneath the skin. Velka's grip tightened slightly, eyes flickering with concern.

"I'll help you," she said quietly. "But don't lie to me. Ever."

"I won't," I said. And meant it.

We left the alcove, returned to the others, and made our way to the old archway behind the herbology wing. Aria had found another reference in the journal a forgotten storeroom once used by the original founders, abandoned for over a century.

The door was locked. Not with a key. But with magic.

Blood magic.

Velka stepped forward without hesitation. She drew a small blade from her boot, pricked her finger, and pressed it to the runes carved into the stone.

They hissed.

The door opened.

Inside, the air was wrong.

Thick. Wet. Cold as untouched snow.

The room was round, hollow, carved entirely from black stone. At the center, half-buried in the floor, pulsed a slab of obsidian so dark it seemed to drink the light.

And resting atop it, exactly as drawn a heart.

It beat once.

A slow, wet thump that echoed through the bones of the room.

Then again.

The mark on my hand blazed to life, and I staggered.

Velka caught me. "Elyzara—!"

"I'm fine," I whispered, not sure if it was a lie.

The heart beat again , louder , faster.

Each pulse echoed through the obsidian chamber like thunder beneath skin—low and primal, a rhythm that didn't belong to anything living. And yet, it pulsed. Stronger with every second. A sickening, unnatural reminder that something once buried was now awake.

My fingers dug into the fabric of my sleeves, my breathing sharp and uneven. Beside me, Velka stood frozen, eyes wide, her normally immaculate composure shattered. The faint glow from the runes etched into the walls cast silver-blue shadows across her pale face, giving her the look of a statue caught between fear and fascination.

I took a slow step forward.

[You're either incredibly brave,] the system said, its voice curling into my mind like cold smoke, [or extremely stupid.]

What is it? I thought, knees tightening with every beat that shook the floor. Tell me what it is.

The system was quiet a moment too quiet.

[You're not going to like this.]

I never like it. Just show me.

A second passed. Then my vision shimmered faintly, and a translucent panel unfurled across the air in front of me flickering like light on water. Except unlike usual stat screens, where clean columns of numbers greeted me with their comforting order, this one… didn't.

🜁 UNIDENTIFIED ENTITY🜁 CLASS: ???🜁 NAME: NULL_HEART🜁 AGE: UNKNOWN🜁 STATE: DORMANT... WAKING🜁 ORIGIN: PRE-DIVIDE🜁 MAGICAL RESONANCE: OFF-CHART🜁 STABILITY: DEGRADING🜁 INTELLIGENCE: ???🜁 DANGER LEVEL: —

[No stats, no tier, no identifier,] the system said, unusually serious. [This thing isn't part of the world's normal parameters. I can't even access half the data.]

My mouth went dry. And it's waking up?

[Yeah. You might want to… I don't know. Run.]

A sudden, sharp throb knocked through the floor, and the obsidian slab cracked down the middle, a line of blinding silver erupting from within it like lightning frozen in glass.

Velka cursed softly. "This is bad. This is very bad."

"No kidding," I muttered, my voice hoarse.

"It's responding to your mark," she said. "Every time you step closer, it beats harder."

I looked down at my hand. The sigil burned now not just tingling or humming, but radiating heat, pulsing in perfect rhythm with the heart on the stone.

My voice came out tighter than I intended. "So what do I do? Step away? Touch it? Perform a dance ritual?"

[Definitely not the last one,] the system said. [Although I'd pay to see it.]

Focus!

[I'm trying! You're linked to it somehow claimed by it, maybe. The mark acts like a key or beacon, but it wasn't made by this thing. Which means…]

"It's calling through the mark," Velka said aloud, thinking the same thought. "Which means someone wants this thing awake. And used you to do it."

The room darkened.

No dimmed. The shadows thickened, the faint silvery runes around us flickering like they were suffocating. The walls themselves seemed to groan.

Velka stepped in front of me. "We need to go. Now."

"I—" My legs wouldn't move. My feet felt anchored to the floor.

The heart beat again, and this time I felt it in my ribs, in my jaw, in the bones of my arms. Something ancient and massive had cracked open and was pushing upward through the veil of magic and stone, and I was standing right in its awakening breath.

I could hear it now. Not just feel it.

A sound like a whisper and a growl braided into one words that didn't exist in any known tongue, wrapping around me in coils of power and pressure.

"Elyzara," Velka said, voice urgent, eyes on mine. "You have to move."

"I think… it knows me," I whispered.

"Then let's make sure it doesn't get to say hello."

She grabbed my arm again and pulled.

This time, the floor responded.

The crack in the obsidian yawned wider, and the slab split open with a shriek of magic. The heart the thing that should have been petrified, silent beat like a war drum.

And it moved.

A twitch. A pulse. A convulsion of something that had no blood but still tried to pump.

Velka and I ran.

We bolted through the corridor, boots slamming over uneven stone, the air behind us growing hotter and colder at once. The walls pulsed with unfamiliar glyphs, symbols lighting up in sequence like veins pumping corrupted light.

[The mark's still active,] the system warned. [And it's not just a tracker anymore. It's syncing.]

With what?!

[With whatever that is. The more time you spend near it, the more it'll imprint.]

I stumbled, caught myself, then turned a sharp corner just as Velka shoved open the hidden door to the herbology wing. We stumbled through into the moonlit garden, gasping for breath, the cold night air hitting us like a slap.

The silence that followed was jarring. Not peace, but pause.

Velka dropped to one knee, hand pressed to her chest. "We were almost too late."

I leaned against the nearest pillar, breath sawing through my lungs, my hand still glowing faintly beneath the skin.

"It knew me," I whispered again, shivering now that adrenaline had left. "It… recognized me. I could feel it. Not as prey. Not as a stranger."

Velka looked up. "But as what?"

I didn't know.

[It's bound to you,] the system said grimly. [In some way. A vessel, maybe. A chosen key. Whatever the plan was they didn't just want you dead. They wanted you open.]

My mouth went dry.

Velka stood again, slower this time, brushing dust off her robes like it helped her pretend she wasn't rattled. "There's more. There's always more."

I nodded slowly, hand finally going dim, the sigil returning to its dormant glow.

"I think I made a mistake," I said quietly.

Velka looked at me sharply. "You didn't wake it on purpose."

"No, but I didn't stop it either."

Velka crossed her arms. "Then we do now."

A gust of cold wind rustled the ivy on the walls, and for a brief second, I imagined I heard that heart again faint, distant, but still there.