Chapter 277 - Chapter 276: The Archive Trap

The sub-basement of the institute had never felt so claustrophobic. Ren knelt on the cold, damp flagstones, his fingers tracing the final, precise arc of a containment rune. The air here was heavy, thick with the scent of oxidized copper and the stagnant, metallic tang of dust that had not been disturbed for decades. Every breath he took felt shallow, a clear indication that the warding he and Fang had spent the last three hours preparing was beginning to draw on the local atmosphere. The rune he had inscribed was a jagged, desperate thing, glowing with a faint, pulsing violet light that flickered like a dying flame.