The sigil pulsed beneath Kael's palm.
Energy surged upward, cascading through the veins of the ruined temple like blood through ancient arteries. Glyphs long buried beneath ash and silence flared with golden-red light, casting shadows that twisted like ghosts. The air shimmered. The very world trembled—as if something beneath the surface stirred, aware of Kael's intrusion.
He stood unmoving at the center of the glyph. His aura responded with an uneasy thrum, caught between resonance and rejection. Lyra stepped closer, hand on her Sunveil Feather, but didn't speak. She knew this was a moment she couldn't intrude on.
A voice reached Kael's mind. Familiar. Cold. Unwelcome.
"You disturb the order, little revenant."
Kael didn't flinch. "Good."
"This seal was not meant for your kind. You are no scion. You are a splinter."
"I'm more than you ever expected."
The sigil cracked.
And something below… awakened.
The next morning, the group gathered at the temple's edge. Riven—bound by chains forged from Drayke's compressed aura and Lyra's light constructs—sat slumped under the watchful eye of Zera. His cracked mask revealed a jagged scar along his cheekbone, still seeping faint mist.
Kael emerged from the chamber, his eyes glowing faintly ash-gray.
"He touched the second sigil," Zera said.
Drayke leaned forward. "And?"
Kael looked at them, voice grim. "We just challenged the throne of the Third Eternal."
A silence fell across the group.
Lyra's voice wavered. "Then that dream I had last night… the eclipse… that wasn't just a nightmare."
Kael nodded. "It was a warning."
Location: Zenith's Reach — Outer Sanctum
High above Aurenya, beyond the clouds, where the air turned to crystal wind and light fractured like glass—stood the Eclipsed Spire. A fortress wrapped in eternal dusk, built into a peak that never felt sunlight.
There, seated on a skeletal throne of obsidian wings, the Third Eternal stirred.
Her name had long been erased by history.
Now, she was known only as Veltheris the Hollow Crown.
She gazed toward the distant south—toward where Kael had touched her seal.
"Another dares?"
Her voice echoed through the bones of the mountain.
From the shadows behind her, dozens of winged Revenants knelt in silence. Each bore a sigil carved into their skin, binding them in servitude.
Veltheris stood, her silhouette framed by a dying sun. She raised one clawed hand, and the sky around the spire cracked.
"Let the sky fall."
Back at Lirael's Divide
"I need to enter the Riftline," Kael said.
Zera's brows arched. "That's suicide."
"No," he replied, eyes burning. "It's progression."
The Riftline was a tear in the fabric of Aurenya—where aura storms were birthed and the veil between the Eternal plane and the mortal realm grew thin. It was said that no one could survive its center. No hunter had ever returned from it whole.
Kael didn't care.
"The Hollow Crown will send her Scions soon. I need power that's earned, not stolen."
Drayke grunted. "Then I'm going with you."
Kael looked at him, surprised.
"You'd follow me into that?"
"If you die before I beat you fair, I'll never forgive myself."
Zera sighed. "I'll open the path. But once inside… your auras will be unraveled. Don't forget what you are."
Inside the Riftline
Kael stepped into a world that screamed.
Wind tore sideways. The ground shifted like broken puzzle pieces. Colors bled into each other, and fragments of forgotten memories drifted by—visions of lost hunters, broken gods, dying stars.
His aura flared instinctively, struggling to anchor him.
But then… something called.
Deep within, at the heart of the Rift, a heartbeat.
Kael followed it.
Each step stripped away a part of his borrowed strength—Celestial Light dimming, Beast Flame flickering, even the Mist beginning to fade.
He didn't resist.
He walked forward… bare.
Until finally, in the eye of the storm, stood a monument of ash and bone. And before it—his younger self.
The boy Kael once was. Weak. Helpless. Broken.
"Why do you fight?" the vision asked.
Kael didn't answer.
"Why do you cling to pain?"
Kael looked at his younger self.
"Because pain was the first thing that was mine," he said. "And because I turned it into power."
His aura exploded outward.
The ash returned. But now it was pure—not stolen, not borrowed. His own.
[Ashen Dominion – True Sync Form: Revenant King]
Your aura no longer adapts from fear. It commands.
His blade changed—no longer a fusion, but a manifestation. Pure Ashen energy hardened into a long obsidian weapon wrapped in fading light.
A crown of flickering shadow formed above his head. It cracked and fell—leaving only a burning sigil branded on his chest.
Kael returned.
Drayke stood waiting at the edge of the Rift, panting.
"You took your sweet time."
Kael smiled.
"Let's go break a throne."