Rain began to fall. At first, softly. Then harder, louder, like nails striking the earth.
Vivian shivered and pressed herself to the wooden frame of the house, her eyes darting between the sky and the boy now kneeling in the grass. Arcose's breath came out in shallow bursts. Something was wrong.
The air felt... too heavy.
Then it happened.
Time paused. Just for a second. Like the world blinked.
And when it opened its eyes again, everything broke.
The raindrops reversed. They rose back into the sky as if repelled by something sacred — or something cursed. The very air fractured. Splinters of light bent around Arcose's body. His skin glowed like molten glass, veins pulsing beneath the surface. Golden and silver threads, impossibly fine, erupted from the ground and sky both, weaving through him, around him, into him.
And then — silence.
No birds. No breath. Just patterns.
Divine. Perfect. Wrong.
The old man's eyes widened, his lips parting in horror.
"No... not again."
His heart clenched — a memory he had buried surged back like bile in his throat.
[FLASHBACK]
It had been decades ago. Maybe more.
He remembered the scent of blood and thunder. The battlefield was ash. Men didn't scream because their mouths were gone. Mountains split open like cracked fruit. And in the center of it all —
He floated.
That man.
Alone above the carnage. Arms outstretched, godlike, serene. Silver and gold circled him like halos. But unlike Arcose now — the energy around him wasn't chaos.
It was command.
Total. Final. Divine.
The sky did not dare to thunder. The earth did not tremble. Because even the world itself knew it stood in the presence of something it wasn't meant to witness.
And the old man — younger then, foolish and angry — had looked up at that figure and understood only one thing:
They were not meant to win.
They were not meant to survive.
[PRESENT]
The old man stumbled back, knees nearly buckling. The image was too similar. Too precise.
Not because Arcose was failing. But because he was becoming him.
Trees bent backward. Soil cracked. Wind screamed like a banshee.
"GRANDFATHER, WHAT'S HAPPENING?!" Vivian's voice broke through the storm.
She turned, saw Arcose in the air — arms limp, eyes rolled back, patterns burning across his chest — and gasped.
"Oh my god…"
A second later, the house behind her splintered in half, its frame exploding outward like a bomb had gone off.
The old man didn't hesitate.
"No. Not again. I won't let it."
He ran. His body was old, failing, but the threads of the Weave snapped to life, forming a makeshift armor across his skin. It burned. It sliced. But he didn't stop.
Arcose floated higher now — like a marionette held by something cruel. His mouth moved. A scream? A prayer?
No one could tell.
Vivian dropped to her knees as trees ripped from the ground behind her. One flew past her head, missing by inches.
The old man pushed through the chaos, every step tearing at him.
"AAAAHHH!" he roared, bleeding, bones groaning — then lunged.
His palm struck Arcose's chest. A blinding light exploded outward.
CRACK.
The divine circuitry shattered. Gold and silver threads broke apart, disintegrating like ash.
Arcose collapsed.
Silence.
Smoke and ruin.
The old man fell to his knees beside him, breathing in jagged gasps, eyes bloodshot.
His voice, when it came, was low. Grave. Almost broken.
"Who are you?"