Circa 75,000 BCE – Earth, The Age of Rising Man
The scent of burning earth hung thick in the air. Black smoke coiled into the darkening sky, curling like serpents over the broken silhouettes of Isu monuments. Their cities, once impossible in their beauty, now cracked and crumbled, torn apart by the rage of a species once thought inferior.
Humanity had risen.
And for the first time in their brief, brutal history, the gods bled.
Beneath the ruins of the Temple of Seraphon, a young man stirred. His body was half-buried in shattered stone and scorched soil, his dark skin smeared with ash, his breath ragged and shallow. He blinked once, then again, his eyes slowly adjusting to the flickering firelight above.
Kaelen. That was the name the villagers gave him. Orphans didn't get many choices.
Pain lanced through his skull as he sat up. Not physical—deeper. Something inside him was… shifting. A low thrum pulsed through his spine, like the beat of a second heart. Around him, the world spun, not from concussion, but memory. Or… something like it.
He saw visions—flashes of a world not his own. A golden city suspended in the air. Beings of light with impossible voices. A woman with silver tattoos and eyes that mirrored the stars, calling out his name.
Not Kaelen.
Vael'Ruun.
The name echoed in his mind like thunder in a canyon.
He staggered to his feet, gripping the edge of a shattered column for balance. The roar of battle rang out beyond the ruins—shouts in human tongues, screams in Isu dialects, the sizzle of plasma against flesh. The rebellion was still raging.
A voice, weak but urgent, snapped him back to reality.
"Kaelen!" someone called.
He turned. An elder, his face a map of age and fury, crawled toward him with a blood-soaked bandage wrapped tight around his leg.
"They're trying to activate the Beacon," the elder rasped. "Inside the heart of the temple. If they call for reinforcements—"
Kaelen didn't wait. His feet moved before his mind did. Dust kicked up behind him as he sprinted toward the central chamber, deeper into the temple ruins.
The corridor was lined with broken statues—half-human, half-Isu hybrids that once loomed as symbols of domination. Now they lay decapitated and hollow-eyed, a mockery of divine power. The further Kaelen went, the more the weight of familiarity pressed on him. These walls… he'd walked them before. Not in this life, but in another.
How could that be?
He descended the staircase, and the world shimmered.
For a moment, the ruins flickered—and in their place, a pristine chamber unfolded in his vision. The walls glowed with golden circuitry, and the air thrummed with resonance. He saw himself walking—not as Kaelen, but as Vael'Ruun—in robes of silver and black, consulting a glowing orb of data.
Then the image vanished.
The truth clawed at him, buried beneath layers of blood and time.
He was not just Kaelen.
He had been before.
The chamber opened before him, wide and circular, its center dominated by a monolithic device pulsing with golden energy. The Beacon. Isu-designed. Capable of transmitting coordinates across the globe in seconds. Reinforcements would pour in from the sky if it completed its charge.
Two Isu guardians stood before it—tall, towering beings with translucent armor and faces of etched crystal. Unlike most of their kind, these had not fled.
They had come to erase.
Kaelen froze.
The taller of the two turned its head toward him, eyes glowing faintly. "Human," it said, voice hollow. "You should not be here."
Kaelen's hand drifted to his side—and to his shock, it found a blade. Not the rusted dagger he had carried from the village. This one was curved, smooth, etched with glowing lines of Isu script. How had it gotten there?
He didn't know. But he remembered it.
The blade felt like home.
He raised it.
"Neither should you."
The guardian moved first, a blur of golden speed. Its arm transformed mid-motion into a whip of light, slashing toward Kaelen's head. He ducked, the motion fluid—too fluid. Reflexive. The same motion he'd used centuries ago under a different sun, in a different body.
Kaelen spun, slashing upward. The blade hummed as it cut through the construct's midsection. Sparks erupted. The guardian staggered.
The second came at him, faster.
Kaelen exhaled.
Time slowed.
The world tilted, and again, it was not his hands that moved, but Vael's. Precision. Power. He danced between attacks, every motion echoing something long forgotten—something embedded in his very blood.
The second guardian fell.
Kaelen stood above the wreckage, panting, the blade dimming in his grip.
Behind him, the Beacon pulsed.
He turned, approaching the device. His hands moved instinctively, fingers sliding over the holographic interface. He didn't understand the symbols—but he knew them. He altered its code with ease, rerouting the energy to implode instead of transmit.
The Beacon went dark.
Kaelen collapsed to one knee, the weight of what had just happened crashing down on him.
"What am I?" he whispered.
Footsteps echoed behind him.
He turned, expecting another guardian.
Instead, a woman stepped through the shadows.
Tall. Cloaked in layers of cloth and armor. A scar across one cheek. Her eyes gleamed with recognition.
"You're waking up," she said softly. "Finally."
Kaelen blinked. "Who are you?"
The woman stepped closer, removing a pendant from around her neck—an ancient symbol. Not Assassin. Not Templar. Something older.
"My name is Lysara," she said. "And you're not the only one who remembers."
Kaelen gripped the hilt of his blade tighter.
This was only the beginning.