Moments after Saeraphen's final strike—
The ruins trembled like a titan's last roar. The ground buckled beneath our feet. Stones rained from the ceiling, the sound like funeral drums announcing death.
From where the Aetherion Lance cleaved through darkness, cracks snaked across the walls—slow, unstoppable, as though the earth lamented its own fracture.
Even after sprinting, all three of us felt seismic tremors beneath our boots. We staggered, losing our footing. Dust and mold-stank hung thick in the air.
Just as we tried to run again…
…came the sound.
A low, relentless rumble.
First, trickling from fissures—crystalline yet unnaturally cold, as if released from aeons of confinement by a divine stroke. Streams surged, converged into torrents, and soon a mighty cascade bore down on us.
"We have to move faster!" — Kai cried, urgency ripping through his voice.
He hoisted me onto his back. Ashen led the way, plunging forward through shattered corridors. Water rose, soaking stone and moss. Each step was a gamble on slick rock and ruin.
We weren't fast enough.
That tidal roar filled the space, an uncontrollable serpent eager to devour.
In a heartbeat—waves engulfed us.
A shock of cold. A whirl. I spun, disoriented in the maelstrom. Darkness pressed. Bubbles burst in my ears. Desperation made my limbs seize.
I can swim—I thought—but not like this. Each breath felt stolen.
Then Ashen's hand clasped mine—strong, guiding.
He broke the surface. Air. Then Kai.
We drifted, directionless, borne on the current.
Ahead—a gap.
A broken stone bridge, over which the waterfall roared away.
We fell.
My stomach flipped. Cold wind stabbed my face. Seconds stretched to eternity.
I lifted my eyes.
Above—a yawning shaft of rock, opening to the sky.
Through the mist and falling water, I saw it. The sky.
---
But that sky remained beyond reach.
We plummeted, wingless stars with no beacon. The abyss had no floor. There was no way out.
Then—light, sudden and soft.
From the pendant Saeraphen left me.
It pulsed—not like a torch, but like a plea made of dying starlight.
It spread—unhurried yet unstoppable—touching me, then Ashen, then Kai.
And time… stood still.
No fall. No movement. No sound.
We hovered mid-air—suspended droplets in a shattered sea.
Water, dust, debris—all frozen, as if bound by some ancient incantation woven from extinct cosmic breaths.
I tried to move—nothing. I wanted to scream—but silence held my voice.
Ashen and Kai mirrored me—three souls trapped in crystalized motion.
Then—a feather drifted down.
Weightless. Faint as a dream. It brushed my arm, dissolving into light.
I lifted my head.
There, hovering above us—
A being.
Neither birthed of light, nor forged in darkness.
It hadn't come. It had always been.
Hidden in the world's cracks, waiting for this moment.
A single, massive eye—unblinking, infinite—hung in the void like a shadow's sun.
Six wings spun around it—not for flight, but as wheels of unseen order, woven from moon-dust and the ashes of fallen eras.
It drifted closer—not because it needed to, but because space seemed to bend.
Each inch brought a tremor, like a harp string plucked by a god.
Then it spoke—not with sound, but with presence: a voice without tone, that saturated thought.
"Greetings… my new acolyte."
A woman's cadence, yet transcending mortal speech—soft, unfathomable, like a melody heard in ancient dreams.
I faltered.
My new… acolyte?
But before I could think—
"…I know your questions, but time does not wait. If I speak at length… they will sense me."
She paused, and then:
"Know this, mortal: Saeraphen chose you."
Her words dropped like stones in the still air.
"A loyal guardian… who sacrificed his final breath to bring you before Me."
I tried to reply, but she continued:
"You are not the first. But perhaps… you are the last."
Silence, then—light from the pendant pulsed again, a heartbeat in the frozen void.
"Now, I will show you what you carry…and why losing it is not an option."