The rift refused to close.
Even as the Ashborn stepped fully into the world of men—seven silhouettes wreathed in emberlight and ancient grief—the wound in the sky above the old church still bled. It throbbed like a thing alive, leaking pale fire across the clouds, writhing as though ashamed of being seen.
As if reality itself regretted opening.
Dexter stood motionless beneath it, sword raised, every muscle tight with caution. Cinderglass glowed faintly in his grip—not in warning, but in memory. The blade remembered this fire. It remembered PRIMAL.
So did the Ashborn.
"You said you seek justice," Dexter said. His voice didn't waver. "What kind?"
The tallest of them stepped forward. Its helm retracted like scorched petals folding back, revealing a face hollowed by time. Not flesh, but something close—melted, cracked, threaded with veins of molten gold that pulsed faintly as it spoke.
"The kind no man or god can grant," the figure said. "We are not your foes, Dexter. But the world you knew is no longer untouched. The Convergence broke more than barriers. It woke things."
Dexter's fingers tightened on the hilt. "What things?"
Another Ashborn stepped forward—shorter, lean, bearing twin crescent blades etched in fractured flame. Her voice drifted like wind over a battlefield long dead.
"The Hollow Flame," she whispered. "A god that never should have been. One sealed so deep, even time forgot its name. But when the Ring stirred… the prison cracked."
Dexter's blood ran cold.
"The Codex," he muttered.
The leader inclined his head. "You've seen it."
"I found it," Dexter said quietly. "Or maybe it found me. I thought it was demon scripture. A myth. A threat whispered in old tongues."
The Ashborn's golden veins flared brighter. "Not a threat. A memory. The Codex doesn't warn—it remembers. What even the gods chose to forget."
Rain began to fall, soft and sparse. Not a storm. Just silence made wet.
Dexter lowered his sword slightly. "So what do you want from me?"
"Not want," the leader said. "We came to find the last bearer of the Ring. The one who carries the death-echo of PRIMAL. You are more than a man now, Dexter. You are part of what comes next—whether you wish it or not."
A sudden crack echoed through the night. The rift split wider. Light exploded, then folded in—and something slipped through.
A shadow.
It didn't walk. It crawled. Slid. Twisted like broken roots through light. Limbs scraped the air like meat-hook branches. Its body pulsed with a deep, unnatural fire—the wrong kind of fire—blue and thick like drowned flame. Its eyes blinked in the wrong places. Too many.
Dexter took a step back.
"What the hell is that?"
The Ashborn's voice dropped, grim and certain. "A Shardborn."
"Of the Hollow Flame?"
"No," the leader whispered. "From its dreams."
The creature screeched. A sound like shattered glass grinding down bone. Then it lunged—claws outstretched, screaming hunger.
But the Ashborn moved first.
The hammer-bearer surged ahead, his cloak of flame flaring wide. With a roar, he brought his weapon down like a falling star. It struck the Shardborn mid-air, cracking it open like brittle stone. The creature exploded into embers and screeched smoke.
The air hissed.
"More will follow," the hammer-bearer muttered, ash swirling around his boots. "They always do."
Dexter swallowed hard. "Then we stop waiting."
"No," said the leader. "But neither can we rush in blind. There are names missing from the Codex—names erased by gods, lost in betrayal. You must find them."
Dexter looked down at the Ring. The sigil on its surface glowed again—no longer red, but gold. It pulsed. Once. Twice.
He knew.
"South," he said softly. "New Orleans."
The Ashborn looked at one another. A silent understanding passed between them.
The leader nodded. "There you'll find a warlock. Old. Forgotten. He carries a memory that was never his. A fragment from the first fire. One child survived the Burning."
Dexter furrowed his brow. "Survived PRIMAL?"
The Ashborn's voice darkened.
"No. The Hollow."
Lightning flashed in the distance—brief and bone-white.
The rift above groaned, folding in on itself with agonizing slowness. Like skin closing over a scar that would never truly heal.
Dexter turned. "Will you stay?"
The leader glanced at his six kin. They nodded.
"We remain," he said. "Not in sight. But in shadow. Behind you, always."
Then he dropped to one knee.
The others followed.
Not in worship.
But in respect.
The man who had slain PRIMAL now carried the last Ring of Flame.
He was no god.
But he had become something worse.
A tether between worlds.
A beacon for what was still coming.
---
That Night
The rooftop creaked beneath his boots.
Dexter stood atop the ruined church, looking out over Dayton. The city flickered as always—streetlights, neon signs, the hum of tires on wet asphalt. A dog barked somewhere down the block. Someone argued three stories below.
But something was broken. And no one else seemed to hear it.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a weather-worn notebook. Inside, the pages were filled with sigils, fragments of scripture, sketches of demon eyes and dying gods. Scars on paper. Maps no one else believed.
But one page stood apart.
A charcoal rubbing from a stone deep in PRIMAL's vault.
A circle of fire swallowing its own tail.
And in the center—an eye.
Closed.
"The Eye of the Hollow," he murmured.
The Codex had warned of it. A sleeper beneath ash. One that never burned. One that watched.
A knock behind him.
Soft.
He turned.
His mother stood in the doorway, holding a small bundle wrapped in cloth.
"I made you something," she said.
Inside was a coat. Black leather, heavy, stitched with care. Wards embroidered at the seams. Reinforced at the shoulders.
On the back, a single symbol: a flame wreathed in thorns.
Dexter traced it with his thumb.
"It's ugly," he said.
She smirked. "So are most things worth wearing."
He stepped forward and hugged her.
"I'm leaving soon," he said.
She didn't ask where.
She just nodded.
"I know."
---
New Orleans – Three Days Later
The French Quarter breathed.
Jazz curled through the humid air, mingling with incense and whispers. The streets felt old. Older than the city itself. Older than the name New Orleans.
Dexter moved like smoke through its alleys, the Ring burning quietly against his skin.
It led him to a rusted iron gate, half-swallowed by ivy.
Behind it, a house sagged in on itself like it had finally grown tired of waiting.
He pushed through.
Inside, candlelight bloomed from nothing.
At the center of the room sat the warlock.
Old. Blind in one eye. His fingers curled around a staff etched with the seven circles of flame.
"Been waitin' on you," the man rasped. "The Ring always finds its way home."
Dexter said nothing.
He stepped inside.
Ash swirled in a bowl of blackened bone. Faces flickered inside it—memories, ghosts, pieces of forgotten fire.
"I was there," the warlock said. "The night the Hollow Flame spoke."
Dexter leaned closer.
"What did it say?"
The old man smiled.
A sad smile.
"The flame does not die," he whispered. "It remembers."
---