The sky did not break.
It simply stopped remembering.
No thunder. No divine flame. Just a silence so complete it felt like being buried under water that would never let you rise.
Kaien Virell opened his eyes to that silence.
He lay in a hospital bed carved from polished whitewood, veins still stained from mana burns. Around him, glowing wards flickered with static blue glyphs. Protective. Suppressing. Afraid.
He sat up. No pain. That was worse than pain. Pain meant connection. This... this meant something had been taken.
He moved to the mirror.
And saw nothing.
No reflection.
His mind recoiled. Heart pounded.
He reached out—his hand trembled—and pressed his palm against the glass. Cold.
Then, like mist clearing from glass, his image returned.
But it wasn't right.
His eyes. They didn't glow. They used to. Not bright like Ayari's or Riven's, but a flicker of soul-ember had always been there.
Now? Dim. Hollow.
Like something had been erased.
He turned away.
Across campus, whispers ran like wildfire. Kaien Virell. Hollowborn. Not Chosen. Monolith-Breaker. The one who drew the attention of something not even the Headmaster could name.
A week had passed.
Solvyr had issued a statement: "An unrecorded celestial phenomenon. Contained. Explained. No cause for alarm."
Everyone was alarmed.
Everyone except Kaien.
Because Kaien had stopped feeling alarmed.
It was as if the world had muffled around him. His body moved. He spoke when spoken to. He trained.
But a layer of him had gone missing.
And the only thing left behind was a whisper:
"Protocol Zero... has begun."
Scene: The Academy Reassigned
Kaien's new dorm was in the Outlier Wing.
No longer a student. Not officially. Not even in a rank. He was being "observed."
"You're not being punished," Professor Velle had said. "You're being documented."
Same thing.
His new schedule was filled with private simulations, readings of outdated glyph theory, rune-channeling tests designed for pre-Ascendance initiates. Baby training for someone who'd already touched the sky.
Ayari visited him once. She stood in the doorway, arms crossed.
"You shouldn't have stepped forward."
Kaien looked at her. "But I did."
She left without another word.
Riven didn't visit. But he sometimes felt watched.
And Nox... Nox sent messages in strange ways.
Burned notes tucked under pillows. Codes inside daily meals. Kaien never replied. But he read every word.
Keep your head low. The stars have turned.
Scene: The Return of the Whisper
It came on the seventh night.
He was meditating in the Archive Grove. Surrounded by ancient stone faces of old Ascendants. Trying to breathe.
And then, click.
The glyphs around him shattered. One by one.
They want to cage you. Because they've seen what comes next.
His breath hitched. The voice wasn't loud. But it vibrated inside the bones.
I am not your power. I am your echo.
You are not alone. Others will come. Others will remember.
The stones around him pulsed once, then went dark.
And Kaien knew, deep in his gut—
Something old had just awakened.
Something buried. Forgotten.
Something angry.
A single mark appears on Kaien's neck the next morning. A thin spiral of ash-gray ink, forming a ring of zeros. None of the Academy's healers could remove it.
Protocol Zero had left its seal.
And across Aurelis, deep beneath mountains and stars, others began to stir.