The world was healing—but not all wounds left scars on the skin.
Beneath the surface, in ruins lost to time, something ancient stirred.
The Vault of Echoes—once sealed by the First Arcanum—shivered.
And from within, a single eye blinked open.
---
Meanwhile, in Lumerra, peace had taken root.
Children laughed in the streets.
Market bells rang again.
But Kaito still wandered like a ghost in the realm he saved.
He trained no new army. He taught no students.
He watched.
Listened.
Waited.
---
"Why haven't you left?" Isha asked one morning.
They sat on the rooftop of the Grand Hall, drinking sky tea—a blend made to calm restless minds.
Kaito shrugged. "Because something doesn't feel right."
"You think Raien survived?"
"I think evil doesn't need bodies. It only needs memory."
---
Kaelyra arrived that evening with troubling news.
"Temple fires in Ash'thal. Statues bleeding salt in Sunreach. And three seers dreamt of you, standing in the ruins of time with your sword shattered."
Kaito rubbed his temples. "Prophecies again."
"They say the Nexus wasn't destroyed. Just... dulled."
And then a raven fell from the sky—its wings on fire.
In its beak, a scroll sealed with Voidglass.
---
The scroll bore five words:
"He remembers. Come find me."
Signed with a symbol Kaito hadn't seen since boyhood—the mark of the First Emperor.
Raien's master.
His father's true killer.
The real architect of the Void Wars.
---
That night, Kaito returned to the Blade Vault.
He opened the last drawer—hidden beneath the memorial stones.
Inside, a sword never finished. Its hilt incomplete. Its core, still warm with trapped time.
Kaelyra stood behind him.
"You're reforging?"
"No," Kaito said, eyes distant. "I'm becoming."
---
They set out at dawn.
Not as warriors.
Not as rulers.
But as echoes chasing a forgotten flame.
---
Far away, in a realm untouched by sunlight, a man with no name watched.
Clad in robes of obsidian and stars, he whispered:
"Let the game begin again."