THE FIRST FISSURE — LOCATION UNKNOWN
There was no sky.
No ground.
Only a veil of lightless mist, pulsing as if it breathed.
Kael stepped through the threshold, boots brushing against nothing. The moment he crossed, the System went silent. No prompts. No ripples. Only… himself.
Behind him, Lyra, Drayke, Veyl, and Zera followed—though even their presence felt muted here, as though the Fissure rejected linear time.
Zera's voice echoed beside him, though her lips didn't move. "This place predates the System. It's not a dungeon. It's a wound."
"A wound?" Kael asked.
"A memory," she corrected. "One the world buried. One we were never meant to find."
They kept moving.
Each step was a contradiction. Footsteps that made no sound. Air that felt like drowning. And yet, forward they walked.
HALL OF FIRST LIGHT
They emerged in a vast chamber carved from obsidian and flameglass. Floating relics spun in a slow orbit—faded fragments of systems older than Aurenya. They weren't technology. They weren't relics. They were laws.
Time fractured.
Kael saw a dozen versions of himself:
One still wearing his Initiate robe.
One dying in the Noctheron crypt.
One who never survived the Ashen Awakening.
One… with golden eyes and no soul.
They all looked back.
Only one spoke. "You chose wrong."
Kael didn't flinch. "Then I'll choose again."
The copies blurred and dissolved.
Only one door remained ahead. Carved with a name.
AUREN.
VANGUARD CAMP — OUTSIDE THE FISSURE
Lyra collapsed.
Her hands trembled as she poured aura into a sigil trying to stabilize the entry point. Her wings—once radiant—now barely flickered. The Fissure fought her efforts. Reality itself warped around it.
Drayke stood guard, his arms crossed.
"They'll need a way out," Lyra muttered.
"They won't need one if we can't hold this ground," he replied. "The Accord's stirring. And the Cradle… they've already begun chanting again."
Zera's whisper came from the Fissure's edge. "They want to revive Auren. But it was never alive. It was bound. A cycle given shape."
Lyra met her gaze. "Then what's inside?"
Zera's eyes darkened. "The answer. Or the end."
THE CORE CHAMBER — AUREN
Kael stepped into a throne room without walls.
Stars spiraled above—but they weren't real. Just loops. Echoes of endless resets.
And at the center sat a figure, draped in robes of light and void, face flickering like a shattered mirror.
Auren.
It did not speak with voice.
It spoke in finality.
[You defied the cycle.]
[You shattered the Eternal plane.]
[You seek freedom. You mistake it for salvation.]
Kael raised his blade—but it refused to ignite.
Ashenflame was silent here.
This was the birthplace of systems.
The Architect stood.
A shape without edges. A will without mercy.
[I am not your enemy. I am your consequence.]
THE FIGHT BEGINS
It struck.
Not with aura, but with concept.
Gravity bent. Memory splintered.
Kael was a child again—clutching his brother's broken body.
He was a corpse—his soul devoured by an Eternal.
He was a god—worshiped and hated.
He screamed—and it echoed across realities.
But he stood.
He stood.
[ASHEN RELIC FUSION UNLOCKED: CROWNLESS DOMAIN]
[You may reject divine influence. Area purge initiated.]
Ashen light ignited—not from his blade, but his core.
Kael stepped forward.
And the stars shivered.
CLIFFHANGER
Auren loomed.
Kael whispered—not to his allies, not to his enemies.
But to the choice itself.
"If I must burn to end the cycle… then let me become the fire that cannot be caged."