The sea opened its eye.
A massive whirlpool formed around the Astris, not of water but of energy—rippling pulses of mythic power that made the crew collapse to their knees, gripping their ears. The very ocean trembled. Lights danced in unnatural patterns below, and Lucian, still floating in the water, felt the shards press against his skin like burning coal.
From the heart of the whirlpool, a shape began to rise.
It was not a creature. It was a structure.
A temple carved from obsidian coral, encrusted with runes that had not been read in over ten thousand years. The ocean did not resist its ascent—it obeyed, splitting around the monolith as it surfaced. Water fell away in curtains, and birds screamed overhead, fleeing the unnatural stillness that followed.
Lucian climbed aboard the Astris, soaked and shaking, his breath ragged. Isaiah and Clara pulled him in, shielding him as mythic pressure reverberated through the vessel.
"What was that?" Isaiah whispered.
Lucian's eyes flicked open, burning faintly gold. "Not a guardian. A gate."
Clara looked back at the emerging temple. "To where?"
"Not where," Lucian corrected. "When."
---
That night, no one slept. Clara examined the runes with growing dread.
"Temporal bindings, chronomantic loops… this temple was designed to trap something in a specific moment. A sealed second of time, repeating endlessly."
Isaiah added, "A stasis prison. But why raise it now?"
Lucian stared out over the dark waves. "Because something inside remembered me. It knew my name. That's why it unlocked."
Velkyr returned from her scouting flight, drenched and agitated. She dropped a sea-stained scroll at Lucian's feet.
"Found this embedded in the coral. Not parchment. Scales."
Lucian unfurled it.
The symbols were draconic, but warped. A hybrid dialect.
It read: The Watcher has turned. The Anchor bleeds. The Chains fray.
Clara gasped. "Lucian… that's prophecy. Ancient myth. It's talking about the Mythborn. The Watchers were said to observe the mythic balance. If one's turned, we're not just awakening stories—we're breaking the cycle."
Isaiah's face darkened. "And if the Anchor bleeds... then reality itself is bleeding."
Lucian closed the scroll. "We need to go in. That temple wasn't built to hold a myth. It was built to preserve it. Something inside still remembers everything."
---
They descended at dawn.
The temple entrance was not underwater. The ocean obeyed the structure's mythic boundaries, forming a protective bubble around it. Inside was eerily dry, lit by crystals that hummed with the heartbeat of time.
Runes shifted beneath their feet. The air felt heavy, not with moisture, but with memory.
As they moved deeper, they passed murals etched into the coral-walls: scenes of dragons battling void-beasts, cities made of starlight, and one recurring figure—a cloaked man with Lucian's eyes.
Clara stopped. "That's you. Or… someone who looks like you."
Lucian touched the image.
"It's a past life. One I haven't remembered yet."
At the temple's core, they found a chamber of silence. Floating in the center was a crystalline time-capsule—shards of frozen moments, looping endlessly. Inside it: a figure.
Tall. Armored in coral and gold.
Sleeping.
Lucian stepped closer.
The figure opened its eyes.
They were the same as Lucian's.
A booming voice echoed in all their minds: You have come far, descendant of myth. But the truth you seek will shatter you. Do you wish to remember?
Lucian didn't hesitate.
"I do."
The chamber exploded with light.
---
He fell through memory, time, and myth. He saw his own face on battlefields long lost, heard his voice declare peace between titans and mortals, felt the weight of a crown forged from dragon-bone.
He was the Everking. Reincarnated. Fragmented. Forgotten.
Until now.
He awoke gasping on the temple floor, Clara and Isaiah at his side.
"You remembered," Clara whispered.
Lucian's voice was different. Deeper. Wiser. He nodded slowly.
"And now I know what's coming. The myths are not awakening at random. They are responding to something ancient returning. The one who shattered the pantheon. The Unnamed."
Isaiah drew his weapon. "Then we prepare for war."
Lucian rose, three shards now orbiting him in perfect harmony.
"No. We prepare to rewrite the myths themselves."