Chapter 1: Ashes of the ForgottenThe village of Darn Hollow clung to the edge of the Blackwilds like moss to stone—forgotten by kings, untouched by war, and avoided even by travelers who had the sense to fear the trees. Fog lingered year-round in the gnarled woods beyond, and the old stories said something ancient slept beneath the roots. The villagers never dared to find out what.It was here, on a night of crimson sky and crackling thunder, that the child was born.His mother arrived out of nowhere—a pale woman cloaked in rags, barefoot, belly swollen, eyes dazed as if she had walked through a dream. She collapsed at the temple steps, whispering a name no one understood before she slipped into unconsciousness. By dawn, she was dead, and the child she left behind was unlike any the village had seen.He didn’t cry. He didn’t blink. He simply stared at the world with eyes so black they seemed to consume light. Some said it was just shadow. Others muttered of old curses.They named him

Chapter 3: The Cracks in Darn Hollow It started small—just whispers. At first, the villagers dismissed the strange occurrences: the wind that seemed to carry voices, the sudden cold that blanketed the village at dawn, the rustling of the trees even when no breeze stirred. But there was always something in the air now—a sense of waiting, like a storm had already broken, and only the calm remained. Kael felt it more than anyone. It pressed on him, heavier with each passing day, coiling in his chest like a serpent. The dreams were relentless now, and the memories—those fractured glimpses of another life—had begun to bleed into the waking world. He had known this place, these people, once. He had ruled here, in a time long forgotten. But that was not his burden now. He could feel it, deep within: his power was waking. And with it, something else was stirring. --- One evening, as Kael walked down the narrow, cobbled street of Darn Hollow, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on e

Chapter 5: Descent Into Ash and FlameThe shrine was no longer silent.As Kael and Lira stood before the awakened altar, the symbols around the sealed door pulsed in a rhythmic pattern—like a heartbeat, or a warning. The ground trembled in low groans, the kind of sound that spoke not of collapse, but of something long-buried stretching after ages of stillness.Kael didn’t hesitate. His hand, still faintly glowing with divine sigils, pressed against the etched inscription: “Only the Marked may awaken it.”The air exploded with soundless force.The runes ignited like fire caught in ink, streaking along the obsidian door. One by one, the golden veins turned red—then black—as if scorched by memory. With a crack that echoed into the bones of the world, the doors parted, revealing a stairwell descending into perfect darkness.Lira stared into the void. “This was sealed for a reason.”“I was sealed for a reason,” Kael replied, stepping into the black without pause.Lira followed.The stairwa

Chapter 7: The Whisper of Ash and WingsNight came swiftly to Darn Hollow.The village slept uneasily. Doors were bolted tighter. Candles burned longer. Elders muttered prayers to gods who, until now, had been little more than faded names in harvest songs.But gods were stirring. And they were not pleased.Kael stood at the edge of the village, beneath the oldest tree in the woods. His white hair shimmered like ghostlight in the dark, his abyssal-black irises fixed on the horizon.He could feel it—a ripple in the weave of the world. A presence cutting through the mortal realm like a blade through silk. It wasn’t a beast. It wasn’t a man. It was something born of divine spite.Lira joined him, her cloak drawn tight. “You sense it too?”He nodded slowly. “They’ve sent someone. A hunter. A warning.”“Should we run?”Kael turned to her. “No. If we run now, we’ll be hunted forever. I need to see how far they’ll go to destroy me.”---Far above, carried on wings not made of flesh but woven

Chapter 9: Beneath the Roots of the WorldThere are places older than time.Not charted on maps, not bound by sun or moon. Beneath the crust of creation, deeper than the deepest sea, there is a hollow—a wound in existence where neither gods nor mortals dare to tread.This place is called by many names in the oldest tomes:The Nethercore. The Vein of Endings. The Heart That Never Beat.Here, light has never been born. Yet something watches. Something waits.And now, for the first time in an age, it stirs.Deep in the Nethercore, amidst an ocean of obsidian thorns and skyless vaults, the Council of the Forgotten gathered. Not gods. Not demons. They were remnants—the First Echoes, born when the world was still raw and molten, when the concept of fear was yet to be shaped.They did not speak in words. Their thoughts were color, vibration, rupture. But for the sake of sanity, their communion may be interpreted as something like speech:“The Broken Flame rises.”A whisper of thought, like b