The dunes stretched endlessly. Burning sun above. Roaring winds all around. Beneath the sand lay the Ruins of Sha’tarai, an ancient city swallowed by time and buried under myth.And within that forgotten place, she awakened. Her body trembled as power surged through her veins, cold, humming, relentless. Her eyes glowed the color of dying stars: voidsilver.Her name was Nara of the Hollow Moon. She had been a healer. A desert-born seer. A quiet figure in a forgotten tribe. But something had found her, something ancient, in her dreams, in her silence, in her soul. The god’s whisper still echoed in her mind:"He has slain the first. You are next. Rise... Harbinger of Despair." Alan stumbled into the light of day, Kaela supporting him. Behind them, the Pillars of Origin began to seal once more. The trapdoor to that sacred chamber groaned shut, veiled in new glyphs carved by Lioren’s exhausted magic.Lioren followed them out, sweat-drenched and visibly drained.“We can’t stay in Elaron muc

The Pillar of Memory crackled, silver light splitting like veins of lightning down its crystalline core. The air between Alan and Nara thickened, charged with something ancient and volatile.Her outstretched hand didn’t waver. “I don’t want to fight you, Alan,” she said, her voice calm but hollow, like a melody stripped of meaning. “But I will shatter this Pillar if you refuse me.”Behind her, the dark tendrils coiled tighter. They weren’t just void energy now, they were alive. Whispering. Watching. Alan took a step forward. His palm hovered near his chest, over the Keeper’s mark.“I don’t understand everything yet,” he said. “But I know this: you’re hurting. And this… destroying the Pillars, it won’t bring your people back.”“It’s not about them anymore,” Nara said sharply. “It’s about all of us. The gods use us like pieces on a board. You think you’re the hero? You’re just the next move in their game.”Kaela and Lioren had caught up. They stood behind Alan, blades and spells ready.

Snow. That was the first thing Alan felt as their skyship pierced the veil of clouds, The wind howled like a grieving god. The air cut deeper than any blade. Below, the jagged peaks of the Frostfang Range stretched endlessly, white stone and frozen rivers winding toward the heart of the north: Varholdr.They had crossed a continent in three days, thanks to Lioren’s wind-bindings and the Sapphire Council’s enchanted skyrunner, Kaela stood at the bow, wrapped in shadowcloth and fur. Nara watched the sky, eyes narrowed, feeling the pull of the void again. Lioren kept his hands on the controls, maintaining balance against the shifting stormfields.Alan stood at the center, cloaked in silver fire and memory. The medallion on his chest pulsed harder the closer they got, He could feel it, The Third Pillar was dying.They arrived at Frosmark, once the capital of the north, now a ruin sheathed in rime and silence. Every building was perfectly preserved, frozen mid-movement, Soldiers stood like

The skies split in two.Alan clashed midair with the Seer of Storms, lightning dancing around them like serpents in a mad sky. Her blade The Dreamcutter,was not a sword in the traditional sense, but a shard of condensed prophecy, able to slice through not just flesh but possibility itself. Each strike from her didn't just bruise or burn, it tried to rewrite Alan's fate.But Ashbreaker sang louder. Forged in truth, fire, and memory, it resisted change, pushing back against the tidal force of her attacks. "You cannot stop what has already been dreamed!" she cried, hurling a cyclone his way.Alan flew through it, eyes blazing. "Then let me dream something new." Sea of MemoryBelow, the battlefield raged. Kaelion froze the incoming water elementals. Nara carved paths of void through wind-wraiths. Lioren raised moss-covered barriers from the water itself, while Kaela agile as ever jumped between shattered mast and summoned sea dragons, pinning them down with spectral arrows.But the ocean

The ship turned east. Not toward a mountain, ruin, or shrine, but toward a village so unremarkable, it didn’t appear on any current maps. A place untouched by war, gods, or even stories.Yet it was there that destiny had chosen to sleep. Alan sat quietly on the deck, staring at the medallion. It no longer pulsed toward stone or sky, but toward something living. A person. His sister.He could barely remember her face. Only warmth… and a lullaby. Something ancient, perhaps sung to him by someone else, in a different life. Or by the First Flame, in the womb of his true origin.Kaelion stood beside him, arms crossed. “If she’s the Fifth Pillar, that means she’s no longer just a person.”Alan nodded. “But she’s still my sister.”Lioren added, “We don’t know what state she’s in. If the gods know, they’ll come for her. And if the Fractured One finds her…”Alan clenched his fists. “They won’t.”The Village Without Name. They arrived at dusk. The village lay nestled in a valley of mist-covere