They moved under the veil of morning mist, where trees grew tall and thin like grasping hands, and the roads turned to stone riddled with roots.Kael said little as they walked. His body ached from travel, but it was the ache of truths, not just muscles—the kind that crept into your bones and refused to let go.Thorne walked ahead, muttering lines from a weathered scroll. Seris took up the rear, blade wrapped in its weather cloth but never far from reach. The pendant at Kael’s chest had been quiet since Drenn’s Hollow, but its silence didn’t bring peace. If anything, it felt like the breath before a scream.[System Update: Codex Entry Unlocked — “Echo-Born: The Wyrm Keys”]The message had arrived that morning, glowing faintly in his vision as they crossed into the last pass before the Vanguard ruins.Kael read it again now.Codex Entry: Echo-BornIn rare cases, a child born from two powerful, opposing bloodlines may inherit both strengths—and both curses. Such children are called Echo

The hills ahead were barren, stripped of trees, bleached stone jutting from the earth like the ribs of a buried giant. Even the wind seemed hesitant here—whispers trailing like unfinished sentences. Kael felt it before he saw it.The scar in the world.It wasn’t a Rift, not exactly—no swirling void or temporal collapse. But the energy pulsing from the old ruins told a different story.“This was once a binding site,” Thorne said as they approached. “Part of a network of arcane wardings built to contain the Wyrmbound’s fragments. Most were activated during the final days of the war.”Kael turned slowly in place. “And this one?”“Unfinished,” Seris answered. Her eyes were sharp, scanning every glyph-strewn rock. “Either abandoned... or sabotaged.”Kael stepped forward as the pendant at his chest pulsed, faint but constant. This place was tethered to it—like an echo of a forgotten heartbeat.[System Alert: Vanguard Binding Ward Detected — Integrity Status: Incomplete]Primary Inscription

The path into the Hollow March was shrouded in gray mist and half-light. Even the sun, high above the fractured highlands, seemed reluctant to touch the cursed terrain. Kael Ardyn walked with his hood drawn and the pendant beneath his tunic pulsing faintly—never cold, never hot, but aware.It was the kind of silence that dared you to speak—and punished you if you did.Seris walked ahead with her blade drawn, her senses sharpened beyond what training alone could explain. Thorne remained at the rear, murmuring quiet protective sigils into the wind. They hadn’t seen another soul since the village of Velhollow, where the Spiral watchtower had been reduced to scorched stone and melted sigilglass.“Still no trace of the Vanguard,” Seris said quietly.“They didn’t flee,” Thorne replied grimly. “They were erased.”The Hollow March had once been a transit zone—a high valley of windswept stone and thorned brush where outposts kept vigil over Riftborne tremors. Now it bore the stench of still ma

The hills beyond the Hollow March twisted like bones of a dead leviathan—scarred by Rift storms, half-shadowed by a sky that pulsed like an old wound. The path the group followed was marked only by the ancient spiral glyphs of the Vanguard, etched faintly into shards of stone that jutted from the earth like forgotten teeth.Kael walked in silence.The encounter with the Whisperbound still clung to his nerves like cold oil—its voice echoing within the deepest corners of his mind. "You are not the first. But you may be the last."Thorne led them westward, toward the ruins of an old Vanguard stronghold no longer on any charted map. “This is where the old blood was recorded,” he explained. “The ancients called it the Memory Spine. A living monument. Not just a record—but a voice. It listens. And sometimes… lies.”[System Alert: Proximity Warning]Artifact Signature Detected – Type: Living Sigil ConstructDesignation: Memory Spine (Partial Activation)Caution: Historical Corruption Detecte

[SYSTEM ECHO LOG – RECONSTRUCTED MEMORY TRIGGERED]Subject: Kael Ardyn | Alias Detected: VAERENWarning: Identity conflict. Seal destabilizing…The heat of the Cindervault Wastes pressed down like a dying star, dry winds howling over blackened plains and seared bone-rock. The ground pulsed faintly under Kael’s boots—like a buried heart still struggling to beat. Every breath was smoke-tinged, tasting of old battles and ash-sealed secrets.They stood now at the broken threshold of the Obsidian Archive, its gates long shattered and half-submerged beneath volcanic debris. Glyphs still flickered weakly on the basalt walls, trying to awaken. Kael’s pendant had reacted the moment they crossed the perimeter—flaring with red-gold light, and humming in pulse with his heartbeat.But that wasn’t all.A voice had begun whispering in his mind. Not the fragment of the Wyrmbound—this voice was clearer. Sharper. Older. It did not plead or tempt—it commanded.“Vaeren… Flameborn. You are late to your re