The sky cracked.Kael did not see the lightning, but he felt the sound tear through the atmosphere like a god’s scream. A pulse of something ancient rolled across the battleground, thick and wrong, as if the world itself had forgotten how to breathe.He turned his head slowly.The Black Star had shifted.No longer dormant above the northern wastes, it now pulsed with veins of molten crimson. Threads of shadow unraveled from its surface like black fire, falling toward the land in spirals that distorted the air. It was no longer a distant omen. It was alive. And it was watching.“What did you do?” Kael’s voice was low, cold, but the storm in his chest threatened to rupture.Varelia staggered beside him, her bloodied hands raised to the sky, her hair dancing wildly in the unholy wind. “You said we needed power. Now you’ve got it.”Kael grabbed her arm, wrenching her around. “You called it here?”“I opened a gate,” she hissed. “The gate was already bleeding. I just… widened the wound.”Ru

Kael pressed a bloodstained hand against the wall as the corridor tilted. The torches flickered wildly, casting shadows that refused to stay still. The poison in his veins was colder than steel, but not colder than what stirred behind his eyes.He had barely escaped the upper sanctum. The last of the silver-robed Sentinels lay twisted beneath the wreckage of a fallen pillar, eyes wide with something that wasn’t fear—something deeper.Regret.Not theirs. His.He should have left sooner. Should have killed them all faster.His bootsteps echoed as he moved deeper underground, through corridors that wept with old curses. His cloak, soaked and heavy with blood, dragged behind him like a funeral shroud.He did not stop walking.Not when the whispers started again. Not when the stone beneath his feet breathed like lungs gasping their last.He turned left. Then down a flight of steps that hadn’t existed before. They revealed themselves only because they recognized what he was.The mark on his

Kael’s breath came in short, rasping bursts.The temple walls bled shadows now, soaked in the stench of ruptured spirits and shattered vows. The floor was cracked underfoot, veins of cursed red light pulsing between the stones like an ancient heart refusing death. Above him, the dome had split open to the black sky, where storm clouds clashed with shrieking wraiths that once served the Nine Kings.Kael stood at the center of it all, half-drenched in blood that wasn’t his, one hand still wrapped around the hilt of the void-bound blade, Mirefang. Its edge shimmered with a sickly hue, pulsing with the energy of the last soul it devoured.“You swore never to awaken that sword,” a voice said behind him, laced with fury and fear.Kael turned slowly.Lyra stood at the archway, her white armor cracked, streaked with ash and demon ichor. Her eyes, once clear with belief, were rimmed with disbelief now. Behind her, the remnants of the Legion stood still, uncertain, watching the man they once fo

The frost on the hill was thin, like a veil between worlds.Kael stood with his hand buried in the hilt of his sword, boots grinding against stone that hadn’t tasted warmth in centuries. Before him stretched a valley choked with broken sigils and the ruins of a forgotten battalion. All that remained were armor husks and bones turned to crystal.The northern wind tasted like death.“We’re late,” said Raen beside him, voice tight, eyes scanning the desolation. “The Shatterborn were already here.”Kael’s gaze swept across the carnage. “No. They’re still here.”He turned toward the ridge.The horizon moved.Slowly.A jagged silhouette rising like a tidal wave of limbs and warsteel, draped in white fire and frozen ash. The army was endless. Columns of Shatterborn, their bodies laced with black glass and stitched with bone relics, marched with inhuman rhythm.At their front walked something worse.A woman, if it could still be called that. Her face was covered in gold shards, her mouth seal

The chamber trembled. Not from the shifting mountain or a spell gone wild—but from something deeper. Something ancient. Kael’s heartbeat thundered like war drums as he stared into the circle carved into the obsidian floor. Symbols not written by mortal hands pulsed with silver light. The presence crawling through the cracks of the chamber was older than language, older than time.And it was waking up.Kael stepped forward.The others didn’t dare move.Valina pressed her hand to the wall, sweat breaking down her temples. “Kael,” she whispered. “That’s not just a seal. That’s a tomb.”Kael didn’t look back. “I know.”The voices in his mind—those whispers that had followed him since the fall of Gathar’s Gate—were no longer whispering. They were chanting. Unison. Like the priests of the Old Blood, calling something from the stars.He clenched his fists, and the veins on his forearms pulsed black.“The Veiled God,” Kael said under his breath. “This is where it was bound.”“You said the God