The dead reached them.Steel collided with steel.The Sanctum erupted.Kael moved first.He drew the Shadow Blade as three ancient warriors crashed toward him.The first swung high.Kael blocked.The second attacked his ribs.He turned.The third thrust for his throat.Kael stepped inside the attack and struck the warrior's chest.The blade passed through.Nothing happened.The warrior kept coming.Kael frowned.“They're already dead.”The warrior raised its sword.“So they don't care where you cut them.”Kael ducked.The blade passed over his head.He drove the Shadow Blade upward.The ancient armor split.A black mist escaped.The warrior collapsed.Then it stood again.Kael's expression changed.“They regenerate.”Arden appeared beside him.“Then stop cutting them.”He drove his blade into the ground.A pulse of Aura spread outward.The nearest warriors staggered.Arden shouted,“Their armor is keeping them here!”Kael understood.He looked toward the ancient soldiers.Not bodies.

The blade in Kael's hand had no edge.Yet everything around it moved away.Dust.Smoke.Fragments of stone.Even the darkness recoiled.Kael stared at it.It was not forged metal.It had no hilt.It was simply a shape formed from his own Aura.A decision given form.The creature watched him.“You cannot forge a blade from nothing.”Kael tightened his grip.“I didn't.”The blade brightened.“I forged it from everything you failed to take.”The creature lunged.Kael moved.The first strike passed through the creature's arm.There was no resistance.Then the darkness split.The creature screamed.Not because Kael had cut its flesh.Because he had cut something beneath it.A memory.The creature staggered.Images burst from its body.Aethra burning.Aric standing before it.Thousands of soldiers falling.The first blade being forged.The first command being spoken.And something else.A child.A boy standing beside the first king.Kael froze.“That boy…”Aric looked at the vision.His fac

Silence.Kael stood in the center of the Sanctum.He knew his name.He knew the people around him.He knew the blade in his hand.But he could no longer remember why he had come here.He looked at Lira.She was staring at him with the same confusion.“Where are we?”Kael looked around.“I don't know.”Across the chamber, Lucan lowered his weapon.Elias stared at his own hands.“I remember my name.”He looked at Kael.“I remember you.”Kael nodded.“But I don't remember why we're fighting.”“No.”Elias looked toward the broken sky.“Neither do I.”A laugh echoed through the Sanctum.Vale.He stood completely still.Unlike everyone else, he remembered.The Emperor remembered too.So did Aric.And Thorne.Darian.Serah.Veyra.The seven warriors.They all stood unaffected.Kael noticed.“You remember.”Vale smiled.“Yes.”“Why?”“Because we were never part of the memory.”Kael frowned.Vale pointed toward the symbol beneath them.“You are.”The massive symbol pulsed.A wave of invisible

The darkness knelt.No one moved.Not the Emperor.Not Aric.Not Thorne.Not even Vale.The Fifth Sovereign hovered above the Sanctum, its immense form bowed toward the boy.Evan.Kael stared at his younger brother.“You control it.”Evan shook his head.“No.”He looked at the darkness.“It remembers me.”Kael frowned.“That isn't the same thing.”“It is.”Evan raised the colorless blade.The darkness moved with him.Not because he commanded it.Because it recognized him.Elias stepped beside Kael.“Why did Mother hide you?”Evan looked at him.“Because she couldn't hide what I was.”His eyes moved toward Serah's image.“She could only hide me.”Serah's image trembled.“I was trying to save all three of you.”Evan looked at her.“You saved them.”His voice became colder.“You abandoned me.”Serah lowered her head.“I didn't abandon you.”“You sealed me.”Darian stepped forward.“We had no choice.”Evan laughed.“You always say that.”Darian stopped.Evan turned toward Kael.“You want

Every blade in Eryndor turned.Not toward the Emperor.Not toward Evan.Not toward the ancient man who had stepped from the remains of the Fifth Sovereign.Toward Kael.Thousands of weapons trembled across the continent.Swords hanging above noble houses.Rusting blades buried beneath battlefields.Training weapons in forgotten villages.Sacred weapons locked inside temples.Even broken fragments beneath the earth shifted in their resting places.All of them pointed in one direction.Kael.For the first time since the Shadow Blade had chosen him, Kael felt something more frightening than a blade at his throat.Recognition.The world knew him.Or something wearing his name.The colorless blade in his hand vibrated.The older man watched him.White hair.Scarred face.Kael's face.But older.More tired.More human than any memory should have been.“You feel it,” the stranger said.Kael did not answer.“You think they're answering you.”The stranger looked toward the distant horizon.“Th