Legacy of the Lost Sigil

Chapter 4: The Crimson Path Awakens

The wind over the glade was sharper this morning. It pulled through the trees like a blade testing flesh. Kael stood at the center, muscles stiff but mind brimming with restless energy.

Seris arrived just past dawn, the rising sun casting a bronze sheen over her cloak. She walked like a whisper and carried her blade like an extension of thought. Not a single leaf crunched under her boots.

“Punctual,” she said, nodding. “That’s something.”

Kael offered a short bow. He had found an old short sword buried beneath the shed—likely ornamental, with a dulled edge and cracked hilt. But it was still better than a walking stick.

“Barely holds together,” she said, inspecting it. “But it’ll do… if you’re not planning on surviving long.”

“I’ll survive.”

Seris smirked faintly. “Confidence. Dangerous in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.”

Kael clenched the sword tighter.       

Seris began with motion.

“Step. Turn. Strike. Withdraw.”

She didn’t wield her own blade yet—only used her hands, instructing with gesture and rhythm. Kael mirrored her movements: foot placement, shift of weight, tightening of core. Simple patterns. Over. And over.

After an hour, sweat clung to his back like a second shirt.

“Again,” she said.

Kael grunted, forcing the sword through another sloppy arc.

“No. Too wide. You’d expose your ribs. Again.”

He slashed, adjusted, then stumbled.

“Again.”

“Seris—”

“You asked me to teach you,” she said sharply. “Not coddle you.”

He breathed heavily, jaw clenched. His shoulder ached from the trial days ago, but he raised the blade again.

Slash. Step. Pivot. Recover.

After the hundredth repetition, Seris finally said, “Enough.”

Kael dropped to one knee, panting.

“You fight like someone who’s never punched a wall in his life,” she said, walking a slow circle around him. “Too careful. Too tame.”

He looked up. “Then teach me to hit harder.”

She stopped in front of him. “No. First, I teach you why you hit. Without that, power is just another poison.”

As Kael rested under a shade tree, the pendant warmed against his chest.

[CRIMSON PATH INITIATED]

Legacy Class: Hybrid Warrior – Blade & Blood

Passive Trait: Vital Edge – All slashing weapons gain dual-function capability

New Skill Unlocked: Pulse Cut

“Inflict damage while simultaneously sealing wounds or bleeding.”

New Feature: Battle-Mender Stance — increases agility, decreases raw strength, amplifies healing focus

Kael blinked.

“System,” he whispered, “explain Pulse Cut.”

[Skill Explanation: Pulse Cut]

A calculated strike that channels restorative energy through physical trauma. If used defensively, may close ally wounds. If used offensively, may numb or weaken enemies through nerve-targeting precision.

A blade that could heal and cripple.

His father must’ve known this path. Maybe even created it.

Kael glanced at Seris, who was now polishing her own sword—a long, elegant weapon with crimson sigils along its edge.

“Did he use Pulse Cut?” Kael asked softly.

Seris paused.

“Once. In the siege of Dreyloth Keep. He used it to sever an enemy commander’s spine without killing him—then turned and sealed a mortal wound in our captain with the same blade.”

Kael was silent for a moment. “What happened to the commander?”

“He begged for death. Your father refused him that mercy.”

***

Far across the valleys of Aelvaria, deep beneath the stone towers of Vel’Drakthar, a ritual chamber hummed with unnatural light.

Seven men stood in a circle, robed in black threads woven with embers.

Above them floated a mirrored shard, spinning gently—its surface flickering like water kissed by fire. Images danced across it: trees, a glowing pendant, a young boy slashing at a figure of flame.

“Confirmed,” said the tallest of them, his voice like sand scraped over bone. “The Sigil is active again.”

Another spoke, his fingers interwoven in a gesture of runic containment. “Impossible. All known heirs were eliminated.”

“Apparently not,” the tall one replied. “Which means one of the Hidden Path still lives.”

A third figure stepped forward. Her face was hidden by a veil of dusk-threads. “Then we must awaken the Wyrmbound. If the Sigil lives, so does the bloodline prophecy.”

“But he is untrained,” said a fourth. “A boy.”

“Boys become weapons when you leave them sharp edges,” said the tall one.

The mirrored shard flared once—then vanished.

***

Seris was standing now, watching Kael try to replicate a defensive slash using the Pulse Cut. The System interface provided occasional slow-motion overlays, helping him correct angles and adjust timing.

But it wasn’t easy.

The skill demanded not only form, but intention. He had to imagine healing while cutting. To see both pain and cure in one breath.

By midday, he finally landed a clean motion.

His blade grazed a practice dummy Seris had built—just as she’d instructed—and the rune-carved fabric sealed instead of tearing.

[Pulse Cut Registered – Efficiency: 76%]

Kael stepped back, panting.

“I think I did it.”

“You did,” Seris said, approaching.

She eyed the healed tear.

“Your father never reached more than 85%.”

Kael looked up.

She added, “On his first week.”

He smiled, pride swelling—but quietly. He had earned this. Step by painful step.

That evening, Kael sat by the stream that curled around the edge of the training glade. The pendant shimmered faintly, as if moonlight dwelled inside it.

He let his fingers touch the sigils, and for a moment—just a second—he saw it:

A memory not his own.

A man with midnight hair stood in a burning field. He was swinging a crimson blade, glowing with Pulse Cut, shielding a wounded woman behind him. His voice echoed in Kael’s mind like a whisper carried by blood.

“The blade is not meant for conquest. It is a vessel. And you—my son—are its last reason.”

Kael gasped, hand gripping the pendant.

From across the glade, Seris watched Kael quietly, her hand resting on her blade. She’d trained many recruits. Some broke, some hardened.

But Kael...

He reminded her of a time before betrayal. Before Orders twisted loyalty into war.

She remembered his mother’s voice—gentle, always humming lullabies even as arrows whistled overhead.

“If we don’t fight to preserve the light in our children, Seris, then what are we doing?”

The wind shifted.

A flock of birds broke from the trees beyond the ridge.

Her eyes narrowed.

Too sudden. Too silent.

***

In the underbrush, two shadowed figures crouched, watching the glade.

One carried a longbow carved from blackroot. The other, a sickle wrapped in shadowcloth.

“The boy has activated the Sigil,” the archer whispered. “Just as the Veiled Council foresaw.”

“Orders?” the other asked.

“Observe. For now. But mark the girl—she is Bladewarden. Dangerous.”

“What if they leave the glade?”

The archer smirked. “Then we test the old prophecy... with blood.”