THE LOST HEIR OF THE IMMORTAL WAR GOD

CHAPTER 3: THE GOD'S LAST WHISPER

The sewers smelled like the shame of civilization.

Rot and rust and a chemical stench that seared the back of Axton's throat with every breath. He ran on bare feet, his shoes lost to the carnage, the moment of their loss buried deep beneath the horror. The water he splashed through was cold, viscous, carrying the unnamed diseases of the metropolis.

Behind him, sirens wailed. The Sentinel Order. They would have tracked the spiritual rupture at the Manor instantly; a seal of that power breaking released enough energy to scream across the city’s defense arrays.

Axton ran toward the absolute darkness ahead, chasing the echo of water dripping from pipes that looked older than the buildings they served.

His body was a map of protest. The power that had erupted at the altar had receded, leaving his veins too hot, his skin too tight. He felt like a vessel whose original shape no longer fit the fire it contained.

The white ceremonial robes were a disgrace, soaked with sewage and blood, neither all his own, yet both his own. He avoided looking at the stains, afraid to trace the patterns of who died where.

Castor's face, right as the core shattered.

Elira screaming, held by black lightning.

Seraphine's final look, watching him become the truth.

Axton’s stomach lurched. He stumbled, catching himself on the damp tunnel wall, and retched, bringing up nothing but burning bile. He had not eaten since the cold rice that morning, a lifetime ago.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and pressed on. The sirens grew closer, the sound twisting into strange harmonics in the echoing tunnels.

The path forked: left or right. Two identical mouths leading into identical darkness.

Axton squeezed his eyes shut. He fought to recall the city above. Sewers followed the streets. Main avenues meant wide tunnels.

He needed distance from the Manor, away from the wealthy estate district, somewhere the Sentinel Order would not sweep immediately.

Left. He plunged left.

The tunnel narrowed. The ceiling dipped, forcing him to hunch beneath dripping, foul-smelling pipes. The water deepened: ankle-deep, then mid-calf.

His legs shook. Not from fatigue. From memory.

Every time he blinked, he saw the Altar. The blood turning to void. The cultivator’s barrier dissolving to ash.

And the terrible truth: part of him had wanted it. That was the core rot that churned his stomach. That buried part had savored the moment Castor’s smug superiority shattered into raw fear, watching the golden boy finally learn what it meant to be nothing.

Axton had felt satisfaction. For one single, searing heartbeat.

"Does that make me a monster?" he whispered to the dark.

The darkness offered no reply.

But something else did.

"Pathetic."

Axton whirled, losing balance in the water, only to catch himself against the slime-slicked wall.

The tunnel was empty.

No. Not empty.

At the limit of his vision, where his phone's weak light failed, something moved. Not a shape, but a ripple in the air, a place where reality seemed to step aside.

It coalesced into a man.

He was translucent, edges blurred like light through water. He wore armor forged from frozen starlight, each plate perfectly contoured to a frame that spoke of a life spent in constant war. His face was harder than the steel, older, scarred by choices that marked the soul, not the skin.

His face was Axton’s face. Thirty years older, weathered by unending conflict, but undeniably the same jaw, the same haunted eyes.

"You're wallowing in excrement," the ghost said, his voice layered with sharp disappointment.

Axton could only stare, his throat seizing.

"Nothing to say? Unusual. You were quite vocal at the altar. Screaming, mostly. Very dramatic. Very Warborne." The ghost tilted his head, his form flickering. "I suppose introductions are in order. Kaelix Warborne. Your father. The Immortal War God. Also, mostly dead."

"Mostly?" The word was a dry croak.

"My body is dust. Scattered, burned, buried, I stopped keeping tally after the third funeral. But I left echoes. Fragments of consciousness woven directly into the bloodline. Think of me as the world’s worst inheritance: unavoidable advice from a parent you never met." Kaelix's translucent boots did not touch the water. "Call me Father, or don't. I haven't earned the title."

Axton’s legs gave out. He sank into the sewage, too exhausted to care about the filth.

"This isn't real. I'm hallucinating. The power has ruined my brain."

"You are not hallucinating. Though I wish you were; this conversation would be less tedious." Kaelix knelt, or appeared to, his form shimmering. "No. I am real. As real as a dead man's lingering will can be. The seal’s collapse was my alarm clock. I’ve been dormant for seventeen years. I bought you time. Time for the seal to set. Time for you to grow strong enough to survive the awakening. Clearly, I miscalculated, as you seem intent on dying in a sewer."

Axton laughed, the sound too high, too close to breaking. "It's hilarious! Seventeen years of hell was protective custody! A father I never met died for me! A legacy that turns me into a murderer! It’s all a joke!"

"It is survival. There is a difference."

"I killed thirty people!" The scream echoed in the narrow tunnel. "Thirty! I saw them turn to ash! Thirty lives gone because I couldn't control the power you forced upon me!"

Kaelix held the silence. Then, very carefully, "Did they give you a choice?"

"What?"

"At the altar. When they chained you down, ready to drain your blood like livestock. Did they offer you a choice? A way to walk out alive?"

Axton swallowed the answer.

"That's what I thought." Kaelix’s voice hardened. "You murdered no one, Axton. You defended yourself. Messily. Brutally. With power you didn't understand. But it was defense. They came to kill. You responded. That is not murder. That is war."

"War." Axton repeated the word numbly.

"War," Kaelix confirmed. "Welcome to the family business."

The sirens were almost upon them. Voices echoing, organized, methodical. The search net was closing.

Kaelix glanced toward the sound. "We have little time. My manifestation is unstable; it draws on your reserves, reserves you need to conserve."

"I need to know what I am."

"You are Warborne. That is all that matters."

"It is not enough. Tell me. Why does everyone want me dead? Why did you die? Why the seal? I need to understand the truth."

Kaelix sighed. A sound without breath. "The Warborne were not a family. We were a weapon. Forged by the Celestial Council during the Divine-Mortal War three millennia ago."

"The what?"

"You don't know." Kaelix’s face held a flash of bitter, ancient amusement. "Of course not. History has been cleansed. The sanitized version says gods and humans found peace. The truth is we slaughtered the gods who would not submit. The Warborne were the knife at their throat."

Axton struggled with the impossible truth. "We killed gods."

"We were designed to kill gods. Forged from divine essence, mortal will, and something older than both. We do not cultivate Qi; we consume it. Devour it. Become it."

The black lightning. The dissolution of the Qi barrier. The satisfaction of the power flowing into him.

"That is why they fear us," Axton whispered.

"That is why they killed us. Systematically. The War ended, and the Council decommissioned its weapons. The seven families who profited most from the war, the ones who orchestrated our end, they are now the Revenant Heptarchy. Seven dynasties built on the corpses of the warriors who won them their power." Kaelix's form flickered violently. "I was the last. I fought for thirty years. I made the deal with the Vails: Keep you alive, keep you sealed, give you the one thing I never had."

"A chance to what? Live in a closet? Starve for scraps?" The anger was hot, pure.

"A chance to grow up human," Kaelix stated, suddenly quiet. "I was a weapon from birth. Trained to kill before I could read. By the time I realized I wanted more than war, I had forgotten how to be anything else. The seal was protection, Axton. From the Heptarchy. From the legacy. From becoming what I became."

"And now?"

"Now the seal is broken. The protection is gone. You face a choice I was never granted." Kaelix was visibly fading. "You can run. Hide. Try to suppress the power. The Heptarchy will still hunt you, but survival is possible."

"Or?"

"Or you learn to control it. Master the Aegis Veins. Walk the line between man and weapon. Use the power without letting it use you."

"How?"

"Find Kael Tornhart. Elder of the Shadowvein Sect. He owes me a life debt. Tell him the last ember still burns."

"Where?"

"The Crimson Tower. Top floor. He meditates at dawn. He will sense your approach. Do not fight him. He will test you. Fail, and he throws you off the roof. Kael's humor is unreliable."

The hunters were right behind them. Flashlights sliced the darkness.

"I am out of time," Kaelix said. His voice was a bare whisper. "One more thing. The voice you will hear sometimes, the rage, the hunger, the ancient war. That is not me. That is the Legacy itself. The accumulated will of the Warborne. It will try to possess you. Do not listen."

"How do I fight it?"

"Remember why you're human. Hold onto that. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts." Kaelix was only a suggestion now, an outline of a man. "I am sorry, Axton. You deserved a life. You got a war. But you are stronger than I was. More human. That is your true weapon."

"Wait! I don't know what to do!"

"You will figure it out. You are Warborne. We always do."

Then he was gone. Only sewage, darkness, and the rapidly approaching sound of the Sentinel Order remained.

Axton stood. His legs still trembled, but they held. The crushing exhaustion remained, but underneath it, a sharp, cold purpose had settled.

He did not know if his father’s ghost was truth or illusion. He only knew he was done running.

He looked at his wrist. The wound that had resisted healing for weeks was gone. The skin was smooth, marked only by a thin silver line, like an ancient scar.

The scar over his heart remained, a reminder etched in flesh.

"Movement detected! Section Seven! All units converge!" The shouts echoed behind him.

Axton turned away from the sound. Not running. Walking. Steady. Deliberate.

He needed the surface. He needed the Crimson Tower.

The passage branched again. Three directions.

He closed his eyes. Focused on the coiled power in his chest. It stirred, aware and curious.

He touched it, carefully. Not forcing, but asking.

The Aegis Veins, midnight blue threaded with silver, the colors of control, flickered to life on his arms. They pulsed, a compass forged of power.

Straight ahead.

Axton opened his eyes. The Aegis faded, the manifestation leaving him drained. He would need to be careful.

He went straight.

The tunnel opened into an old, constructed chamber, a junction where six paths met. In the center, a maintenance platform held a ladder leading to a manhole cover.

Flashlights swept the adjoining tunnels. The net was tightening.

Axton climbed the slick, corroded ladder. At the top, he braced against the cover and pushed. It held fast. Two hundred pounds of iron.

"There! On the ladder!"

He reached for the power. Not much. A whisper of strength.

The Aegis Veins flared, sudden, borrowed, and absolutely essential.

He pushed.

The manhole cover tore free from its seat, crashing onto the pavement above.

Axton hauled himself out into an alley. Dawn was breaking, a pale grey light filtering between towering buildings. The air was cool, clean, compared to the shame below.

He stumbled to his feet. His robes were ruined. He was a disaster.

No one looked twice. In a city of millions, one more homeless-looking youth covered in filth was just another shadow.

Axton found the street. The Crimson Tower was northeast, three miles away. He walked, fast, but not running.

Six blocks later, he allowed himself to look back. No pursuit.

The Tower rose in the distance. Impossible to miss. Three hundred floors of red glass and black steel, twisting into the pale sky.

Kael Tornhart. The last ember still burns.

Axton walked toward it, exhausted, filthy, but with a singular purpose.

The Test of Truth

He reached the base of the Tower as morning broke. A colossal structure of frozen flame.

The entrance was fifty feet away. Glass doors, simple, elegant, undoubtedly warded.

Axton walked toward them. They glided open automatically.

Inside, silence. Marble floors reflecting infinity. Elevator banks humming with power.

Axton approached the center elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. Nothing.

He pressed again. The elevator chimed. The doors opened.

Inside, instead of buttons, was a single, reflective mirror. Written across it in a condensation that defied the climate control were three words:

Show me truth.

Axton stared at his reflection: sewer-stained, exhausted, a blend of fear and determination.

"I don't know what I am," he said to the reflection. "But I'm trying not to be what they say I am. That is all I have."

The condensation cleared. New words appeared:

Top floor. Don't bleed on my garden.

The elevator ascended.

When the doors opened, Axton stepped out into the impossible.

A garden. No roof. Just open sky. Greenery that should not exist three hundred floors above the city. Trees spiraling upward. Fractal flowers.

In the center, sitting on a stone that hovered six inches above the grass, was a man.

He was both seventy and seventeen. White hair knotted like a warrior. Scars mapping a lifetime of conflict. His eyes, closed in meditation, were the grey of storm clouds.

"You're late," the man said without opening his eyes.

"Dawn just happened."

"Dawn happened seven minutes ago. You're late." One eye opened, assessing Axton. "You look like him. Kaelix. Same jaw. Same terrible taste in combat attire. He showed up to our first meeting covered in blood, too."

"He said you owed him a debt."

"I owe him everything." Kael Tornhart stood, his movement too fluid for his apparent age. "He saved my life. Saved my sect. He told me to hold the debt for someone who matters more."

Kael tilted his head. "I assume you're the someone?"

"The last ember still burns," Axton stated.

Grief, pride, and resignation crossed Kael's face. "Damn him. Fine. I will honor the debt. But first, one question. Be honest. If you lie, I will know. And I will throw you off this tower myself."

Axton waited, the question poised like a knife.

"At the Bloodstone Altar. When you shattered them. Did you enjoy it?"

The easy answer, the lie, was ready. But Kael had asked for truth.

Axton’s hands shook. "Part of me did. When Castor realized he'd lost. When he understood what it felt like to be nothing. There was a moment of satisfaction."

"And now?"

"Now I want to vomit thinking about it."

"Good." Kael's voice was absolute. "Monsters don't regret. You are doing both. That means you are still human. Barely. But it's a start."

He gestured to the impossible garden. "Welcome to your first day of training, Axton Vail Warborne. Try not to die. I detest cleaning blood out of my moss."

Axton laughed. It was small. Broken. But real.

"I'll do my best."

"That is all I ask."

The sun climbed. The fragile hope, uncertain, foolish, but fiercely present, settled in Axton's chest.