Thojin did not rise.
He couldn't.
But something else had.
The warmth in his chest pulsed again — not like blood, but like a memory being remembered. The mark on his arm flickered beneath ash and blood, and for a moment, the air itself recoiled around him.
The demon hesitated.
Then it took a step back.
Its blade-arm lifted, cautious.
And the mark ignited.
A soundless pulse erupted from Thojin's body — not flame, not force, but something clean. Light without heat. A wave of ancient will.
The ash on the floor swirled upward.
The demon moved, too late.
The energy hit it like silence slamming shut.
It didn't burn. It didn't tear.
It erased.
The creature was lifted — flung upward — and slammed into the ceiling like a puppet with cut strings. Its body convulsed in silence, then froze. Not smoking. Not bleeding.
Just… stuck. Arms outstretched. Mouth open in frozen scream.
And then it was over.
The light receded.
The mark dimmed.
And Thojin collapsed into blackness.
He didn't wake up.
He fell deeper.
Into a place without form. Without time.
There was no warmth. No cold. No floor.
Just black.
An endless, breathing black.
He floated in it. Still. Weightless. Hollow.
Then something moved.
A glimmer. Far off.
A single orb of light drifted toward him — faint, pulsing, alive. It gave off no heat, yet pushed the dark back gently. Like breath brushing the edge of silence.
It stopped before him.
No voice. No shape.
But presence.
It waited.
And then:
You are not alone.
The thought echoed inside him — not as sound, but as memory.
He wanted to speak. Couldn't.
The orb drifted around him, slow, deliberate.
You called, without knowing.
You broke, and did not shatter.
He tried again to form words. "What… are you?"
No answer.
Only a pulse of light.
I am not yet what I was.
I am only what remains.
And you… carry a name you were never told.
A chill ran through him — not of fear, but recognition.
The orb floated closer.
Then a single word entered him — not through ears or mouth, but through blood.
Kagen.
It landed like a bell tolling underwater.
He didn't know it.
Yet it rang true.
"Kagen…" he whispered.
The orb dimmed.
The dark around them shifted.
Far off, something watched.
A distant pressure — ancient, heavy, unkind.
The orb pulsed faster.
They listen.
I must go.
"Who are they? What does the name mean?"
Follow it.
Or be found by what follows you.
The dark began to fold inward.
The orb dimmed to a pinpoint.
"Wait—please! Just tell me who you are!"
When you ask without fear… I'll answer.
And the light vanished.
Thojin woke with a gasp.
He shot upright, hand over his chest, heart thundering.
He blinked hard — his vision swam, then cleared.
He was still in the vault.
But something was wrong.
No pain.
He looked down.
His wounds — gone. No torn flesh. No cracked bone. His ribs moved freely. Even the bruises were fading like mist.
"What…"
He turned.
The demon was gone.
He took a step back.
He didn't remember standing. Didn't remember striking.
But something had.
And it had left him whole.
He touched the mark on his arm.
Still warm.
Still quiet.
One word burned behind his eyes.
Kagen.
He whispered it once.
And the silence seemed to listen.
Hours later — or what passed for hours in the undergut of Drellhok — something came.
Three figures moved through the ash-heavy corridors without footsteps. Robes scraped the floor in slow rhythm, stitched from stretched hide and rune-thread. Where their faces should be, bone masks gleamed dull and eyeless.
They weren't searchers.
They were observers.
Sent to trace anomalies. To study deviations. To record the impossible.
They reached the vault and paused.
The air still held the echo.
Above them, the remains of the demon — fused to the stone like a warning sigil.
One figure stepped forward, tilted its head.
"Tier-three enforcer," it rasped. "No signs of struggle."
Another approached the corpse. "No melting. No decay. No trauma."
The third reached out a single pale hand and pressed two fingers to the blackened ribcage. It pulsed — faintly — then cracked into dust.
"Erased," it whispered.
They stood in silence.
"This is not Tyrant-born magic," said the first.
"Nor rebel weaponry," the second added.
The third remained still.
Then: "Should we report this?"
Their attention turned slowly toward the tunnel's edge. Dust still moved there. A scent not fully faded.
"Residual trace leads north," one said.
"A survivor?" asked another.
"No," came the answer.
No one spoke after that.
The three disappeared into the gloom like ash on wind, robes dragging silence behind them.
The vault stayed empty.
But the scar it held — invisible to most — had already begun to spread.