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"Before stars were named, before even the first Celestials awoke, the Architect walked among the primordial void. The ashes of those moments linger still—in echoes, in ruins, in souls worthy enough to remember."
—Aegion, the Radiant, Overseer of Light and Will
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Kaelar's dreams turned stranger after the Kree's defeat.
No longer visions of Vorthar's past—now he drifted through blackened voids, lit by titanic ruins floating like bones of forgotten gods. Amid them, he saw glyphs of flame, circular doors that pulsed with recognition. Voices not his own whispered in languages that felt older than language itself.
T'Rel had a name for them:
> "Ashes of the Ancients."
"Places where Architect-touched beings once stepped. Where reality buckled to make room."
She showed Kaelar fragments of the Cosmic Library of Exitar, a catalog once maintained by Nova Archivists before it was erased in a Shi'ar-Kree purge war. One entry described Vorthar's moon—Thera-Vai—as having an unexplored subterranean architecture, pre-Celestial and unclassifiable.
They departed within a day.
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Descent into Thera-Vai
The moon was a frozen husk above Vorthar, once a colony centuries ago before quakes shattered it. But beneath its ice-covered surface, Kaelar sensed warmth.
Not of life. Of purpose.
Deep beneath, beneath cyclopean obelisks carved in impossible angles, they found it: a door made of pure flame logic, inscribed in a circular symbol that matched the mark branded on Kaelar's soul during his Trial.
It opened for him.
Beyond lay a cavern of memories—not recordings, but replays, echoes burned into space-time. Phantasms of past Chosen walked through the halls—some human, some alien, some unrecognizable.
He saw one wield a crystalline blade of voidlight, defeating a being made of entropy. Another tamed blackhole serpents by weaving starlight around their minds. These were not metaphors. These were real, and Kaelar watched them all.
He fell to his knees, overwhelmed.
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In the heart of the ruin stood a singular being: translucent, made of cracked flame and nebula dust, tall beyond measurement. It did not move, yet its presence dwarfed Kaelar's own soul.
It spoke not in words, but conviction:
> "Flameborn.
You have tasted power.
But purpose tempers strength.
One day, you may ascend to Stage Three.
Today, you must learn who fell trying."
The being was not the Architect, nor an Overseer.
It was a Sentinel of the Flame Vault, left behind to guide future Chosen through the echoes of failure.
Kaelar watched as it replayed Trial Failures: one warrior undone by arrogance, another by grief, and one—stronger than most—who turned away at the final gate because she feared being forgotten.
Each death was final. The Flame retreated from them.
Kaelar asked, "Why show me this?"
> "Because one day, you will face a Trial not meant for you alone.
And you will have to carry others through it… or fall as they did."
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The Sentinel vanished. The ruin trembled.
Above them, hell broke loose.
The Brood, drawn by the same residual Architect energy, had followed the star-beacon from Kaelar's earlier battle. Twisted, parasitic creatures—half-insect, half-nightmare—descended in skiffs through the breach. Their Queen-Priestess carried a Cerebral Spore, able to infect even minds as disciplined as Kaelar's.
As they stormed the moon's ruins, T'Rel held the line—pistol in one hand, gravity whip in the other. Kaelar stepped forward, the Star Hammer flaming with his will.
The battle was not clean. Not glorious.
It was desperate.
Kaelar was infected—but he fought it off by igniting the Flame Glyphs carved into the ruin. The Architect's purity burned the spore from within, searing part of Kaelar's mind, scarring it permanently. He would never again dream the same way.
He slaughtered the Queen with a downward blow that fractured a continent's crust.
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Kaelar and T'Rel barely escaped Thera-Vai before its collapse. The ruin was sealed behind tectonic upheaval. But Kaelar left with more than knowledge.
He had seen what came before.
He understood now why so few reached Stage Three. It was not just power. It was bearing the burden of a legacy forgotten by time—a legacy only the Flame remembered.
As they returned to Vorthar, a signal beacon hummed in T'Rel's ship.
A Shi'ar emissary had taken note of the Flameborn's growing legend.
A diplomatic envoy was on its way.
And elsewhere—in Kree space, in Asgard, even on Knowhere—Kaelar's name began appearing on lists not meant for mortal eyes.