The journey east took them through the remnants of the Withered Wastes, a desolate stretch of land where nothing grew and even time itself felt reluctant to pass. The wind howled through jagged cliffs, carrying with it the ghosts of forgotten centuries.
Kael led the way, guided not by maps or satellites, but by instinct a strange tug beneath his ribs, like the temple was calling him home.
Lira walked close behind, her mechanical drones buzzing quietly as they mapped every inch of the shifting terrain. Sera brought up the rear, her senses sharpened, her eyes constantly scanning the horizon.
"We're almost there," Kael said quietly.
"How can you tell?" Sera asked.
He touched a stone outcropping, half-buried in sand. Symbols glowed faintly under his fingers—glyphs neither of them recognized, but which Kael somehow understood.
"Because this place knows me."
They reached the entrance at dusk.
Carved into the base of a mountain, the temple's doors stood sealed—massive slabs of obsidian and silver-veined rock, inscribed with runes that flickered as Kael approached.
Suddenly, the wind stopped.
Kael placed his palm against the door.
A voice echoed not aloud, but within him.
"You who were sealed, return."
The doors creaked open.
Inside was darkness, not absence of light, but something deeper. A void that seemed to swallow sound, thought, breath. Yet, Kael stepped in without hesitation.
The others followed.
Inside the Temple
The walls pulsed with a rhythm like a heartbeat.
Each step deeper brought a flicker of memory: a battlefield, a name, a promise. The air grew heavier with every hallway, the gravity warping slightly around Kael's body as his powers reacted.
At the temple's heart stood a chamber.
Circular. Silent. Carved from stone that shimmered with starlight.
And in its center hovering was a black crystal, suspended above a pedestal.
Kael approached it.
"This is it," Lira whispered.
"The memory seal," Sera said.
As Kael reached out, the crystal reacted—floating down to rest in his open palm. The moment his fingers closed around it, the world exploded in light.
Vision — Echoes of the First Cycle
Kael stood on a battlefield of floating isles and shattered moons.
He wore dark armor etched with ancient sigils. His eyes crackled with blue-white lightning. His presence bent the air around him.
Before him stood six others—radiant, powerful, beings of impossible might.
> "You were never meant to choose sides," one of them said.
"But I did," Kael replied. "Because balance doesn't mean silence. It means action."
He raised his staff—the very same one still sealed in the Vault of Endings and unleashed a wave of gravity and lightning that tore through the cosmos.
Then came the fall.
A great war.
A betrayal.
A final seal placed by Kael himself, to lock away his power, his past… and his name.
Back in the Present
Kael fell to his knees, the crystal dimming in his hand.
Lira rushed forward. "What did you see?"
Kael looked up, eyes wide, filled with new clarity and sorrow.
"I was a protector… and a destroyer."
He clenched his fists.
"I started the war that shattered the First Cycle… and sealed myself to stop it."
Sera stared. "Then you're not just Voidborn… you're the Balance Incarnate."
Kael staid
Good, the ground humming beneath his feet.
"And if that balance is broken again… I'll do whatever it takes to restore it."