Kael opened his eyes.
Smoke drifted in the air around him—dense, grey, and choking. The world was silent. No Lyra. No battlefield. Just smoke and stone under his feet.
Someone stood in front of him.
He blinked, trying to focus. It was a man… no, it was him. Another version of himself. But something was different. The other Kael looked more composed, older somehow. Not by years, but by weight. He carried it in his eyes. Pain, regret, and a strange calm that didn't belong to the Kael lying on the ground.
"This is your last chance," the other him said. "Don't let it go. If you lose her again, you may never find her again."
Kael stood slowly. "Who are you talking about?"
The other Kael raised a hand. Smoke twisted, and memories came crashing into him like a flood.
He saw a girl offering him a sandwich near a fountain. Then her hand in his—warm, real—as they walked through the town at night. He saw her laugh. He saw her in battle, their swords crossing, sparks flying. Her face remained blurry… but her presence, her voice, her smile—it was all familiar.
And then the battlefield again. Her lifeless body. The blood. The rain. Her final words.
The moment she died in his arms.
A curse.
A voice echoing: "You'll live through eternity, watching your loved ones die again and again."
His chest tightened as more memories filled in. He saw himself in different places—wandering, searching, never stopping. Every time he got close, she slipped away. Different names. Different faces. But it was always her. And he always lost her.
His cursed life had turned into an endless cycle of pain.
The other Kael looked at him one last time. "He knows now that you're awake. He's coming. Be ready."
"Wait," Kael stepped forward. "How do I break it? The curse?"
"There's only one way," the other him said, beginning to fade. "Find her. Protect her. Choose her, even when it costs everything. Only then… will the chain break."
Before Kael could ask more, the other him disappeared.
Darkness fell for a moment—then light.
Kael woke up with a sharp breath. Cold sweat ran down his back.
He was back.
The room was quiet. He was lying on a soft bed inside the main house. Around him sat the others—Siora, Auren, a few elders, and Lyra. They had been waiting, their eyes tired but hopeful.
He slowly sat up. His eyes found her.
And everything stopped.
The blur was gone.
It was her.
The girl from the town, from the battlefield, from every lifetime before. The one he'd been chasing for centuries, across bloodshed, across pain, across time itself.
She was sitting right there.
Lyra.
The one he had lost more times than he could count. The one he was cursed to find and lose again. The one who could end this curse.
His voice cracked. "It's you."
She looked at him, confused but calm. She didn't know everything yet. But Kael did.
His salvation. His end. His beginning.
On the other side of the world—far beneath the jagged peaks of the Northern Mountains—deep inside a forgotten chamber, the red-eyed shadow stirred.
The seal was gone.
The leader of darkness stepped forward, free for the first time in a thousand years. He stretched his hands, letting power ripple through his form as smoke peeled away from his limbs. No longer just eyes in shadow—he now had a body. A human form, terrifying in its perfection, cold and unfamiliar. No one had ever seen him like this before.
Before him, tens of thousands of demons knelt, their heads lowered.
The sky rumbled.
The earth shifted.
He raised his arm.
"The time has come," he said, voice like broken stone. "We will conquer this world. And I will destroy him—this time, forever."
Behind him, legions rose with a roar.
The final war had begun.