Far from the dunes where Kael walked, the world shifted.
The Floating City of Aerathuun trembled slightly in the wind. Inside the High Tower, Chancellor Myrael stood before her gathered mages. The news had spread too fast.
"A Flag Marker has awakened," she said. "Unbound. Blue-class."
Gasps filled the chamber. One archmage stood slowly.
"That hasn't happened since the Cataclysm War…"
"It recognized something," said the wind elemental. "A soul… not from this age."
Myrael's voice dropped. "Then the Administrator's cycle has begun again."
In the Kingdom of Eirndale, within Runeblade Academy, training stopped.
Kaien moved across the yard like a ghost, defeating opponents without drawing steel. When a scroll arrived by raven, his instructor handed it to him in silence.
Kaien's expression did not change, but the weight in the air thickened.
"It's been activated," the instructor said.
Kaien nodded once. "He's finally making his move."
To the east, in the volcanic lands of Drell'kar, the Iron Scales pounded their war drums. Warlord Skarvek stood tall amidst fire and ash. The message had reached him, and it made him laugh.
"So the child of ruins stirs the old ones," he growled. "Send Vaetrax. Let her be the first to greet him."
Southward, beneath the ever-moving dunes, Lady Zaphira traced her fingers over the ancient prophecy. Her assassins waited in silence, shadows breathing.
"He has returned," she whispered. "But he is not yet the danger. Not yet."
In Vireinhold, Princess Elira gathered her cloak around her shoulders and stepped out onto the palace balcony. The clouds shifted. Her scouts stood waiting.
"Five factions have already begun to move," her strategist warned.
"For one ruin?" she asked.
"No. For what it might unlock."
Elira's eyes narrowed. "Prepare my escort. I'll go myself."
And far away from all of them, in the back of a dusty merchant caravan rattling through the southern sands, the wooden wheels of the merchant caravan creaked rhythmically against the dirt path, stirring up thin clouds of dust beneath the rolling axles. Kael sat near the back, draped in a light traveler's cloak, the hood shadowing most of his face. The scent of spices and dried herbs lingered in the air, mixing with the more familiar odor of sweat and sunbaked wood. Around him, merchants chatted idly, unaware of the quiet observer in their midst.
He preferred it that way.
To them, he was just another hitchhiker—silent, perhaps a bit strange, but ultimately harmless. They knew nothing of his true nature. Nothing of the ruined halls he had wandered. Nothing of the growing pressure beneath his skin—the sensation of something ancient slowly awakening.
Kael's gaze wandered beyond the caravan's cloth flap, toward the distant horizon where mountain ridges slumbered like forgotten giants. Somewhere beyond them waited the ruin he had set his sights on. Not just any ruin—one marked in old records, one untouched for nearly a century.
A ruin that, if the information he'd bought from a stammering scholar was true, was more than just stone and faded glyphs.
A faint rustle interrupted his thoughts.
"Want some dried fruit, stranger?" came a voice. It belonged to a girl no older than sixteen, with smudged cheeks and curious eyes. She held out a bundle wrapped in palm leaf, her grin crooked but sincere.
Kael blinked once, then accepted it with a nod.
"Thanks," he said.
She hesitated, eyeing him. "You're not from around here, are you?"
"Does it matter?"
The girl tilted her head, clearly amused. "No. But you look like someone important trying not to look important."
Kael didn't answer. She laughed and skipped off.
He watched her go, then leaned back against the caravan's frame, gaze drifting upward. The sky above Exarune was a deeper blue than Earth's, flecked with pale specks even during the day—rune satellites, he'd been told. Remnants of ancient spells locked in the sky.
Everything here pulsed with meaning. With weight. Unlike the hollow, digital victories of his past life, this world offered something real.
Soon, he thought. Soon, the game begins.
[ END OF CHAPTER 4 ]