---
The sky was still.
Too still.
Clouds hung like drapes across the sun, and the air in the highlands near the Torn Vale stank of burnt salt and holy incense.
The Pale Flame had arrived.
They came not as a legion, but as a signal. One carried by silence and fire.
Where they passed, trees cracked, blood curdled, and breath became sharp.
At the front walked three figures in robes of ashen white.
And behind them, silent and unchained, the Blind Knight — whose skin no longer bled, and whose armor carried the smell of scorched divinity.
---
Inside the Church's forward war tent, the First Inquisitor read from a scroll carved into human bone.
> "He has activated a Progenitor Relic. Mutation confirmed. Core Tier II will not be allowed."
> "Relic bloodlines are outlawed under the Seventh Flame Mandate," replied one Seraphic Enforcer. "We strike before he awakens further."
The Blind Knight said nothing.
But his presence, raw and molten, made the tent walls darken as if reacting to his breath.
---
Yet… not all burned with conviction.
A younger pale-robed cleric stood apart, hands trembling slightly.
Her name was Velien.
She had read the reports.
She had seen the sigils.
And in the burned edges of the "Vire Protocol," she saw something the others refused to speak aloud.
> "What if we're wrong?"
"What if he didn't choose this?"
Her superior turned sharply.
> "If the Vire line returns, the Sovereign Flame dies. Would you question scripture?"
Velien lowered her head.
But in her thoughts, a name flickered like embers in the dark:
> Kael…
---
Far away, Kael sat beneath a cliff's edge, watching faint flames on the horizon.
He didn't know what they meant.
But he felt it — a whisper through the book.
> [Threat Approaching, Pale Flame March ETA: 4 Days]
> "So they're finally coming."
> "Good."
---
End of Chapter 24
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