The cavern air grew colder as they ventured deeper into the ruins.
Kael walked behind the others, keeping his head down while his senses sharpened. The walls whispered with old power — something watching, something waiting. Even Naya, who usually walked confidently at the front, had slowed. Her brows furrowed.
"Where's Sena?" she asked suddenly.
Everyone turned.
Sena — her closest friend — was just gone.
Not a single sound. No footsteps. No scream. One moment she was there. The next, empty air.
"Sena!" Naya called, voice shaking slightly.
They backtracked.
Nothing. Just stone.
No blood. No trail.
Kael stepped closer to the wall where she'd last been. It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat in the rock. The moment his hand brushed it—
The ground shifted beneath them.
Before anyone could react, Kael's footing gave way. The stone cracked beneath him, and a hidden platform tilted sharply. He stumbled, tried to hold on—too late.
The floor swallowed him whole.
---
He landed hard.
The crash echoed like thunder in the hollow space. Dust rose, coating his skin and throat. Above him, the hole was already sealing shut — like he'd never been there at all.
"Kael!" Naya's voice was faint. Far away.
He tried to call back, but his voice didn't carry. The air was thick — like breathing through wet cloth. He coughed, pushed himself to his feet.
Then he saw it:
Blood.
Not his own.
His hands were stained red.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
He checked himself. No wound. But the blood was fresh — warm. Real.
Then… movement.
A low groan echoed from the far end of the room.it was a beast in the Memory Fog
Shapes flickered in the shadows.
Kael's vision blurred. He took a step, then another — each one heavier than the last. His chest tightened. The air… tasted like ash and grief.
"Kael…"
The voice came again.
But this time not Naya.
His mother.
He turned sharply. There — in the dark — her silhouette stood. Gentle. Arms open.
"Come back to us, Kael…"
His throat closed.
"No," he whispered. "You're not real."
But something behind her rose — huge, twisted, shifting.
A beast of bone and shadow. It stood on limbs that bent wrong, with a face made of shifting memories — part monster, part his past.
It lunged.
Kael dropped low, rolled aside. The monster shrieked. Not from its throat — but from inside his skull.
You failed them. You were never enough. Even now, you hide what you are.
Kael gritted his teeth.
The blood on his hands shimmered — now it was on the walls, pooling under him. His father's voice cried out. The flames. The screams. The weight of being powerless again.
I am not powerless anymore…
But his body froze. His limbs wouldn't move.
Fear had found him.
The beast circled him.
Kael, shaking, staggered into a smaller tunnel — light flickering faintly ahead.
He collapsed into a wide stone chamber, the beast's whispers still clawing at him.
There, in the center, stood a sealed altar.
Ancient. Chained. Marked with glyphs older than the kingdom itself.
The air shifted as he approached. His fingers trembled.
And then… the voice sounded again.
"Child of the broken line. Blood remembers. Offer what was taken."
He looked at his hands.
The blood was gone.
But he understood.
Not a wound.
A memory.
He reached forward and pressed his hand into the altar's mark.
It burned.
Images struck him — a starless sky cracking open, a man like him standing beneath a bleeding moon, and a scream that felt like it came from his own soul.
The altar glowed.
Something inside it shifted. Unlocked.
---
Kael pulled back, gasping.
The beast's whispers had vanished.
The blood, the fear — all gone.
But something had been left behind.
A piece of himself… missing.
And far above, in the realm of gods — something noticed him.
He was not supposed to remember.
Now… everything would begin.