The forge no longer roared.
It breathed.
Each rise of the heat was like the heartbeat of something colossal, sleeping just beneath the stone. The fires pulsed with rhythm — not of craft, but of warning. Druvadir, for all its might, felt small tonight.
Rei stood alone at the edge of the anvil shrine, hand pressed to his ribs.
The mark there burned with no heat — a cold fire, a memory too old for words. Kaia had left to speak with the Wildguard. Durik and Burik were gathered with the Deepguard. The halls rang only with distant clangs and low murmurs.
He breathed slow.
And that's when the world shifted.
His knees buckled.
The forge vanished.
He fell into the Void.
There was no sky here. No ground. Only vast black. Deeper than night. Colder than grief.
And then — footsteps.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Hooves.
Measured. Immense.
Rei turned, and the dark peeled open.
Baphomette stepped forward.
His horns scraped the absence above. Chains trailed behind him, hissing softly as they writhed. Eyes like moons without mercy — silver, deep, and ancient. His cleaver hung at his side, dragging against the invisible world with a hum that bent thought.
He grinned.
"There you are."
Rei didn't speak. Couldn't.
"You've seen it, haven't you?" Baphomette's voice wasn't sound. It was pressure. Thought given weight. "The dragon. The fire. The forge rekindled."
Rei managed a breath. "You said I'm the Riftborn. What does that mean?"
The beast tilted his head.
"You are a hinge, little shadow. Between what was and what will be. Between silence… and scream."
He stepped closer, hooves falling like hammers.
"And now, the scream is coming."
Images flooded Rei's mind — not visions, but truths.
A rift, torn wide.Orc clans howling into the breach.Mountains cracking under their march.The Wyrm, burning blue, chained in magic not its own.And something behind the Rift, vast and unseen, whispering not in voices — but in will.
Rei gasped.
"What… what is it?"
Baphomette leaned low, silver eyes inches away.
"The others fear the Wyrm. The dwarves tremble. The elves whisper. But they forget — the Rift does not come. It remembers."
"And now, it is remembering you."
The cleaver rose — not to strike — but to reveal.
Etched deep in its rusted edge was a rune. Shifting. Alive. Older than gods.
"This is the Eye," Baphomette whispered. "It sees the thread. It knows who cuts… and who knots."
He stepped back into the dark.
"So tell me, Riftborn — will you be the key... or the lock?"
Then he vanished.
The Void collapsed.
Rei woke to a roar in his bones.
Not a memory.
A call.
Kaia rushed in as he staggered upright. "You're pale," she said. "You were shaking."
"I… I'm fine," he lied.
He was not.
Moments later, the stone doors opened. Burik entered, face grim, holding a scroll stamped with the seal of the Iron Hills.
He handed it to Durik, who read aloud:
"Marches. Clans on the move. From the frost wastes past the Iron Hills. Orc banners rising. They'll reach the valley in a week."
"They don't know about the Wyrm," Rei said quietly.
"No," Durik answered. "But they know the Forge lives."
And with it, the heart of power.
King Rurik stood before the high fire altar. Around him, couriers waited. Scribes. Wildguard. Runepriests. Deepguard commanders. The weight of a mountain's legacy pressed on his shoulders — and for the first time in centuries, the King of Druvadir bowed his head in thought.
Then he raised his hand.
"Send the crows."
The scribes blinked.
"To where, my King?"
He turned.
"To the nations. To Brontheion, Solheim, Shanliu, Thornevale… even Koshirō."
He looked to the fire.
"We call the banners."
Durik stepped forward. "You've never asked for help."
"I've never needed to," the King said.
"But I've also never seen the mountain tremble."
He stared toward the sealed vaults below, where the Wyrm stirred.
"And now, something walks in this world that even dragons fear."
Far away, past the Iron Hills, under frost-bitten skies…
The orcs marched.
The war drums began to echo.
And above them all — hidden behind a burning eye stitched from another world — the Rift watched. And waited.