The wind through the Cindermoor ruins was still as Kael emerged from the catacomb, the ancient tome clutched in his hand, its pages sealed once more by instinct — or fear.
Lyra turned to him immediately.
"You were down there too long. What did you find?"
Kael didn't answer right away. His eyes drifted to the smoldering pyres behind her — Veilspawn corpses still twitching, their flesh resisting death. Villagers and militia sorted through the wreckage, mourning their own.
"I found truth," he finally said, "and a lie old enough to be worshipped."
Darric raised an eyebrow. "That sounds familiar."
Kael turned his gaze to the people — the survivors — but something tugged at him. An unease. A wrongness that curled at the edges of his senses like smoke before fire.
He spoke quietly.
"There's still something here."
That night, he walked the village alone.
The survivors huddled near fires, many of them silent — too silent. Their eyes glassy. Their faces strangely blank. A child stared into the flames without blinking.
Kael's Mark pulsed with heat.
Then he saw it — a flicker of movement where there should've been none. A figure cloaked in rags dragging a sack into the ruined chapel. No sound. No breath. No life.
Kael followed, silently drawing Ashrend.
The chapel interior still reeked of burnt stone and blood. But behind the shattered altar, something moved — many things.
He rounded the broken pews and stopped.
Seven figures in tattered cloaks circled a chained man, symbols carved into the floor beneath them in old Sovereign script — twisted and inverted.
One looked up.
"Ah. The cursed spark returns."
Kael stepped forward, eyes narrowed. "You're not survivors."
The leader grinned. "Not anymore."
With a whisper, the others turned — and their forms melted into shadows, arms lengthening, bones cracking, Veil cultistsshedding their human shells. Their skin stretched into masks of sorrow and teeth.
Kael didn't flinch.
Ashrend ignited in his hand like a blade of judgment.
"Then burn like the rest."
The battle was swift — and brutal.
One cultist lunged, shrieking in tongues. Kael sidestepped, slashed clean through its chest. Another screamed and melted into the wall, trying to flank him, but Kael felt its presence — spun and beheaded it mid-leap.
"Crimson Vortex."
He spun once, his blade trailing fire — a perfect circle of burning death that sliced through the summoning glyphs, unraveling their ritual.
The chained man gasped. "T-they were calling it… the Eater…"
Kael's eyes widened. "Too late."
The ground split open.
From the fractured sigils rose a creature not quite formed — a half-born Voice-Eater, shrouded in echoing whispers and writhing mist. Its head was an empty helm. Its hands, a hundred claws.
Kael stood firm.
The Mark flared. Pain. Memory. Rage.
"Ashrend Fang — Crimson Spark."
His body ignited in roaring crimson, his veins glowing beneath his skin. His blade sang.
He charged the creature.
The Voice-Eater screamed, its howl distorting the walls, the sky, even reality.
Kael didn't slow.
He leapt, flame trailing from his heels, and plunged Ashrend through the beast's skull, splitting it with a crack of thunder. The creature writhed, tore itself in two — and was gone.
Smoke curled around Kael's shoulders as he exhaled slowly, his aura flickering.
The man he saved crawled forward, eyes wide.
"You… you're not just marked."
Kael looked down at his blazing blade.
"No," he said. "I'm chosen."
Far above them, in the veil between realms, something ancient stirred, watching Kael with growing awareness.
Its voice whispered across the world.
"The Crimson Spark… is real."