Chapter 21
The Scarran Rift was quieter now.
After Nyra's retreat, the silence felt almost… unnatural.
Draziel, Ryann, and Sylas moved cautiously. The ground beneath them pulsed faintly with residual energy — threads of Void still lingering from Draziel's earlier flare. Ryann kept her senses extended, uneasy. Sylas gripped the hilt of his weapon tighter, the hairs on his arm raised.
Ahead, the chasm narrowed into a jagged corridor flanked by stone spires that shimmered faintly with arcane residue. A structure emerged through the mist — *half-buried in blackened earth*, its architecture ancient, alien. It pulsed softly with dark violet runes.
*Draziel froze.*
This wasn't just old stone. It was *calling* to him.
A forgotten temple, *Void-touched*, buried beneath centuries of earth and fear.
"Do you feel that?" Ryann whispered.
He nodded. "It's not just a relic… it's alive."
Suddenly, a low hum vibrated through the stones, and one of the runes flared. Draziel staggered, clutching his head.
*Visions struck him*—brief flashes of another era. A city crumbling. A throne of obsidian. A voice whispering:
*"Return what was broken."*
Then silence.
He gasped and fell to one knee, Ryann already beside him.
"What did you see?" she asked.
But he couldn't answer. His eyes had darkened — the *Void* inside him was shifting.
And somewhere deeper, something ancient stirred.
Something that remembered his name.
---
The runes etched across the ancient temple pulsed again—this time brighter, in sync with Draziel's heartbeat. The very air thickened, laden with a pressure that bent light at the edges. Ryann stepped back, her hands glowing faintly with healing magic, ready to act.
Sylas moved beside her, eyes fixed on Draziel.
"He's changing again," Sylas muttered. "That temple is doing something to him."
"No," Ryann said quietly. "It's responding *to* him."
Draziel rose slowly, his shadow stretching unnaturally behind him, even though there was no light to cast it. His voice came low and distant. "This place is a memory... sealed in stone. It's part of the Void's origin."
They crossed the cracked threshold into the temple. Inside, the halls curved unnaturally, geometry bending at impossible angles. Reality thinned the further they moved in—walls flickering between matter and shadow, whispers echoing from nowhere.
At the center of the sanctum was a *crystalline monolith*, fractured down the middle, bleeding strands of black light. As Draziel approached, it reacted—Void energy arcing toward him like threads of gravity snapping into place.
A voice boomed—not aloud, but within their minds.
*"Bearer of the Rift... you trespass upon your own ruin."*
Draziel's body tensed.
"You are unanchored, cursed beyond death, and yet... you still return. Why?"
He stepped closer. "Because I need answers."
The monolith cracked again, and suddenly—
*Everything went dark.*
***
On the surface, far above the temple, in the high sanctum of the Domain Council, *Elaris' eyes snapped open* from her meditative trance.
She gasped, eyes wide with fear.
"Something's awakened. Deep in the Scarran Rift..."
Across the sanctum, *Kaelen*, once Draziel's betrayer, now seated at the high table of Dominion, turned his gaze westward.
"…And it's *calling* him back."
---
*Darkness pressed in.*
Not the kind that came with nightfall or the absence of light — this was *existential*. Heavy. Endless. It bled into Draziel's senses until he wasn't sure if he still had a body. There was no ground beneath him, no sky above — just a shifting void, humming with something *ancient*.
Then came the whispers. Not from around him… but *within*.
*"Unmade…"*
*"Unworthy…"*
*"Unbroken…"*
Suddenly, a single eye opened in the void ahead — massive, ringed with fractured starlight and spiraling constellations. Not a creature, but a *presence*, like the universe itself had noticed him.
And it spoke.
*"You were not chosen by the Void. You were *dragged* into it."*
Draziel tried to move, to speak, but his voice vanished before reaching his lips. He felt small — like a ripple in an ocean that didn't know it was there.
Images surged around him.
— The moment of his death, blood pooling beneath him as his comrades watched.
— The awakening in his new body. The new name. The scarred soul.
— Every moment he had fought to survive since.
The Void whispered again, this time closer.
*"Yet you remain. A paradox. A fracture. A *vessel*."*
*Suddenly, Draziel stood in front of a mirror* — but it didn't reflect him. It showed *Kairos*, his former self, bloodied and broken. The eyes of the reflection glowed like the Void.
The reflection spoke.
*"You want purpose. You want revenge. But can you carry what the Void truly is?"*
Then the mirror cracked — and the shards flew into Draziel's chest.
His body arched as the Void surged through him, not as pain — but as *recognition*. The energy didn't burn… it *welcomed* him.
And with it came understanding.
*The Void was not just destruction. It was memory. Space between endings and beginnings. It was truth — raw, untamed, and ancient.*
*"Then show me,"* Draziel whispered at last. "Show me what I am meant to become."
And with that, the darkness fell away.
—
*He awoke on the temple floor*, gasping — Ryann and Sylas both at his side.
His eyes still glowed faintly, his veins laced with thin tendrils of voidlight.
Sylas blinked. "What the hell just happened?"
Draziel slowly stood.
"I saw… everything."
And far beneath the broken monolith, deep in the foundations of the Rift, *something else stirred.*
---