Arc 5: Flames of the Unbound
The mountain no longer glowed with the Academy's light. What remained of its towers lay twisted against the horizon, smoke rising like black banners against a silver dawn.
For the first time in generations, the Council's anthem was silent.
Lyn stood at the edge of the cliff, cloak torn, his crest dimly pulsing against his chest. Umbra's presence hovered behind him—quiet now, no longer roaring with power but humming low, like a heartbeat beneath the earth.
The wind carried ash across the valley, scattering the remains of everything he'd once known.
Behind him, the Unbound gathered—dozens of tamers, bloodied and exhausted, yet alive. Arden leaned on his blades, face pale but smirking. "Never thought I'd live to see that tower fall."
Rhea stepped forward, eyes scanning the horizon. "The Council's gone, but the world won't celebrate us. Every city under their order will call us heretics."
Lyn nodded slowly. "Let them. We never fought for their approval."
A silence settled, heavy but resolute.
Then the ground beneath them trembled. A low pulse—distant, ancient—rolled through the valley. Umbra's eyes flared crimson. —Do you feel it? The world shifts when power changes hands. The seals that bound the Crests are faltering.
"The Eighth Crest," Lyn whispered. "It's waking."
Arden frowned. "You mean that myth Velan mentioned? The one that was supposed to unite tamers and spirits?"
Rhea shook her head. "Or destroy them both. Depends which version you read."
Umbra turned its gaze toward the distant north, where thunderclouds gathered unnaturally fast. —Something stirs beyond the Skyveil Range. Old spirits. Ones that never bent to human rule.
Lyn followed the line of stormlight. "Then that's where we go."
Arden groaned. "You're serious. We just burned down the most powerful institution in existence, and you want to walk into a nest of rogue spirits?"
Lyn gave a faint smile. "We didn't start this to survive, Arden. We started it to change what survival means."
Umbra's low laugh rippled through the air. —The boy finally speaks like a shadowborn.
As they made camp among the ruins that night, Lyn moved away from the others, unable to shake the lingering pulse from beneath the ground. The mana of the land itself felt… unsteady. The bond threads that linked tamers to their spirits shimmered faintly, thinner than before.
Umbra appeared beside him, its form flickering between solid and spectral.—The world is correcting itself. Too many chains have been broken too fast. The balance will demand payment.
He stared at the shattered Academy below. "What kind of payment?"
—Blood. Always blood.
A gust of wind blew through the ashes, carrying whispers—voices not of the living but of those long gone. Fragments of words, ancient and cold: Eighth flame… fracture… return.
Umbra went still. —They're not ours.
Lyn's pulse quickened. "Then whose?"
Before Umbra could answer, the ground split with a deafening crack. From the fissure rose a column of black crystal, etched with glowing runes. The air thickened with old mana—the kind untouched since the First Covenant.
Rhea and Arden rushed up the slope. "Lyn! What is that?"
He didn't answer. He could barely breathe. The runes on the crystal mirrored the markings on his own crest—same pattern, same pulse.
Umbra's voice was barely a whisper now. —It calls to you… because it remembers you.
A flash of memory tore through him—not his, but Umbra's: a battlefield of light and shadow, spirits and humans fighting side by side until the world itself broke apart.
He stumbled back, clutching his chest. "This isn't just a relic—it's a seal. A piece of the Eighth Crest."
The crystal flared, sending a wave of energy across the valley. Far beyond the horizon, ancient shrines and forgotten temples stirred awake. Across the world, tamers and spirits alike felt it—the shift of an age.
Arden cursed under his breath. "We just rang the loudest bell in history."
Lyn steadied himself, his eyes glowing faintly violet as Umbra's aura merged with his own. "Then let them hear it."
Umbra's wings unfolded, stretching across the twilight sky.—So begins the rise of the fractured path.
The first sparks of rebellion had burned down an empire.Now, the echoes of that fire would ignite the world itself.