When Lyn emerged from the temple, the rain had stopped. The world above felt different — like it was breathing for the first time in centuries.
The sky shimmered faintly, clouds folding into patterns that almost resembled sigils. The light no longer burned gold or silver but a strange mix of both — divine equilibrium.
Rhea stood at the edge of the valley, her cloak torn and soaked, eyes fixed on him as he walked toward her. Umbra's shadow followed like a living echo.
"Lyn…" she whispered, her voice trembling. "Your eyes—"
He looked up. His left eye gleamed its usual sharp amber, but the right glowed faint gold — a reflection of the Seal's power still burning inside him.
"The Seal didn't die," he said quietly. "It changed. It… remembers me now."
Umbra coiled around his shoulders, form flickering between shadow and solid. —You merged with a god's memory. You shouldn't even be standing.
Lyn smiled faintly. "Then maybe I'm not."
The ground beneath them pulsed once — a low hum rippling across the entire valley. The crystal plains responded, glowing faintly with lines of light that connected one end to the other.
Rhea's eyes widened. "They're reacting to you."
"No." Lyn raised his hand. The air shimmered — and in the distance, the chains buried beneath the glass twitched, like serpents stirring after a long sleep. "They're remembering what they were meant to protect."
Umbra's tone darkened. —The other Seals will feel it. The Empire too. You've declared war not just on them, but on the order that built this world.
Lyn's hand lowered slowly. "Then let them come. The age of blind obedience is over."
Before Umbra could respond, a sudden voice echoed through the air — faint but sharp, a crystalline tone cutting across the storm's silence.
"Lyn of the Broken Crest… what have you done?"
A shimmer of light appeared above the valley. A spectral form descended, clad in layered robes of starlight and metal — a Council Judge, one of the divine enforcers of the old order.
Rhea took a step back. "A projection— from the High Council."
The Judge's voice boomed like a temple bell. "You have touched a forbidden Seal. You have merged with divinity. Such acts invite annihilation."
Lyn's gaze was unwavering. "You call it annihilation. I call it awakening."
The Judge's form flickered, anger rippling through its aura. "You have rewritten the bond that binds creation. Do you think the gods will remain silent?"
"They already were," Lyn replied. "That's why this world began to rot."
Umbra's wings flared, dark mist rising from its form. —You speak to them as if they're equals now.
"They will be," Lyn said. "Or they'll fall."
The Judge raised a hand. Light condensed into a spear — divine law forged into weaponry. It hurled the spear downward, the air splitting with the force of judgment.
Lyn moved without thinking. The mark on his chest blazed gold, and the spear stopped midair — caught in a lattice of chains made of light and shadow.
Rhea gasped. "You— you're controlling them!"
Lyn's voice dropped to a calm, steady resonance. "No. They're answering."
He flicked his wrist. The spear dissolved into threads of light that scattered into the sky like fireflies.
The Judge recoiled, its image fracturing. "The Third Seal obeys you… Then the prophecy has begun."
Umbra's gaze narrowed. —What prophecy?
But the figure was already fading. "When the Chains Remember… the world forgets what gods it served."
The spectral form vanished into light. Silence followed — heavy, expectant, alive.
Rhea turned to Lyn, face pale. "What does that mean?"
He looked up at the sky, where faint patterns of runes rippled across the clouds.
"It means the old order is unraveling," he said softly. "And every chain that remembers will break another lie."
Umbra's voice was low. —Then the war of gods and tamers has already begun.
Lyn nodded once, eyes burning with quiet resolve. "Then we'll fight not to destroy the world… but to remind it what it used to be."
Far above them, a single streak of gold fell across the heavens — a comet, burning brighter than the sun.
And somewhere in the distance, the Second Seal began to tremble.