The descent felt endless.
Each step down the spiraling stair carried a vibration that hummed beneath their feet, like the heartbeat of something ancient sleeping below the earth. The air thickened with the scent of iron and storm, faint arcs of lightning crawling along the walls as if the stones themselves remembered the skies.
By the time they reached the last step, the narrow tunnel unfurled into a vast, cathedral-like cavern. Pillars of crystalline silver rose into a ceiling so high it disappeared into darkness. Across those pillars pulsed lines of faint lightning, flowing and twisting like rivers of light.
Mira stopped mid-step, eyes wide. "This… isn't built by mortal hands."
She was right. The air carried too much pressure—every breath felt heavy, threaded with divine residue.
At the cavern's center floated a massive sphere of metal and stormlight, bound within spinning rings of glyphs that glowed faintly blue. Lightning bled slowly from its surface, touching the veins of energy along the ground before vanishing into runic grooves like tributaries feeding a sea.
The Codex on Daniel's forearm thrummed violently. Lines of script burned across its surface.
> [ARCHIVAL ENERGY DETECTED]
[SOURCE MATCH: ERYNDOR — THE SEEKER OF WORLDS]
[OPEN CONNECTION?]
Daniel raised his hand. "Do it."
The world answered.
A pulse of sound rolled through the cavern like thunder in slow motion. The floating sphere split open along its equator, light spilling out until the entire chamber was bathed in shifting blue and silver hues. Then, from the light, a figure stepped forth—a man wrought from memory and lightning.
His voice carried the weight of millennia.
> "If you stand here, then you have passed the Trial of Will. Few ever do. I am Eryndor, seeker of the Boundless Skies and keeper of the Forgotten Truths."
The figure's gaze swept the chamber, not at them but through them—as though seeing not their bodies but the lineage of energy coiled inside.
> "I was not born in this world you know as the Twin Moons. I came from beyond its edge, where the sky itself bleeds into the void. I wandered the shattered borders of creation, searching for what remained after the Stormfall—the end of the age of the Ancients."
Mira frowned. "Stormfall?"
The figure's hand lifted; images blossomed in the air like painted light—ruins of celestial cities, seas turned to glass, skies torn by lightning that refused to fade even after countless years.
> "There was once a being who wielded the first dawn's thunder—the Primordial Lightning. His name has been lost, buried by gods who feared it, but his existence was a scar upon all creation. Wherever he walked, the laws of heaven trembled."
Daniel's breath caught. The room dimmed except for the light reflecting in his eyes.
Eryndor's tone grew quieter, carrying the grief of one who studied too deeply.
> "By the time I reached the remnants of his world, it was already gone—devoured by his final storm. Planets reduced to ash, constellations erased. Even the divine left no bones behind. I did not find the Wielder… only what he left behind."
The projection shifted, showing titanic ruins buried beneath oceans of lightning, colossal swords impaled in molten ground, and fragments of mountains floating weightless.
> "And yet… in the silence that followed, I heard something. The echo of his thunder still pulsing across worlds. A rhythm too vast to die."
He touched his chest, and lightning crackled from his fingertips.
> "I followed that rhythm. It led me here—this sealed realm beneath your world. Here, I built my Hall of Relics, a monument not to power, but to remembrance. For the heavens will lie, but the earth remembers."
David muttered, "So… he saw the aftermath of the Wielder's fall."
Mira added softly, "And he tried to preserve it."
Eryndor nodded faintly, as if hearing them through time.
> "The Wielder's lightning scattered. It could not die—it only chose to sleep, seeking vessels that could bear even a spark of its truth. And so, every thousand generations, the storm whispers again through blood and bone."
Daniel's hand trembled. A faint ring of light flickered within his Codex, responding like a heartbeat.
The storm whispers again…
Eryndor's image turned toward him. For an instant, Daniel could swear those eyes—bright and knowing—looked directly into his.
> "If you are one of those chosen by the lightning, hear me well: You are not its master. You are its vessel. Power such as this does not serve—it consumes. The Primordial Lightning creates, yes… but its creation begins with destruction."
The light around Eryndor began to dim, as though time itself was running out. The sphere behind him pulsed slower and slower, each flicker like a fading heartbeat.
> "To preserve what I found, I forged three seals within this Hall: Mind, Blood, and Will. Each guards a truth I could not bear to unleash. To reach my final memory, you must open all three—but be warned. Knowledge is a heavier burden than power."
As the echo of his words faded, the ground trembled. Three massive doors materialized along the far wall.
One shimmered like liquid glass—the Seal of Mind, faint whispers leaking from its surface.
Another pulsed red like a living organ—the Seal of Blood, its veins glowing faintly.
The last was cast in dull gold, thrumming with invisible gravity—the Seal of Will.
Daniel exhaled slowly. "He left these to test those who follow his path."
"Or to stop them," Mira muttered.
David walked toward the golden door, eyes narrowed. "He called himself the Seeker of Worlds. That means he broke through whatever barrier holds the Twin Moons. Maybe he found a way to escape."
"Or maybe," Daniel said quietly, "he found something out there… and it broke him."
The air grew colder.
Eryndor's voice returned one last time, faint and distorted.
> "To those who reach the end… you will see what I saw. Beyond the stars, there are storms that dream. Beyond the void, there are eyes that remember. The Wielder's return is not a prophecy—it is inevitability."
The chamber fell silent.
The sphere folded back into itself and drifted slowly upward, fading into a dim light high above. What remained was the hum of the runes and the faint tremor beneath their feet, like distant thunder echoing from another world.
Mira sheathed her daggers. "So this isn't just about power. It's about truth."
David cracked his knuckles, the stone under his boots grating. "Then let's find out what kind of truth he thought was worth dying for."
Daniel's gaze lingered on the three doors, his Codex pulsing faintly with each heartbeat. The storm within him felt restless—as if reacting to Eryndor's words.
"Then we begin with the Seal of Will," he said quietly.
"Why that one?" Mira asked.
He looked toward the golden gate, its glow matching the hue of his lightning. "Because if we can't bend our will, the rest will destroy us."
The three of them approached together. The closer they came, the heavier the air grew, pressing against their chests like an invisible tide. Their breaths came slow and measured.
When Daniel raised his hand to the gate, lightning crawled from his skin to its surface, forming intricate runes of light. The Codex flared, recognizing the pattern.
> [SEAL OF WILL — INITIATION SEQUENCE]
[WARNING: SUBJECT INTEGRITY MAY FALTER]
He smiled faintly. "Wouldn't be the first time."
Mira shot him a sidelong glance. "If we survive this, remind me never to follow you into any more ancient halls."
David laughed, though his voice was tight. "Too late for that."
The gate began to open—slow, deliberate, like the drawing of a god's breath. The hall's glow dimmed as shadows stretched long behind them.
And as the door swallowed them in golden light, Eryndor's fading whisper rode the current of their passing.
> "To wield lightning is to remember the first dawn… and to face the darkness that came after."
Then the gate closed, sealing the Hall behind them.
And in the silence that followed, thunder rolled faintly through the deep, like the world itself remembering a name it had tried to forget.