The world had gone quiet.
No one spoke of the battle — not in the cities, not in the sanctums, not even in the hidden corners of the archives where truth was meant to be kept.
But everyone felt it.
The air itself carried the memory of that clash — the echo between mortal and god.
---
[ Observatory of Eryndor Citadel ]
Lyra adjusted the lenses of the great telescope, though the sky beyond refused to focus. The tear — that black wound across the horizon — pulsed faintly, like something breathing.
> "It wasn't a meteor," she muttered. "The spectrum's wrong… it's alive."
Behind her, Daren leaned on the railing, expression unreadable. "Alive or not, it killed half the mana grid across the continent. Whatever Lio did up there — it broke the balance."
Lyra's hands trembled, not from fear, but from understanding. "No… he didn't break it. He triggered it."
---
[ Sanctum of the Silver Choir ]
Hundreds of priests knelt beneath the crystalline dome, chanting prayers to seal the heavens. The glass trembled under unseen pressure, hairline fractures spreading like spiderwebs.
At the center stood Archsage Meridia, her silver eyes clouded.
A whisper echoed in her mind — ancient, feminine, sorrowful.
> "He touched the root… and now the root remembers."
Her staff slipped from her hand, clattering against the marble floor. "No," she breathed. "That light was never meant to awaken."
---
[ The Silent Frontier ]
The wasteland that bordered the Voidfields was deathly still.
Yet something moved beneath the sand — slow, deliberate.
From within a broken monolith, a faint crimson glow emerged. Then another.
Dozens. Hundreds.
> "He's opened the gate," said a figure cloaked in black, his voice calm, almost pleased. "The divine will fall, and the forgotten shall return."
He turned, revealing eyes that shimmered like glass shards — fractured, but reflecting everything.
> "At last," he whispered, "the world remembers the ones buried beneath its light."
---
[ Eryndor — Inner City, Night ]
Lyra stood on the balcony of her dormitory, the city lights flickering below.
In her hand, the communicator blinked weakly with static.
No signal from Lio.
> "You idiot…" she whispered. "If you're still out there, don't you dare die before I find you."
The wind answered with a low hum — faint, rhythmic, almost like a heartbeat.
She looked up.
For the briefest second, she swore she saw a figure standing above the clouds, surrounded by broken stars.
---
That night, across every land, every dream, and every shadow…
one name began to echo again and again —
a name the world had long tried to erase.
> "Kaelis."