The light did not fade.
It collapsed.
Like a dying star folding into itself, the fire around the throne was pulled inward, devouring sound, air, and time. For a single heartbeat, the world ceased to exist.
Then pain returned.
Kael crashed onto cold stone, sliding across the shattered floor of the hall. His cloak burned at the edges, his armor cracked, his breath torn from his lungs. The blade was gone from his hand.
Silence followed.
But this silence was different.
It was alive.
The ruined hall was no longer the same. The broken pillars were gone. The throne was gone. Even the ceiling had vanished, replaced by an endless sky of slow-moving ash and fractured light. Floating fragments of the palace drifted like islands, frozen in time.
Kael pushed himself up, his vision blurring.
"What… did you do?" he whispered.
The ground beneath him pulsed, glowing with faint red runes. They crawled up his legs, his arms, his chest—burning, not flesh, but memory. Images flooded his mind: kings kneeling, gods screaming, worlds being reset like broken clocks.
He staggered back.
This was not a place.
It was a moment.
A moment trapped between before and after.
"You have crossed the threshold."
The voice was calm now. Close.
Kael spun.
The figure from the throne stood behind him, no longer chained, no longer monstrous. It looked almost human—tall, cloaked in grey light, its eyes deep and endless like the sky above.
"You are inside the Echo," the figure said. "The memory of the throne's last breath."
Kael clenched his fists.
"You're lying."
The figure tilted its head. "You wish I were."
Kael felt it then.
The power.
It pulsed in his veins, sharp and violent, like fire trapped in blood. His senses sharpened—he could hear the ash moving, see the runes breathing, feel time slowing when he focused.
The Echo was teaching him.
Or claiming him.
"Every heir comes here," the figure continued. "Those who survive, awaken. Those who fail… vanish from history."
"Then why am I still standing?" Kael growled.
The figure smiled, and for the first time, fear touched Kael's spine.
"Because you are not the heir."
The world cracked.
The floating ruins began to fall. The sky tore open, revealing the real world beyond—burning, screaming, alive. The Echo was collapsing.
"Run," the figure whispered. "Your first mission has begun."
Kael did not hesitate.
He moved—and the world slowed.
Time bent around him like water, ash hanging frozen as he leaped across falling stone. His body moved faster than thought, lighter than air. Instinct guided him—parkour, balance, flow—skills he never trained, yet always knew.
Below, the capital burned.
From the shadows of broken streets, armored soldiers emerged, their eyes glowing red with the throne's mark. Corrupted. Controlled.
Kael landed hard, rolled, and reached out—
The blade answered.
Fire formed in his hand, not summoned, but remembered.
He rose, breathing hard.
"This is what you want?" he said to the unseen throne. "War?"
The corrupted soldiers charged.
Kael smiled for the first time in years.
"Then come."
And the first level began.