Some Graves are wounds upon the world. But a few? A few are not wounds — they are mouths, waiting to devour destiny itself.
Grave 47-A was one such place. And Kael Vire, bound by echoes of a god long slain, was fated to walk straight into its jaws.
But fate does not take kindly to trespassers.
Kael stood before Grave 47-A, the oldest known rift still active — and the one everyone avoided. No one knew why it hadn't closed. Guilds marked it as "Dead Zone Omega."A warning to all. A death sentence to any who dared enter.
Then why… why do I feel like I belonghere?The thought itched at the back of Kael's mind as he stared into the abyssal maw of the Grave.It wasn't just curiosity. It wasn't even fear.It felt like the rift itself was breathing — alive, ancient, and aware of him.
His fingers brushed the fragment embedded in his chest. It pulsed in rhythm with the Grave, like two hearts beating as one.
Inside, there were no Netherspawn. No snarls, no flickers of shadow in the dark. Just silence.A silence so absolute it made Kael's breath sound like thunder in his ears.
Am I walking into my own grave?He pushed the thought aside and stepped in.
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, the air grew thick, like honey and ash. His vision blurred — the world stretched unnaturally — until the Grave itself spoke.
"You carry the First Spark. Return the rest... and ascend."
The voice wasn't a sound. It was a presence inside his skull, vast and cold, older than the stars themselves.
Before he could react, the world shattered.
Reality bent and cracked like glass under strain. Kael felt himself dragged, not by force, but by inevitability, into a realm of ash and mirrored obsidian.This was no ordinary rift — this was a memory echo. A preserved scar upon existence.
There, amid the smoldering void, he saw it — the moment of Aeon's fall, not as myth but as brutal truth.
The gods were not benevolent.They were monstrous, twisted beings of gold and void, hungry for dominion.Kael watched them tear Aeon's core apart, shredding the Arbiter of Balance into fragments scattered across the realms.
Why… why does it hurt so much?Agony flared in his chest, as if it were his soul being torn.
Kael screamed, his voice raw and primal, and when he woke, something had changed.
A searing heat flared across his back. He twisted, gasping, and saw it — a sigil, tattoo-like, now burned into his skin.A ring of flame and time, endless and consuming.
A flicker of text blinked in his vision:
[CLASS UNLOCKED: GRAVEBORN ASCENDANT]Traits Unlocked: Temporal Resistance | Weapon Morph | Fragment RecallSkill Gained: "Soulbind" — steal abilities from fallen foes.
What… what am I becoming?
But there was no time for answers. The silence shattered as shadows coiled into monstrous forms.Ancestrals. Not ordinary spawn, but elites — warped by fragments older than the Graves themselves.
Kael's pulse quickened. Fear clawed at him, but beneath it, something else unfurled — exhilaration.
Good. Let them come.
His weapon, once a static halberd, now shifted freely with his will. Blade, scythe, glaive — forged from light and shadow fused together.It felt natural, as if he'd always fought like this.
The Ancestrals attacked in waves. For hours, Kael fought, lost in a storm of steel and fire. Every fallen foe fed the fragment inside him. He could feel their essence becoming part of him, strengthening him, reshaping him.
Fatigue gnawed at his bones, but exhilaration burned brighter.
Finally, when the last Ancestral fell, Kael staggered out of Grave 47-A.
His body trembled. His breath steamed in the cold air. His gaze lifted to the blood-colored sky.
Guild radars across the sectors exploded with alerts, sirens blaring into the night.
UNKNOWN LEVEL: SIGNAL UNREADABLESUBJECT: DESIGNATION "GRAVEBORN"
Kael smirked, a wild glint in his eyes.
Let them come.
[End of Chapter 4]
As Kael turned from the Grave, the sky itself seemed to fracture — and far beyond the clouds, in a throne of thorns and dying stars, something ancient stirred… and opened its eyes.
[Next Chapter Preview]
The Guilds move at last. Assassins, Seers, and Hunters flood Varendel like a storm desperate to claim the rising Graveborn. But as Kael steps deeper into his awakening, shadows of the past crawl into the present.
Secrets buried beneath Varendel's ruins will rise, and the name "Aeon" will no longer be a whisper but a war cry.
And in the depths of the Black Lotus Syndicate, Kara Yil smiles — for the true hunt has just begun.