The sky watches now.Not with stars.But with a god's gaze — ancient, unblinking, and vengeful.Kael has remembered too much... and the heavens have noticed.
The storm didn't start with rain.
It began with light.
Above the crumbling ruins of the Spire of Dust, the clouds ignited — a rift tore open, not between worlds, but between realms.From it emerged an eye. Massive. Radiant. Slitted like a serpent's, but glowing with divine gold.
Not a symbol.Not an illusion.
An actual god was watching.
The Eye hovered without motion, yet every wind bent toward it. Lightning stilled. Time paused for a heartbeat.
Kael stared up from the Spire's shattered rim. The wind whipped his hair as power still burned beneath his skin, freshly evolved. The name Kael'thaeon echoed faintly in his ears.
"He sees me."
A whisper. A realization. A warning.
Far above, in the Upper Realms, the Pantheon stirred from their divine stupor.
Erynos, God of Chains, dragged his rusted hooks across his throne, licking the blood from old wounds.
Vaela, Goddess of Ruin, danced among collapsing stars, laughter shaking galaxies.
And Solmari, the Warden of Thrones — the god who had driven the first blade into Aeon's heart — opened his eyes for the first time in an eon.
"He has begun to remember."
"Then end him," Erynos growled. "Before he reaches the Third."
"He's already claimed Will," Vaela sang. "Next comes Memory… and after that, the Cycle breaks."
Solmari said nothing.
He simply reached for the blade that once killed Aeon.
Meanwhile, back in the mortal realm, Kael walked through the smoldering outskirts of Ashport.
Dust coated his boots. His bones ached with residual energy. But something else stirred — something deeper.
Not just power.Purpose.
He felt watched. Not by one being. But by everything.
Kara Yil stood waiting by the gates of her private fortress. The Black Lotus banner waved behind her — obsidian petals over crimson silk. Her armor shimmered with embedded soul-gems, and her expression was unreadable.
"You really lit the sky on fire," she said.
Kael didn't smile. "Good. Let them come."
She tilted her head. "You realize what that Eye means?"
"I don't care," he replied, stepping past her. "I need the next Grave. The Third Fragment."
Her voice hardened. "They'll come for you now. All of them. You've left the realm of mortals, Kael."
Kael paused, gaze distant. "Then they'll learn what I've become."
Behind him, his shadow moved.
Twitched.
Then split.
Two great wings unfurled from it — not illusions, not tricks. Wings forged of shifting shadow and ancient light. One feathered. One skeletal.
Kael didn't notice.
But the world did.
[End of Chapter 9]
And somewhere, deep beneath the slumbering Vault, the First Fallen whispered:
"He's almost ready."
Next Chapter Preview – Chapter 10: Grave of Memory
Hidden beneath the drowned ruins of a lost city lies the Third Fragment — guarded by an order long thought extinct: the Librarians of Echo.
To find it, Kael must descend into memories that are not his, through a Grave that remembers every soul it's ever claimed.
But the deeper he goes, the more he forgets who he is…
And something is waiting at the end. A memory that never belonged to Kael… but to Aeon.