The world was broken.
And the sky knew it.
Thunder didn't roar—it groaned. A choking, guttural sound like the world itself had something stuck in its throat. Above, thick clouds of black and violet spiraled like a dying vortex, bleeding lightning that didn't shine with light, but something far more twisted. It was wrong. Twisted. It flickered through the sky like a curse—and when it struck, Kael Solhart felt it burn down his spine and nest inside his marrow.
He didn't wake gently. This wasn't rest.
This was survival.
The cracked obsidian beneath him pulsed faintly—like the earth was alive and screaming. A dull heartbeat. One that whispered of ruin and memory. The shattered remnants of the ancient prison's dome opened to that swirling sky, and as Kael stirred, everything in his body reminded him of the price he'd paid.
His lungs burned. His fingers twitched. Blood crusted over one eye, and soot clung to his face like war paint.
"...I shouldn't be alive," he rasped, the words clawing their way out of a throat too dry to bleed. "But here I am. Again."
He rose—not like a man waking from sleep, but like a corpse refusing to lie still.
And around him? Silence.
The kind of silence that listens.
Thick currents of sickly gold and black magic drifted like smoke, crackling along broken stones and shattered sigils etched deep into the walls. It was ancient energy—raw, bitter, and alive. It coiled around him like a memory he couldn't escape.
He felt it.
The Crown.
Or… what was left of it.
Its presence clung to the prison like the stench of burnt flesh—saturating the air, coiling through the ruins, whispering in voices not quite heard. Authority. Regret. Power.
And something else…
Recognition.
Kael's eyes narrowed. "No," he muttered, voice low. "I shattered it. I saw it break."
But it hadn't broken.
It had awakened.
And so had everything that came with it.
Then came the sound.
Not thunder. Not magic. Not wind.
Armor.
A chorus of iron and memory—boots striking ancient stone with perfect rhythm. Like a forgotten army returning from the dead. Kael turned sharply. His instincts roared before his thoughts caught up.
From the far end of the ruined chamber, figures emerged.
Tall. Towering. Clad in rusted, corroded steel. Symbols etched into their armor pulsed with the Crown's residual glow. Their movements were too smooth. Too precise.
The Remnants.
Guardians of the Crown. Or maybe… its prisoners.
No. Vessels.
"You were a fool, Kael Solhart," came a voice like splintered iron. Cold. Detached. "The Crown cannot be destroyed. It chooses who it consumes."
Kael's gaze locked onto the speaker—their leader. His armor was darker than voidstone, his pauldron cracked from shoulder to chest like a failed execution. A helm obscured his face, but Kael didn't need to see eyes to feel them.
"You're bones in a metal shell," Kael growled. "You think you know what the Crown is?"
The figure tilted his head slightly. Not anger.
Pity.
"You do not yet understand what it has already made you. The Crown was never a tool of tyranny. It was a vessel of memory. Of legacy. And it remembers… you."
Kael opened his mouth to retort—
—and froze.
The air shifted.
Something else had entered the ruin.
No. Not something. Someone.
From the western arch, wrapped in that swirling corruption of light and shadow, she appeared.
Elira.
But not the Elira he remembered.
Her silhouette blazed like a reverse star—dark but radiant. Her silver hair now cascaded like threads of liquid shadow. Her skin glowed pale like untouched moonlight, and her eyes—
They weren't eyes anymore.
They were embers of the Crown's will.
"Kael," she spoke, and her voice… it wasn't just hers. It was a harmony. A dissonant choir of the woman he once knew and the thing she had become.
"You failed. The Empire will rise again. But not under rusted banners and crumbling thrones…"
She hovered forward—feet never touching the stone. Her aura cracked the ground beneath her like glass under too much weight.
"It will rise under me."
Kael's heart twisted. He didn't even realize he'd taken a step back.
"Elira…" he breathed. "What happened to you?"
She smiled. No warmth. No recognition. Just ambition forged in shadow.
"I became what the world needed. You saw a friend. A comrade. But I saw something greater. I am something greater."
She raised her hand.
The Remnants moved.
Kael didn't think.
His blade was already in his hand before his mind caught up. It sang through the air—meeting steel, sparking fury.
They were faster than before. Stronger. Every strike wasn't just a blow—it was a test. A message.
You cannot win.
But Kael moved like a storm on its last breath—violent, unyielding, desperate. His blade roared. His body screamed.
He would not fall here.
"I won't let the Crown take me," he spat, parrying a downward swing. "Not today. Not ever."
His blood hit the floor. Shoulder. Side. Thigh.
Didn't matter.
Still he stood.
Still he fought.
Then—
The leader stepped back. Watching.
"You fight like one touched by fire," he said slowly. "But you still don't understand, Kael Solhart."
He paused.
"The Crown didn't spare you. It remembered you. Because you are of the bloodline that forged the Empire."
Everything stopped.
Even Elira stilled.
"…What?"
"You are the descendant of the First Scion. The Empire wasn't built by tyrants. It was built by your ancestors. The Crown was never meant to enslave you—it was meant to return to you."
Kael staggered. The visions. The connection. The whispers.
It all made sense now.
He wasn't chosen. He was bound.
The Crown wasn't a weapon.
It was heritage.
And that's when she moved.
Elira drifted toward him, her hand outstretched, her voice tender… almost.
"Come with me, Kael. You are the Empire. We can restore it together—not as kings, but as gods."
He looked at her. And for a moment…
He saw what he could become.
Unstoppable. Eternal. Sovereign.
But he also saw her. The girl who once laughed under starlight. Gone. Erased by ambition.
He lowered his blade.
Not in surrender. Just for breath.
"…If ruling means becoming this," he whispered, "then let the throne burn."
And then she screamed.
Rage tore across her face.
She unleashed everything.
Black tendrils erupted from her fingers—laced with glyphs, forged from forgotten tongues. Magic carved from the Crown itself lashed out like a thousand spears. Kael's aura exploded in defiance—flaring gold, raw, primal.
The collision shattered the prison.
The ground broke. Pillars fell like giants. The sky screamed.
And in the center of it all—
Kael leapt, blade first, toward the heart of what Elira had become.
Steel met corruption.
Soul met ruin.
And the storm began.
No glory.
No grace.
Just chaos.
And then—
Darkness.
"A legacy forgotten will one day claw its way back into memory… whether the world is ready or not."