The dreams had shifted.
No longer visions of blood, no longer screams swallowed by the void. Instead, Kieran dreamed of a city buried beneath another. Forgotten. Iron-boned and ash-covered. A city that still breathed despite the centuries—its heart pulsing with the echo of power left behind.
That was where the second fragment slept.
He awoke not with dread, but clarity.
The Eye opened as naturally as breath.
Awakening at Will
It began in his fingertips—tingling with awareness. A second heartbeat, faint and steady, thrummed in his chest. Then the world sharpened—not just sight, but intentions around him.
No more concentration. No more fear of being consumed by the awakening.
Now, it answered him.
The Eye, and the fragment within, obeyed his will.
As he walked through Varneth's shadowed alleys, illusions dissolved like mist before his gaze. Whispers bent into truths. Lies crumbled in the mouths of men.
Even the shadows that once stalked him shrank back now, unsure if they stared at a man—or something that had already seen their end.
Varneth's Forgotten Layer
He found her again—the woman cloaked in memory and shadow. She waited for him beneath the shattered spire, where night never truly ended.
"You saw the second path, didn't you?" she asked.
He nodded.
"The city beneath the city. Iron bones. Ash roofs. Nothing breathes there… except something that waits."
She tilted her head. "Few know of that place. Even fewer live after entering it."
Kieran's Eye glowed faintly, red ringed in black.
"I'm not entering to survive," he said. "I'm entering to awaken."
Beneath the Surface
The entrance was older than Varneth itself—hidden behind a wall of false stone beneath the sewerline, accessible only when the Eye flared fully.
When Kieran stepped into the void beyond the wall, his power stirred.
The pressure was different. The silence absolute.
Here, light was a trespasser. And yet his Eye burned steady, guiding him through the pitch.
Ruins of an ancient city sprawled below: buildings without windows, statues eroded beyond recognition, and a pulsing hum beneath the streets—the heartbeat of the second fragment.
But as he stepped forward, the ground shifted.
The first guardian had been massive and proud.
This time, something was watching that did not want to be found.
End of Chapter
The fragment lies below… but what guards it does not roar like a bear. It whispers like the grave.
And Kieran, with the Eye open and will sharpened, descends deeper into the ruins—unaware that the second guardian has already begun to test him.