The wind howled across the bleak plateau where the Capital Tombs once stood, but the ashes had settled. For the first time in what felt like eternity, the world had gone quiet—but that silence was a lie.
Valerian stood atop the blackened ridge overlooking the plains where the mist had begun to creep. From here, he could see the boundary between reality and corruption—a wave of crawling darkness slowly painting the land in decay. It was called the Forgotten Chain, and it was coming for everything. The air itself seemed to recoil from its touch, leaving behind a vacuum that pulled at his very soul.
Selene stepped beside him, her silver eyes hard as polished steel. "Are you sure the Chrono Tomb exists?"
"It's not a place, Selene," he replied, voice low and haunted. "It's a fracture in the timeline. A place the system erased and forgot. But it remembers me." He touched the scar on his chest where the Architect's mark had once burned. "It remembers what I did to break free."
