The war with the Void King had left behind scorched battlefields, broken cities, and silent tombs. Yet even amid the growing peace, David could not find rest. The ghosts of those he had failed haunted him, whispering through the wind, echoing in the hollow silence between breaths.
Each night, he dreamed of a burning tree, its branches twisting into stars, a shattered crown spinning through the void, and a girl—always the same girl—crying his name across space. The visions were so vivid, so persistent, that even the system took notice.
The message flickered in his vision, more cryptic than usual. David found himself drawn to the Oracle's Peak, a forbidden mount said to pierce time itself. Others warned him that those who climbed the peak never returned unchanged. But David, changed already by his journey, could not be deterred.
With each step up the glassy, silver staircase that wrapped around the mountain, his heart grew heavier. Not from fear, but from something deeper—like the past he was about to uncover was not someone else's, but his own.