The words faded from the air, leaving behind only the eerie silence of the Arc Rift. Kael stood, unsteady but defiant. The warmth of the Ashfire still lingered beneath his skin like a quiet heartbeat, like a match waiting to ignite.
Then the sky cracked. A long, vertical split tore across the gray sky above, glowing like a wound in space. From it descended 5 creatures, or perhaps creatures sculpted from obsidian mist and iron bone, its face hidden behind a smooth, featureless mask. It moved with the grace of something that did not obey gravity. It had a humanoid shape but something about it seemed omnius.
Kael didn't wait for logic. He ran.
The ground shifted as he moved the terrain of the Arc Rift was fluid, bending and warping with thought. Rocks stretched like shadows. The sky rippled like disturbed water. And behind him, the creatures followed like chasing a prey, silently, inevitable.
They didn't roar. they didn't hiss. They simply chased.
Kael ducked beneath a jagged ledge of floating stone, his chest heaving. The air was cold now bitter, dead, like the breath of a world that had stopped spinning.
"The ashfire… I need it now."
He clenched his fists, trying to summon the flame again, but it only flickered in his chest weak, uncertain. Kael knew that the ashfire flame was to weak and he had no weapon he was starting to lose hope while chanting the ashfire's name like it could make the flame stronger.
The Weave sensed the emotional battle kael was experiencing and answered.
[Emotional Trigger Detected]
[Recall what you lost]
Kael was dumbfounded, he was expecting something like a weapon or a tip on how to clear the arc rift but what he received was a poem, no calling a poem is a streach, its more like a riddle and he had no time to solve it.
He threw himself down a slope of floating glass, rolled, and kept running. He tried to shout, to scream, but there was no voice came out.
One of the creatures caught up a long, blade-like arm slicing through his shoulder. Kael stumbled, pain exploding across his back, Blood began to drip.
At first, it came slow a dark red bead rolling down his arm, vanishing into the black stone. Then more followed. The blood flowed in thick streaks, seeping through his torn shirt, dripping from his fingertips as he crawled.
Each drop hissed as it struck the ground, like even the Rift itself rejected the scent of human fragility.
His vision blurred. The world tilted.
"I'm bleeding… I'm bleeding bad…"
but he didn't stop.
Another lunged from the side — he barely dodged.
A third came from the front. He turned hard, slipped, fell.
They surrounded him.
He crawled backwards on the obsidian shards, hands bloodied, chest heaving, vision spinning.
"Why me?" he gasped. "Why now?"
He tried to summon the flame again the Imaginara. But there was nothing. No warmth. Just fear.
Then the Weave whispered:
Kael clenched his fists. His fingers were trembling.
Images flickered broken, blurred.
He saw his mother's hand, warm and rough. He saw his father's coat, the one always too big for him. He saw waves crashing, buildings falling, smoke rising. Screams.
But never their faces.
"I don't even remember them," he whispered. "Not their smiles. Not their eyes. Not even their names…"
And that's when it came the grief. The kind that dug so deep it scraped the soul. The one that he tried so hard to supress.
Tears burned down his cheeks.
"I forgot them."
A pulse.
His chest caught fire not with heat, but remorse.
His eyes widened.
From his hands, ash and ember flowed rising in smoky spirals, dancing like memories that refused to die.
The creatures hesitated.
Kael rose to his knees.
With a cry that tore from his soul, he drove his hand into the ground.
A wave of Ashfire erupted outward burning white-grey hot, not with heat but with meaning. The creatures shrieked and disintegrated mid-charge, the flame unraveling their forms like they were made of broken dreams.
When it was over, he fell to one knee.
The Rift quieted. The sky calmed.
And then, the Weave spoke again:
[Trial Completed]
[Imaginara Control Stage: Awakened]
[Reward Granted: Weapon – Ember Thread sword (Bound)]
[Role Granted:Child of fate]
[Be aware of that should not exist]
In Kael's hand, a blade formed — long and thin, like a katana stitched from threads of burning coal. It pulsed with the same Ashfire in his chest. He stared at it. At his hands.
At who he had just become.
"This… is real" "not exist ?"
The Rift pulsed once more — and then shattered like glass.
Kael had returned to his apartment— falling into his bed, gasping, as if no time had passed.
But in his hand, the Ember Thread sword remained.
And the burn on his chest — mark of the arcborne — glowed softly beneath his shirt.
He collapsed, gasping, the blade warm in his hand.
He couldn't remember their faces.
But now — he would never forget them.
And that was enough to set the fire burning.