The next morning arrived with pale, sickly glow cast by the Eye of Unmaking.
Kael moved through the skeletal streets, past burned-out husks of cars and hollow-eyed ruins that watched like silent witnesses. His breath curled faintly in the cold, and his footsteps barely disturbed the ash that clung to every broken surface.
Ahead, far off yet impossibly present, the shattered spires of the cathedral clawed at the heavens.
He walked like a ghost, but inside, something sharp had begun to wake.
This is it.
One hand rested near the rusted blade tucked at his waist,a jagged length of scavenged pipe, sharpened to a brutal edge. A battered revolver hung beneath his coat, its chamber half-full with scavenged rounds of questionable origin. Slung across his shoulder was a faded satchel, frayed at the seams, carrying a dented canteen, three strips of dried meat, a cracked flare, and a single matchbook wrapped in waxed cloth. The other hand curled into a loose fist, thumb brushing absently over the mark hidden beneath his sleeve. The whisper of old blood beneath his skin felt warmer than the air around him.
And as the cathedral drew closer, so too did the memories of why the world had shattered in the first place.
The Eye, as it came to be known, was no simple phenomenon. It hung in the sky like an unblinking sentinel, its vast, unsettling gaze fixed upon the world below. The people called it the Eye of Unmaking, a name whispered in terror and awe. Some believed it was a harbinger of the end. Others claimed it was the last remnant of a long-dead god, whose gaze now lingered to remind the world of its inevitable decay.
No one truly understood its purpose.
For twenty-eight years, it had watched. Its presence was a constant, silent weight pressing down upon the land. It was neither sun nor moon, yet it cast an eerie, pallid glow across the world, bathing everything in unsettling light. The air around it shimmered, as though reality itself bent in its presence.
Some claimed to hear voices beneath its gaze—whispers that curled into their minds like tendrils of madness, dragging them to the edge of reason. Others felt an overwhelming sense of dread, as if the Eye could see into their very souls, measuring their worth, and their sins.
But the worst were those who gazed too long.
Most died in agony. But many suffered fates far crueler. Driven to madness, they tore through their homes and cities, slaughtering all they once held dear. And in the wake of that madness, the world bled.
In a single year, humanity's numbers fell from four billion to one.
Cities crumbled beneath fire and fang. Haunting locations, grotesque places that defied reason and bent the laws of the world, began to appear—crawling out from the cracks like tumors of forgotten gods. Reality fractured. And creatures not born of nature but of nightmare roamed the streets.
But the situation was not entirely hopeless.
As the world unraveled, something stirred in the hearts of humankind. A flicker of resistance. A strange, mystical force,perhaps born from the same fractures that birthed the horrors—began to awaken in certain individuals. At first, it was dismissed as madness or coincidence. But in time, patterns emerged.
People began to manifest powers. Mysterious, otherworldly abilities tied not to science, but to ancient principles the world had long forgotten. Scholars would later call them Divine Laws—conceptual forces bound to emotion, memory, instinct, and more.
No one clearly knew how they were chosen. There was no ceremony. No divine herald. They simply… changed.
Each bore a different mark, etched not just into their flesh but their very soul. Marks that shimmered like tattoos,each one a silent scream, a contract, a truth no longer spoken aloud.
Some heard voices that were not theirs. Some dreamed in fire and woke with soot on their skin. Some began to see the past bleed into the present—memories that did not belong to them but clung like old wounds.
No one could say why, but the world had changed, and so had its survivors. Their abilities were strange and unpredictable, often proving more curse than blessing. Power never came clean; it always demanded a price, and not the kind measured in coin or time.
Most people never awakened to such powers. However, there was another alternative: Relics. Specifically, Oathbound Relics,fragments from forgotten eras could stir a slumbering spark in ordinary individuals, though often at the risk of driving them to madness. These potent relics were found in Reliquaries, places steeped in madness and corruption where few who entered ever returned.
Despite these overwhelming odds, humanity managed to survive thanks to Sanctums. These strongholds were similar to Reliquaries but served an opposite function. Their inherent properties kept the Defiled at bay, making them vital havens. Though rare, these Sanctums allowed humanity to endure until the Awakened ones emerged, offering a new form of defense.
Kael had no illusions about what kind of place this cathedral would be. As he contemplated its nature, he reached the heart of the cursed ruins. Here, skyscrapers rose like the ribs of dead giants, crumbling and blackened by time. Moss crept over their jagged spines like rot over a corpse. At their heart, clusters of pale violet flowers bloomed unnaturally, pulsing faintly as if feeding off the decay. Their elongated shadows sprawled across the broken concrete like grasping fingers, casting a suffocating gloom. The air hung thick with the stench of rust and wet stone. He glanced at the towering structure, shivered, and quickly looked away.
"It's eerily quiet in here," he thought. "Normally, there'd be Defiled creatures scuttling about."
As he moved stealthily through the ruins, a gnawing unease grew at the back of his mind. "Something's not right," he thought warily. "These ruins were never this quiet." Though not the most dangerous regions on the planet, they still held their share of perils.
As he neared the Cathedral of Bones, the silence shattered. Something enormous slammed into the broken spires, causing an avalanche of debris and dust. A chilling, inhuman scream tore from the cloud, sending shivers down Kael's spine and invoking utter dread. The scream cleared the dust and debris with a sonic boom.
The scream still echoed in his bones, but Kael couldn't turn back. Shapes moved within the cloud,long and wrong shadows. Every instinct screamed at him to flee, but not now. He tightened his grip on his blade. Any sane man would flee, but Kael waited, discerning from the sounds that a battle was taking place. He knew he wouldn't defeat such a creature fair and square, but a weakened one was a different story. So he waited. After what seemed like an hour, the battle finally ended. He moved slowly towards the battlefield, where dust still hung in the air like a fog of ash.
The dust hung thick, clinging to the ruins like cobwebs spun from ash and bone.
Then, through the drifting haze, he saw the aftermath.
The shattered remains of a colossal, inhuman carcass sprawled across the plaza before the Cathedral of Bones. Its limbs were twisted and unnaturally long, bending like branches forced to grow wrong. Violet petals, the same as those blooming through the ruins, sprouted from torn muscle and fractured joints, pulsing faintly as if still alive.
Black ichor seeped from its wounds, shimmering with a strange violet sheen. Wherever it touched the ground, tiny violet flowers had already begun to bloom, feeding on the corpse.
Its head was a ruin of bone and thorn-like teeth, framed by fleshy, petal-like fronds that twitched even in death. From its slack jaw, a faint hum still lingered,a haunting echo of whatever twisted force had birthed it.
But it wasn't alone.
A second figure knelt beside the corpse,silent, unmoving.
The figure was wrapped in strange, tattered robes made of what looked like pale leather and broken metal. Their back was to Kael, but their posture was weary, wounded, maybe. Blood ran in thin streams from their side, dark against the dust. In one hand, they held a curved blade, slick with ichor; the other rested limply on the ground, fingers twitching faintly. A white mask, seemingly crafted from ivory, concealed their face entirely, leaving only the suggestion of eyes beneath its smooth surface.
Kael crouched behind a shattered wall, keeping a cautious distance from the mysterious figure.
"You're late," they said, their voice calm—unbothered. They didn't turn to look at him.
Kael's brows furrowed. He glanced around, expecting someone else to step forward. But there was no one. "Wait... are they talking to me?"
"Yes," they answered, as if plucking the thought straight from his mind. "You. Behind the building."
His breath caught. They had known he was there all along.
He stepped out slowly, hand still near his weapon, though he knew it wouldn't help much. He was already thinking about the most optimal escape route if need be. A strange weariness clung to him, heavy like fog on his thoughts. Whoever this individual was, they weren't normal. In seventeen years of surviving this cursed world, Kael had learned one unshakable truth: humans were often worse than the monsters. And this one... he hadn't yet decided which they were.
Their tattered robes, a patchwork of pale leather and broken metal, seemed remnants of something ancient and ceremonial. Long, wind-tossed hair, a ghostly silver-white, was matted with ash and dried blood, cascading like moonlight fractured through smoke, From the way the figure carried herself, Kael understood she was a woman.An ominous one at that maybe from a cult. Either way, he'd have to be careful.
"I didn't… I mean, I did not know who you were expecting," he managed, trying to sound indifferent. He nodded toward the dying monster.
"You killed that thing alone?"
"No," she said plainly. "It simply… ceased to be. Its will to live withered."
Kael frowned. "You've got a way with words. Just not the useful ones."
'Do all these cultists speak in riddles? 'Kael mused inwardly.
"Words are for those with the luxury of time," she said, rising slowly. Her movements were fluid, but restrained ,she was hurt, though hiding it well.
"Got a name?" Kael asked, more out of necessity than curiosity.
"Aeris," she replied. Then, without asking: "Kael."
His pulse quickened. "How do you—"
"I don't know," she interrupted, finally turning toward him. Her eyes, a deep, vivid amethyst, lit faintly from within, seemed far too ancient for someone who couldn't be more than seventeen. They were soft and dark, but beneath them, something flickered,not light, not fire. Hope, maybe, but burdened. Old. They watched him not with curiosity or caution,but with recognition.
When she finally met his eyes, Kael felt a strange tightness in his chest, As if some part of him had known her long before either of them had names. "I remember things that haven't happened yet. And you… you've walked this path before. Haven't you?"
Kael didn't respond. Because he didn't understand the question. Not really.
"…You're insane," he muttered.
Aeris tilted her head, as if considering the possibility. "Perhaps. Or perhaps you're simply behind schedule."
"For what?"
Her gaze drifted toward the looming cathedral behind him. "The Crown remembers. You'll understand soon enough."
Kael followed her gaze. The Cathedral of Bones rose like a dying god's monument. Wind stirred the violet petals scattered across the cracked ground.
When he looked back, Aeris was already walking away, toward a narrow stairwell carved into the earth.
"I wouldn't go in there," she called without turning. "But then again, I didn't listen either."
Kael's fingers brushed the mark again, feeling the faint, tingling warmth beneath his skin. His breath misted faintly in the stagnant air.
He blinked, shifting his gaze toward the stairwell—searching for the strange girl.
But she was gone.Kael would have liked to ponder the strange girl's words,her knowing gaze, the way she spoke as if reading from a book he hadn't opened yet. But time wasn't a luxury he had. The light of the Eye was shifting, and every second he lingered in these cursed ruins was an invitation for something worse to find him. Whatever that cathedral held… it wouldn't wait forever.
The path sloped downward now, into what had once been a broad courtyard. The bones of the old cathedral stood like a broken ribcage, shattered stained glass crunching beneath his boots. Above it all, the Eye hung motionless, its gaze fixed downward, as if curious about who dared to walk beneath its shadow.
Kael looked up, just once, letting the glow catch his eyes but not for long.
And soon, he would learn if the mark beneath the ash was a key to salvation… or his final mistake.
He stepped beneath the broken archway, where silence had weight and every shadow seemed to lean closer. The floor had collapsed at the far end, revealing a stairwell that should not have existed,spiraling, ancient, as if carved before the cathedral's foundation was ever laid. Cold air poured from below, thick with dust and something that tasted like memory.
Kael descended.
Each step echoed with a low, pulsing hush, like the world was holding its breath. The light from above faded quickly, until only the faint glow of his mark lit the stone.
Then he saw it. The Hollow Crown.
It sat on a shallow basin of glass-like roots, as if it had grown from the cathedral's bones. The shape was unmistakable,crownlike, but wrong. It was cracked, open at the top, with thorns curling inward instead of out. Metallic but bone-pale, its surface rippled faintly, like water disturbed by dreams.
Symbols etched into its base pulsed with unreadable scripture. Each mark twisted at the edge of vision, never the same when looked at twice.
Kael stared, breath catching. The Relay in his coat grew hot. He stepped forward, unaware of the tears forming at the corners of his eyes. Something was whispering again, but it wasn't the Eye. This was older. Hungrier. Sadder.
And then he saw them. Three statues, positioned around the Hollow Crown. One had its head bowed, a finger raised to silent lips. Another wept blood from empty sockets. And the last stared straight ahead,its eyes slit-pupiled and all too familiar. The same mark Kael bore shimmered faintly on its stone wrist.
His heart skipped a beat. Not from fear. From recognition.
The Hollow Crown pulsed once, faintly. And the chamber breathed.
As soon as he stepped in the presence of the Hollow Crown, Kael went down on his knees, screaming in insufferable agony. Blood started pouring down his nose, and the world dissolved into a blinding white.