Chapter 1: The Forgotten Roar
I. The World Without Ka'roth
They called it Veltherion—a world of skybound archipelagos and endless twilight seas. The sun never rose, yet light filled the air. Stars hung low, as if watching.
Magic flowed here—not from gods or dragons—but from the breath of the world itself, exhaled through luminous cracks in the sky.
No legends spoke of Ka'roth.
No runes bore his mark.
No beasts bowed to a Sovereign.
And yet…
Every child born into Veltherion dreamed of a roar they could not describe.
A roar not made of sound—
But of origin.
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II. The Boy Named Elion
He was born beneath the Skyrift—one of the great scars in the heavens where blue bled into black.
His name was Elion, and unlike others in the floating city of Luth'Arien, he was born without a mark. No sigil on his skin. No binding affinity to wind, water, or flame.
They called him Hollowborn.
The marked children shunned him.
The priests ignored him.
Even the skycrabs refused to land near him.
But every night, when he closed his eyes, he heard it—
> A roar that filled the void behind his heart.
Not loud.
Not fierce.
But inevitable.
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III. The Silence Beneath
Luth'Arien floated high above the Ocean of Dusk, tethered by gravity roots that pulsed with mana. Great wings of stone and brass kept it aloft, slowly flapping with the heartbeat of the Skyrift.
Elion would sit on the edge of the city's spine—feet dangling off the side—and stare at the deepest point in the sea below.
There, beneath layers of darkness, was something still.
Not asleep.
Not dead.
Just… waiting.
He did not know its name.
But every time he neared it, the roar in his chest grew clearer.
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IV. The Tear in the Sky
On his sixteenth year, the sky above Veltherion shuddered.
It wasn't thunder.
It wasn't storm.
It was silence ripping.
A line of black flame split across the heavens—neither light nor dark, but a third thing. Something older.
And from it, nothing spilled forth. Not creatures. Not fire. Just a presence that turned birds to stone and melted floating islands into stardust.
The Archmages of the Nine Orders called it The First Tremor.
But Elion…
He felt it differently.
He felt it like a call.
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V. The Whisper of Becoming
That night, Elion dreamed again.
But this time, the roar was not distant.
It was inside him.
It cracked his skin with glowing sigils—jagged and shifting, never repeating. His bones screamed. His breath shook the world in his vision.
And a voice, not male nor female, not divine nor monstrous, whispered:
> "You are the echo.
The fragment left behind.
The hunger forgotten."
> "Become."
He awoke screaming—runes glowing across his arms and chest.
The Hollowborn…
was no longer Hollow.
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VI. The Hunt Begins
News of the glowing boy spread quickly.
The Orders sent Seers.
The Skyguard sent blades.
Even the Stonespire Kings sent their cursed riders.
All came seeking the boy with the living runes.
They did not seek to protect.
They sought to contain.
For only one thing in legend bore such marks—
> A being said to have devoured the Void itself.
A beast with no origin.
A roar that ended gods.
But none remembered its name.
Not truly.
Only its title remained in forbidden echoes:
> "The Abyss Sovereign."
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VII. The Descent
With blades at his back, Elion fled Luth'Arien.
He ran not upward, not to the skycities—
But downward.
Toward the darkest trench in the Ocean of Dusk.
Toward the place where Ka'roth had first released the seed.
None had returned from there.
Not mortals.
Not gods.
Not thought.
And yet the roar inside Elion whispered:
> "You are not going there."
"You are going home."
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VIII. The Awakening Below
At the ocean's floor, past all light, he found it—
A Throne.
Shattered.
Empty.
But still breathing.
Not with air.
Not with sound.
But with purpose.
He stepped upon it.
The world paused.
His runes blazed.
His eyes burned.
His voice split the sea in half.
And for the first time in Veltherion's history—
> The sky roared back.
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Final Line of Chapter 1:
> **"Elion did not become Ka'roth.
He became what Ka'roth left behind—
The roar waiting to rise again."**
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