The Hollow Spire loomed like a forgotten god's fang, torn from the heavens and driven into the earth. Its black stone surface was cracked and laced with old runes that still glimmered faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat. Smoke coiled from crevices along its sides, and a perpetual wind screamed through its hollow core—hence its name.
Kael stood at its base, Ashrend in hand, his companions behind him. Even from here, the Spire whispered. It wasn't words exactly… more like thoughts etched in flame and memory, pressing against his mind like fingers of ash.
Lyra looked up, wary. "This place doesn't want to be entered."
"It's not about want," Isryn murmured, eyes tracing the runes. "It remembers what was sealed inside."
Darric tightened the straps on his gauntlets. "Then we remind it what we've come for."
Kael nodded once.
They stepped inside.
The interior was a cathedral of silence.
Tall stone pillars curved upward, wrapped in vines of dead crystal. The walls were lined with skeletal remains—Sovereign warriors from a forgotten age, their armor etched with the same mark Kael bore on his hand.
The Crimson Mark pulsed softly, guiding him.
They followed a spiraling path downward. With every step, the temperature dropped. At the lowest level, they came to a sealed door, covered in chains forged of Veilmetal. A crimson sigil glowed faintly at the center.
Isryn placed her hand against it. "This was not just a vault… it was a prison."
Kael stepped forward and pressed his marked hand to the sigil.
It burned.
The chains snapped with a deafening clang, the door splitting open like a cracked mirror.
Inside… was a tomb of knowledge.
Scrolls. Relics. Broken weapons. Murals painted in blood and gold—depicting Sovereigns waging war across realms, tearing through sky and stone.
Kael stepped forward, drawn to a particular mural—one that showed a crimson figure standing above a battlefield of corpses, a blade of light in one hand… and black lightning swirling in the other.
Isryn whispered, "That's not a Sovereign."
"No," Kael said quietly. "That's a warning."
Suddenly, the room shifted.
A gust of wind blew through the chamber—not natural. It was as if something had just breathed. A growl echoed through the chamber—low, monstrous, ancient.
From the shadows emerged twisted humanoid creatures—Veilspawn, but altered. Their flesh was cracked with molten veins, their faces hidden behind obsidian masks shaped like screaming visages.
"They were sealed in here," Lyra said, backing up.
"Now they're free," Kael growled.
The creatures shrieked and charged.
Kael's blade burned alive.
"Falling Flame Cleave!"
He dashed forward, cutting through the first Veilspawn clean in half. Red fire followed in the wake of his blade, igniting another.
Darric slammed into the next with a shoulder bash, crushing its chest before stabbing it through the mask.
Lyra's arrows hummed through the air, each strike precise and deadly. She pivoted beside Kael, notching three in rapid succession.
"Left!" Isryn warned, flinging a bolt of runic light that exploded against a cluster of foes.
Kael turned and drove his sword through the largest Veilspawn's skull.
"Crimson Spiral!"
A red cyclone erupted from the blade's impact point, dragging enemies into its heart before burning them to cinders.
When the dust cleared, the chamber had fallen silent again.
The companions stood panting, scorched, but alive.
Kael knelt near a shattered Veilspawn. Its body was still twitching, and from its chest spilled not blood—but black lightning, writhing like worms.
He narrowed his eyes. "They've been feeding off the Vault's power."
Lyra looked at him sharply. "And you're drawing the same energy."
Isryn added softly, "It's changing you."
Kael stood, silent.
From the far end of the chamber, a pedestal had risen. Upon it sat a blade—ancient, curved like a crescent moon, made of darksteel etched with crimson veins.
Ashrend pulsed.
Kael approached the weapon.
Darric asked, "Are you sure?"
"No." Kael reached for it anyway.
The moment his fingers touched the hilt, the chamber exploded in red light.
Images flooded his mind—memories not his own. Battles fought in the sky. The fall of the First Sovereign. The creation of the Veil. And something else…
A voice.
"Crimson born… Sovereign breaker…
You are the spark and the storm.
Wake the flame. Cut the sky."
Kael gasped, his eyes glowing blood-red. The blade in his hand fused with Ashrend, becoming something new—longer, heavier, wreathed in embers and whispering shadow.
Isryn stared. "What did you do?"
Kael's voice was low, shaken but certain. "I remembered."
The Hollow Spire trembled.
And above them, far beyond the ash-ridden skies, the Sovereign Lords stirred.