The shard from the Oracle pulsed like a second heartbeat in Kael's grip as they approached the ancient vault. Hidden within the blistered cliffs of the Ashen Marches, it was sealed behind a door fused by magic older than any living tongue—runic threads of Sovereign Flame and forgotten sorcery intertwined like a cage woven for a god.
The shard flared.
A low groan echoed through the mountain as ancient seals cracked, heat pouring forth from the breach like the breath of a buried dragon. The gates unhinged themselves slowly, reluctantly, as though mourning their own surrender.
Within the vault… silence. Not the absence of sound, but the weight of too much time.
Kael stepped in first. The corridor ahead was lined with statues—figures in Sovereign armor, eyes bound with chains, blades raised not in triumph, but in mourning.
Darric muttered, "This place doesn't honor victory. It remembers betrayal."
Further in, they reached the Vaultheart Chamber—a vast rotunda encasing a dais where an obsidian throne lay cracked in half. Above it floated a prism of fire and shadow, restrained by binding glyphs. At its center: a crystal pulsing with a name Kael had never spoken aloud, but somehow recognized.
Rhaelyr.
His true name.
As Kael stepped forward, the glyphs reacted—sparking violently as the prism screamed in ancient tongues. The chamber dimmed. Chains fell from the ceiling like divine spears, slamming into the floor around him.
Then… enemies.
Spectral echoes of past Sovereigns emerged—armor dripping with cursed magic, weapons drawn in fury. Apparitions from forgotten reigns, sent to test the usurper.
"Protect the vault," one growled in a hollow voice. "Slay the False Flame."
Kael drew his blade, and the Crimson Spark surged through him.
"Let them come," he whispered.
The chamber erupted into war.
Kael danced among the shades, blade trailing red fire. With every cut, he spoke the name of a strike—each one etched into his soul during battles past.
"Ashrend," he whispered, cleaving through a knight in golden armor.
"Veilbreaker," he roared, splitting a two-headed wraith in half.
"Scourge Fang," he growled, hurling a blast of red lightning into the vault's ceiling.
Beside him, Lyra's arrows sang through the dark, and Darric stood like an iron wall, shielding Isryn as she chanted incantations to keep the chains from reforming.
But the last shade… it was different.
A mirror.
Kael faced a version of himself draped in crimson regalia, eyes devoid of mercy. This echo moved like him, struck like him… but without hesitation or empathy. It was Sovereignty, stripped of soul.
Their blades clashed. Black sparks screamed from every impact.
"You are not ready," the echo growled.
Kael bled. And smiled.
"Neither were you," he answered—and drove his sword through the echo's core with a final cry:
"Crimson Severance!"
The shadow shattered. The chains around the prism disintegrated. The Vault quieted.
Kael stood alone beneath the echoing vault, his breath slowing.
He touched the prism.
It dissolved in his hand… and the truth surged through him like fire through glass. Memories not his own. Lives lived in different centuries. Faces… thousands of them, looking to him with fear, hope, love, hatred.
He saw the First Sovereign's rise. His descent into madness. His war with the gods. And the creation of the Veil—not to protect the world…
…but to seal it from something worse.
Kael dropped to his knees, overwhelmed.
Lyra was there. "Kael…"
He looked up at her, eyes burning.
"My name… it was never just Kael. It was a title passed down."
Darric frowned. "Then who are you now?"
Kael stood slowly, fire trailing from his fingers.
"I am the one who ends the lie."