The stone beneath their feet trembled as the Vault of Ashes unfurled like a wound being torn open in the earth.
Kael stepped through first, his crimson blade dim but still pulsing with an inner rhythm, like the echo of battle hadn't yet left his soul. Lyra followed, her bow already notched, eyes sweeping every inch of the corridor ahead. Darric's axe rested over his shoulder, and Isryn's fingers crackled with residual voidflame, her expression unreadable.
The vault was unlike anything they'd seen—neither ruin nor temple, but something older. The walls were made of obsidian etched with searing glyphs, written in languages long lost to time. Fires floated without fuel, casting flickering shadows across vast columns that curved inward like ribs of some buried beast.
"What is this place…?" Lyra murmured.
Isryn's eyes gleamed. "This is where the Sovereigns hid what they couldn't destroy."
As they stepped deeper into the vault, the air thickened—not with heat, but pressure. Like a thousand unseen eyes watching. Judging. Testing.
A long hall stretched before them, lined with statues of Sovereigns past—each holding a sword shaped differently. Some curved, others jagged, a few broken entirely.
But in the center of the vault stood a dais of redstone. Upon it: a black obelisk with veins of crimson light pulsing within.
Kael moved toward it, drawn by the mark burning faintly under his skin.
"Wait," Darric warned, stepping forward.
But the moment Kael touched the obelisk—
Visions struck.
Not dreams. Not memories. Truth.
He saw the First Sovereign crowned in blood, carving kingdoms from fire. He saw war—not just between men, but between fate and rebellion. And then he saw himself, seated on a throne of smoke, blade resting on his lap, alone in a world made silent.
Kael gasped, pulling back. Blood trickled from his nose, but he stood firm.
"They knew I'd come," he said.
Isryn's voice was cold. "The Vault responds to lineage."
Lyra frowned. "But you're not—"
"I'm not supposed to be," Kael interrupted. "But I am."
He turned toward them, eyes shining with crimson fire.
Then something stirred behind them.
From the shadows of the vault emerged black-armored figures—Veilbound, lesser constructs of the Sovereign's old magic. They moved like echoes, fast and jagged, blades of null-steel in hand.
Kael didn't hesitate.
"Crimson Fang."
His blade roared to life, and with a burst of speed, he met them in a flash of steel and red lightning. Each strike he delivered carved through shadow-flesh like silk—decisive, precise.
Lyra loosed arrows that detonated on impact, while Darric's axe split two down the middle. Isryn's voidflame surged in waves, disintegrating the remaining ones.
But more came.
Ten. Then twenty.
Then silence.
And from that silence—a voice.
"I see the seal has awakened."
From deeper within the vault, a tall figure stepped forth. Draped in sovereign robes blackened by fire, a mask of bone upon its face.
"The Watcher of Ash," Isryn whispered. "He's real."
Kael gripped his blade.
"And he's in my way."