In the old mountain range where light feared to linger and silence had weight, a black monolith pulsed with slow, cold heartbeat-like echoes.
This was the Sanctum of the Hollow Veil—an ancient sect that claimed to serve no god, no law, only the truth behind veils.
And tonight, the veils trembled.
Lirae's Awakening
Lirae Veyne sat cross-legged in the center of a ritual circle, her silver hair damp with sweat. The glyphs around her pulsed erratically, as if afraid.
She had not slept in days.
Not since the Dream.
A vision of fire that ate through fate. A figure without a face standing at the edge of the Tenfold Spiral, burning with a radiance that erased even the laws of ascension. A throne of light that rejected the heavens themselves.
The figure in the vision had turned to her.
And whispered her own name.
Now, Lirae's eyes opened—ice-blue, clear, terrifying in stillness.
"He has stepped through the third resonance."
A masked seer across from her flinched.
"Kael Aetherborne is progressing far too quickly. If he reaches Tier Eight…"
"He won't reach it," Lirae said softly, "unless he's meant to."
The Meeting of the Circle
The chamber darkened. Twelve masked figures emerged from the shadows, taking seats carved from screaming obsidian. Each represented a different path of insight—time, space, entropy, thought, will, and things not named.
They bowed their heads toward the eldest among them, known only as The Hollow Seer.
"The Flameborn has ignited his Spirit Core," he said, his voice like crumbling paper. "The Path of Syncretic Ascension has awakened after a thousand years."
"He walks the path of unity," murmured another. "Body, Mind, Spirit… aligned. He will seek the Tenfold Gate."
"That Gate must not open," hissed the Time-Seer. "You all know what lies beyond Tier Ten."
Silence.
Because they did know.
They had seen the shadows behind immortality.
They had watched the sky unravel.
"Do we eliminate him?" asked the youngest, her voice trembling.
"We test him," said Lirae.
"You're compromised," spat a voice. "You dreamed of him."
"I did," she admitted, her face unreadable. "And if the vision is true, he might be our only chance to stop what's coming."
"You mean the Devourers."
A ripple passed through the Circle.
The Hollow Seer leaned forward.
"Let him ascend—but shape the path with obstacles. Real ones. Let him bleed truth from lies."
Elsewhere – The Academy Trembles
Back at Emberlight, Kael walked the Academy grounds like a specter of war.
The change in him hadn't gone unnoticed.
Students stepped aside in silence. Instructors stopped mid-sentence when he passed.
His aura no longer flickered—it consumed.
Not violently, but inevitably.
In the sparring coliseum, a boy tried to challenge him. Kael turned once—the challenger fainted before he even raised his weapon.
Power had weight.
Kael no longer masked his.
The Invitation
That evening, a scroll burned into existence beside Kael's bed.
It bore no wax seal, only a whisper that accompanied the flame:
"We know what you seek.
Come to the Hollow Veil.
Or we will come to you."
Kael held the scroll for a moment.
Then fed it to the relic.
The flame read it.
"They watched the War of Immortals from behind the veil," the relic murmured. "Their knowledge is vast. But their truths are rarely kind."
Kael's lips curled slightly.
"Then I will speak in their language."