The descent beneath the ruined observatory had been steep, but the tunnel eventually widened into a long, yawning corridor carved from red obsidian. Strange glyphs pulsed along the walls, not with light, but with hunger. Kaelen's footsteps echoed too loudly, even when he tried to move silently. Each sound felt like a challenge to the dark.
Behind him, Alari walked with barely a whisper, her bone mask tucked beneath her cloak. Her eyes scanned everything. She hadn't spoken since the false stargazer's death, and he hadn't pressed. Whatever bond had begun to form between them was laced with unspoken tension now, too tightly strung to break without blood or truth.
Ahead, the corridor opened into a vast chamber.
Kaelen stopped at the threshold, drawing a shallow breath.
The air was thick with ancient power. And something else, rot. The scent of blood that had long dried into the stone. Blackened chains dangled from the high ceiling like spider limbs, and at the center of the room, surrounded by twelve jagged obsidian monoliths, floated a single object.
A mask.
Not bone or wood like the Triune's. This one shimmered with voidsteel, impossible to focus on directly. Its surface shifted with silent screams, and behind it pulsed a heart-like core of violet flame.
The system buzzed in his skull, not with its usual structured interface, but with something more primal. A murmur without words.
Alari's voice cut through the silence.
"That is the Vaultmask. The First Oath's seal. We shouldn't be here."
Kaelen stepped forward anyway.
"Then why is it calling to me?"
Alari did not answer. She remained near the wall, her body tense. She drew a line in the dust with her finger, a warding symbol.
The moment Kaelen crossed into the circle of monoliths, the air changed.
Every oath he had ever sworn came alive in his bones. Promises from childhood, whispered secrets, desperate prayers made in Lagos beneath choking skies. And worse, memories that weren't his. Oaths sworn in blood by Kaelen Vire. Vows made with blades pressed to skin, with entire villages burned as consequence.
Pain lanced through his skull.
The system flickered back into form.
[ SYSTEM UPDATE: OATHFORGED NODE FOUND ]
[ Caution: Exposure to the Vaultmask may induce forced resonance. ]
[ Skill unlocked: Oathbinding (Lv. 1) – You may bind yourself or others to spoken promises. Breaking a bound oath carries escalating consequences. ]
[ New Passive: Echobrand – Old oaths will manifest in combat situations. ]
Kaelen dropped to a knee, bracing against the pull. His heartbeat slammed in his chest like a war drum. The monoliths began to hum, forming a dissonant chord.
And then the mask turned.
It faced him.
Though it had no eyes, Kaelen felt them dragging him toward it, peeling back every layer of falsehood in his soul.
A voice whispered from the space between his thoughts.
"Swear."
Kaelen ground his teeth. "Swear what?"
The voice hissed.
"To betray."
He stood, slowly. His hand reached toward the mask despite himself. Each step was agony, not of the flesh but of the spirit. The mask wanted more than his promise. It wanted his certainty. It wanted him to declare an oath that could not be unmade.
A second voice spoke from behind him.
"Don't."
Alari.
Her hand was raised, glowing faintly with bone-light, but her face held something close to fear.
"If you swear anything here, it will be written into your soul. That's no ordinary relic. It's a fragment of the True Oath, the one that shattered the gods."
Kaelen paused.
The mask hovered inches from his hand now. Its presence pulled at everything he hated and everything he loved. Darian's face flashed before his mind. Not the betrayer's mask, but the boy who once defended him in a muddy village square. The brother who once stood with him against a common world.
And now?
Kaelen clenched his jaw.
"I swear," he said softly, "to uncover the true cost of betrayal."
The mask flared. The chamber screamed.
Chains dropped from the ceiling like striking serpents, wrapping around the monoliths, dragging them inward. The floor cracked, and a deep rumble echoed through the walls.
Alari darted forward, grabbing his arm.
"You bound the mask. We have to move now!"
The ground lurched beneath them. Cracks spread like veins across the chamber floor. Something immense stirred beneath. Not a tremor. A pulse.
Kaelen ran, Alari beside him, dodging falling debris and arcs of chaotic magic. The Vaultmask rose higher, now encased in a cocoon of light. It wasn't chasing them. It didn't need to.
It had already claimed something.
Behind them, a scream echoed through the collapsing corridor. But it wasn't a scream of pain.
It was laughter.
Mocking. Triumphant. Familiar.
Darian.
Kaelen froze mid-run. The air around them shimmered, and a projection formed from the remnants of the Vaultmask's release a memory, a living echo.
In it, Kaelen Vire knelt before a council of masked figures. One wore a white mask veined in gold. Darian's voice rose from the image.
"For peace, for Virelith, I name him oathless. Let his name be cast to the void."
The memory snapped like glass.
Alari pulled at Kaelen's sleeve.
"We have to go. That was a memory lock he erased you from the system of power. You were voided, not just killed."
Kaelen turned.
"That's why no one remembered me. Why the system had no full record."
She nodded. Her face was pale.
"He severed you from fate itself."
They burst from the ruins just as the last of the observatory caved in behind them. Dust clouded the sky, blotting out the red sun. Kaelen stumbled, coughing, his mind racing.
He had just sworn an oath in the Vault of the First Oath. That meant the system would now evolve in ways he couldn't predict. Worse so would his enemies.
The interface shimmered once more.
[ Primary Quest Update: ]
– Uncover the origins of the Vaultmask
– Trace the First Betrayer's bloodline
– Survive the Echobrand trials
– Locate the next Oathforged node
[ System Skill Evolved: Void Memory Echo (Lv. 2) – Access suppressed histories tied to bloodline oaths. ]
Alari approached, her expression unreadable.
"You've set something in motion. The kind of thing no one survives."
Kaelen looked out over the darkened plains.
"Then I'll just have to be the first."
She hesitated.
"There's someone you need to meet. A woman in the Hollow Vale. She... remembers things she shouldn't. Including you."
He raised a brow.
"Another exile?"
Alari shook her head.
"No. Worse. She was never written in."
Before Kaelen could ask what that meant, the ground beneath them pulsed once more. A distant roar sounded metal, monstrous, echoing.
Kaelen turned slowly. A shadow rose in the distance, tall as a fortress and draped in shifting armor.
Alari swore under her breath.
"The Triune sent a Revenant. A Soulbound enforcer."
Kaelen felt the cold chill of dread wash over him.
"Can we run?"
Alari's silence was answer enough.
The Revenant was already coming.
And it had his name.