The storm above the Whispering Spire was unnatural. Lightning twisted in spirals, its forks not striking down but climbing upward into the roiling clouds, as if something below was feeding the heavens. The air crackled with mana so dense that even the hardened warriors of Altharion's retinue felt it pressing against their skin.
Altharion stood before the massive gates, his hand resting on the hilt of his staff-sword. "This is it," he murmured. His eyes scanned the ancient runes carved into the basalt walls — glyphs that predated kingdoms, perhaps even the gods.
The Spire was said to hold the Codex of Origin, the very first compendium of arcane laws, penned by the Primordial Magi themselves. For centuries, it had been lost to time, protected by wards that shifted reality around intruders. But now, the wards were weakened… or perhaps, deliberately opened.
"Master," said Kael, his apprentice, tightening his grip on a talisman, "you can feel it too, right? That… pull?"
"Yes," Altharion replied. "The Spire wants us inside." His voice was low, wary. "Which means something inside also wants out."
The gates groaned open with no visible push. Shadows spilled forth, not as a lack of light, but as living shapes — curling tendrils that slithered along the ground. They whispered in voices no mortal tongue could form. The sound made Kael clutch his head, but Altharion simply walked forward, his aura radiating calm authority.
Inside, the walls seemed to breathe. They were lined with crystalline veins that pulsed like a heartbeat. The light within them flickered in strange rhythms, almost like a code. As they ascended the spiraling staircase, the whispers grew clearer, becoming words that scraped against the edges of comprehension.
At the fourth landing, a guardian appeared — not a beast, but a shifting mass of fractured mirrors. From its surface, reflections of Altharion and Kael stepped out, identical yet wrong. Their mirrored selves moved faster, their expressions twisted.
Kael drew his blade, but Altharion raised a hand. "These are trials," he said, stepping forward. The mirrored Altharion attacked first, staff blazing with false light. Altharion caught the strike, twisting with surgical precision, his own magic unraveling the duplicate's form thread by thread until it dissolved into a shimmer of glass dust.
"Face yourself, Kael," the Magus commanded.
Kael's reflection lunged. Their duel was clumsy at first — fear made Kael's movements stiff — but as he struck back, he realized something: his reflection mirrored not just his skill, but his doubts. And when Kael stopped doubting, when he let his resolve crystallize, the mirror self shattered with a single decisive blow.
They continued upward, each level more disorienting than the last — rooms where gravity twisted, corridors that led back to themselves, illusions so real they could smell rain that wasn't there.
Finally, they reached the summit chamber. There, on a pedestal of black stone, lay the Codex of Origin. It was a massive tome bound in scales, its cover marked with constellations that shifted when viewed from different angles.
But someone was already there.
A figure cloaked in deep crimson stood beside the Codex, his hand hovering over it. His face was hidden, but the aura was unmistakable — cold, predatory, and ancient.
"Altharion," the figure said, voice smooth as poisoned silk. "You're late."
The Magus's eyes narrowed. "I destroyed you in the Cataclysm War."
"You destroyed… a shadow," the figure replied. "But here I stand. And this—" he gestured to the Codex "—will rewrite the end you thought you gave me."
Mana flared in the chamber, so intense the crystalline veins in the walls blazed like lightning. The storm outside roared louder, as if the Spire itself was leaning in to witness what would happen next.
Altharion stepped forward, his staff sparking with runes. "Then it seems," he said, voice hard as steel, "that I will destroy you again."