Four months had passed.
The wind howled over the cliffs of Yimen, carrying with it the salt of the sea and the laughter of children far below.
Gareth sat at the edge, legs dangling, his eyes lost in the vast horizon.
He had tried. Gods knew he had tried. Four months of struggle, of carving out something that could stand against the chaos of the seas.
He had built a trade center, envisioned bustling commerce and prosperity. But it failed—miserably.
Markets collapsed, merchants abandoned him, and what little he salvaged was mockery in the eyes of rivals.
And yet—below him, life thrived. The forests spread green and wild. A market square still buzzed, not with wealth, but with people bartering simple wares.
Children darted through the streets, chasing one another with sticks and shrill laughter.
Gareth watched, a deep, somber smile tugging at his lips. It was not triumph. It was not pride.
It was something quieter, more fragile.
He had failed—yet the world still spun. People still laughed. And somehow, that was enough.
The sea stretched endless before him, shimmering like a mirror to eternity.
The Vast Sea.
"Still brooding?" Kael's voice cut through the wind.
Gareth didn't turn. "Always."
Kael stepped beside him, his expression sharper than usual. "We can't linger in mistakes forever. We need to act."
Finally, Gareth looked at him.
His goggles caught the glint of sunlight, hiding the storm in his eyes.
"I'm close, Kael. Close to breaking through. To ascending, but i keep having a headache every time. Once I reach the 1.5 Veilbound Root, I'll stand equal to Belmarius himself."
Kael's lips curved into a grim line. Then, without warning, he dug his hands into the cliffside.
Muscles roared. Veins bulged. With a guttural cry, he wrenched free an entire section of mountain.
The boulder rose like an offering to the heavens, shadowing the sea, before he hurled it back into the stone.
It crashed with a deafening roar, splintering rock and shaking the ocean below.
"I've already stepped there," Kael said, his voice like steel.
The world seemed to still.
Then....
Rushing footsteps. A figure emerged, battered coat whipping in the wind—a messenger from Belmarius's crew, his face pale with urgency.
Before he could speak, Gareth staggered. His vision blurred. His knees buckled.
The sea roared into silence.
And in its place—
A throne.
Vast, jagged, and cruel. Upon it sat a figure whose presence smothered the void itself. Armor darker than the abyss.
Horns like twisted blades. A crown of fire.
Shalkeer, the Warrior of Demons.
The demon leaned forward, eyes like collapsing suns, and the void came alive with screams.
Gareth was forced to watch—
Kael's body crushed beneath stone. Belmarius burned alive at sea. The four districts drowning in blood. The sky tearing as children wailed.
His body trembled. His lungs seized. Every scream carved itself into him, raw and permanent.
Shalkeer's voice boomed like a thousand collapsing stars:
"This is the weight you bear, boy of the Eclipse. This is the truth of your failure."
He watched as people died and died , day after day months after months, hundreds of thousands to million's of death all unfolding to him.
Gareth was crushed his will seemed to have been strangled and choked out of him. His once eye's filled with vigor seemed hopeless.
Devoid of any meaning a time came where he watched each of his friends get families their children dying everything was hell to the young man.
Everyone eventually died.
One year passed by, in the dark wretched black soul landscape gareth still bounded seem to have lost hope on the brink of corruption he remembered something remembered someone.
From deep inside the carnage of death, Gareth rose.
The chains on his knees clattered as he stood, his soul overwhelmed with burdens. Yet he walked forward—toward the black crystal pulsing at the void's heart.
It was a prison. A mirror. A curse. Within its surface, he saw all who had fallen, their faces twisted with agony, their cries clawing at him.
But Gareth did not bow.
He clenched his fists until his knuckles split. Blood dripped down his arms.
Then he struck.
The first punch echoed like thunder across the abyss. The second cracked the surface. The third drew screams from the void itself.
And he did not stop.
Days. months. years. Time bled and broke. The void showed him death upon death, torment upon torment, but still he struck.
Punch. Punch. Punch.
Until—
A hairline fracture.
Then another.
The crystal screamed as Gareth roared, each strike louder, harder, heavier, until with one final blow—
It shattered.
White light poured out, burning away the shadows. The carnage melted. The corpses dissolved into ash.
The screams fell into silence.
The light engulfed him.
But freedom was not immediate.
He was thrust into a new prison—a forced reality.
The world of his memories.
He relived them all: his mother's laugh, Kael's reckless grin, the first time he held a sword, the quiet evenings when the world felt safe.
Each memory was warm, perfect—yet cloying. A golden cage disguised as joy.
But Gareth knew peace without truth was just another chain.
And so he struck again.
Fist against the glowing veil. Against the illusion of happiness.
He punched and punched, though each blow shattered his heart. He cherished the memories.
He wept for them. But he would not let them bind him.
Until the light itself cracked.
Until shadow and radiance broke together.
And then—
With an explosion that split the void itself, Gareth's soul erupted.
Black and white intertwined, radiance and abyss fusing into a single blinding surge. Chains dissolved.
Shalkeer's throne cracked, flames guttered, and the demon's eyes widened for the first time.
And Gareth stood ascended.
Veilbound, 1.5.
The White Root: The Awakened.
His body glowed with purity laced in shadow, his eyes burning with twin fires—one white, one black. For the first time, he felt whole.
For the first time, the abyss trembled before him.
Gareth's body trembled as he drew breath again—real breath, not that suffocating void. His eyes opened, burning with twin fires: one pale as dawn, the other black as the deepest abyss.
The ground around him cracked, stones hovering, pulled toward him as if the world itself bent at his will.
Then—silence.
And from that silence, something new stirred. A current within the light. Subtle, invisible, yet overwhelming.
Gareth raised his hand.
The earth answered.
The boulder Kael had ripped three hours before—the one that lay shattered at the mountain's base—began to quake.
Stone shards trembled, then lifted, floating into the sky as though weightless.
Slowly, the entire broken mass reformed, fusing together into a single colossal slab.
Kael's eyes widened. "Impossible…"
The mountain hovered. The sea roared beneath its shadow.
And then, with a single flick of Gareth's fingers—
The mountain cracked.
Not with brute force. Not with raw strength. But with sheer precision. Pieces splintered into fragments, then fragments into dust.
Every strike was silent, yet absolute, as though the very concept of solidity had been rewritten.
Bit by bit, the mountain was undone, until nothing remained but drifting grains scattered into the wind.
The dust sparkled in the dying light, a storm of gold across the horizon.
Gareth lowered his hand, expression calm, almost detached. His voice was quiet, but it carried like thunder:
"Telekinesis. A technique I just created."
The ground stilled. The sea calmed. Even Kael, who had just lifted mountains with his bare hands, stood frozen, jaw tight, his chest rising with a rare unease.
For the first time, Kael realized—Gareth wasn't just catching up.He was changing the game
The dust storm settled.
Kael's breath came heavy, but his eyes never left Gareth. His comrade—his brother in all but blood—stood cloaked in light and shadow, calm as if nothing had happened.
The messenger finally found his voice.
He had been frozen, staring at what no mortal should have witnessed, but now his legs trembled as he stumbled forward.
"G-Gareth Valven… Kael Draven… I bring word from Captain Belmarius."
Gareth turned, slowly. His eyes still glowed faintly, the afterburn of something far beyond human.
The messenger swallowed hard, his voice breaking.
"The Captain requests your presence. Urgently. He said… he said the seas are shifting.
That a storm unlike any before is brewing, and only the Awakened can face it."
Kael frowned, stepping closer, arms crossed. "What storm?"
The messenger shook his head, his face pale with exhaustion.
"They call it the Howl of Acoma. Entire fleets vanish without a trace. Islands swallowed in minutes. He says the prison incident was only the beginning—that something far older has awoken, and it's tearing the roots themselves apart."
Gareth's expression darkened, but he said nothing.
His goggles hid his eyes, though the faint glow still leaked through the lenses.
The messenger dropped to one knee, clutching his chest as though even speaking the words drained him.
"He also… he also told me to say this.
The chains you broke are not gone—they are waiting. And if you falter, they will bind us all."
The wind howled louder, whipping Gareth's coat.
Kael glanced at him. "Looks like we don't get to rest."
Gareth tilted his head back, gazing at the endless Vast Sea. His lips curved into a thin, unreadable smile.
"Rest is a luxury," he murmured. "And I'm done with illusions."
The docks of Yimen were alive with their usual chaos.
Ships creaked in the harbor, sails flapping like restless wings.
The air reeked of salt, sweat, and smoke, yet it pulsed with life.
Gareth walked among it all with Kael at his side.
The clash of steel rang from a nearby alley, where two of Grave's pirates were settling disputes the only way they knew how—through blades and broken teeth.
Children darted between barrels and crates, their laughter a bright contrast, chasing one another with sticks as though they wielded legendary swords.
Kael scoffed, watching them.
"Pirate brats. Give them a dagger and in five years they'll slit a throat without blinking."
Gareth's gaze lingered longer than his.
"Or… maybe one of them won't. Maybe one will be different."
Kael raised a brow at that tone but said nothing.
They passed a gathering of townsfolk on the corner.
A man held up a freshly printed newspaper, ink still staining his fingers. The headline screamed in bold:
"NEW CULT RISES — NUMBERS SURGE TO THE THOUSANDS."
Whispers rippled through the crowd. Some voices held fear. Others awe. A few muttered curses under their breath.
Gareth's jaw tightened.
Umbrael stirred within him, its voice a calm, chilling whisper."There are now fifty-three thousand who call your name, boy.
Fifty-three thousand who would bleed for you.
Their faith rises… but so does the disturbance. Others are beginning to notice."
Gareth exhaled slowly, lowering his goggles to hide the flicker in his eyes.
"So the shadow spreads faster than I thought."
Kael glanced at him sideways, clearly suspicious, but before he could pry, Gareth moved on.
By nightfall, they found themselves in a quiet tavern tucked away from the main streets.
The room buzzed with soft chatter, sailors and merchants nursing their mugs.
Kael leaned back, boots on the table, beer in hand. Gareth sat across from him, sipping his own, not with recklessness but with calm deliberation.
For the first time in a long time, Kael studied him in silence. There was something different about Gareth now—an edge of maturity, of gravity.
His shoulders no longer sagged with boyish doubt. His words carried weight, even when unsaid.
Kael finally smirked. "You've changed. Still reckless, still cursed, but… different. Maybe growing up doesn't look so bad on you."
Gareth met his eyes over the rim of the mug. "I didn't have a choice."
They drank in silence after that, the weight of storms yet to come pressing at the edges of their peace.
Kael leaned back, boots still propped on the table, beer mug half-empty.
Gareth sat across from him, sipping slowly, the glow in his eyes finally dimming into something almost human.
The tavern murmured with low voices, the clatter of mugs, the creak of old wood.
Outside, the sea whispered against the docks, relentless as ever.
For a time, they sat in silence. Brothers in arms, but men marked by storms yet unseen.
Finally, Gareth set his mug down, gaze steady on the candle flickering between them.
His voice was low, almost casual, but the weight beneath it made Kael's smirk fade.
"Why are the pirates here?" he asked. His fingers tapped the mug once.
"Why do they linger, watching us? Why do we always have to fight again?"
He only studied Gareth for a long moment, then drank deep, the silence between them heavier than steel.
Outside, the sea kept whispering—like it knew the answer neither man wanted to speak aloud.