Chapter 3 – Whispers in the Dead World
The dragon's corpse still smoked behind him, its molten blood cooling into jagged black crystal.
Kael stood there for a long moment, leaning on his blade. His breath came in ragged gasps.
Every inch of his body hurt.
Every muscle burned.
And yet, a strange warmth lingered in his chest—a pulse, slow but steady, like a second heartbeat.
[Cosmic Energy Absorption: 12%]
The voice again.
Cold, mechanical… but now it carried something else.
Almost like satisfaction.
"What the hell does that mean?" Kael muttered.
The system didn't answer.
Instead, the wind shifted.
It was faint—almost like a whisper carried through the ash.
At first, he thought it was in his head. But then the whispers grew louder, overlapping, thousands of voices speaking at once.
They weren't speaking any language he knew… yet somehow, he understood.
The seal… cracks.
The key… awakens.
The Eater of Stars will rise again.
Kael froze.
"Seal? Key? Eater of Stars? What the hell are you talking about?"
The whispers ignored him.
And then—just as suddenly as they came—they were gone.
He looked around.
The Dead World felt… different.
The air shimmered faintly, threads of pale light curling through the mist like veins in stone. The deeper he stared, the more he saw—a vast web of luminous energy stretching across the horizon.
And in the distance, beyond mountains of black glass, something pulsed.
A tower.
No… not a tower.
A monolith.
Even from here, Kael could feel it watching him.
[Warning: Zone Ahead – Calamity Rank Minimum]
The system's warning flashed before his eyes.
If that was true… then the dragon he had just killed was nothing.
Still… his grip on his sword tightened.
For the first time since arriving here, he wasn't just trying to survive.
He wanted to know why.
Why him?
Why this world?
And what was the "seal" the whispers spoke of?
Before he could think further, the ground shook again.
This time, it wasn't a monster.
The sky itself split—ribbons of light tearing open a jagged wound in the clouds.
From that rift… something looked down on him.
He couldn't see its full shape, only the glint of countless eyes.
Come, Key-Bearer.
The voice thundered directly into his mind, so loud he nearly dropped his sword.
And then the rift closed, leaving Kael alone in the silent wasteland.
He stared at the black horizon.
One thing was certain.
The Dead World wasn't just a prison.
It was a battleground.
And something out there was waiting for him to play his part.