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Eternal Soul : Chronicles of the Shattered Realms

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Synopsis
Eight thousand years ago, a cataclysm tore apart the realms, scattering fragments of a once-whole world across the void. Gods vanished, demons awoke, and mortals struggled under skies that bled with fractured stars. In the village of Duskmere, a boy awakens with memories that do not belong to him—memories of four lifetimes spent battling an ancient evil that refuses to die. Each time he fell, the world drowned further in despair. Now reborn for the fifth and final time, he carries within him the fragments of his former selves: the warrior, the scholar, the king, and the traitor. But the darkness he fought has also returned—more cunning, more patient, and whispering from the cracks between realms. This is the story of a soul that refuses to yield, a world caught between rebirth and annihilation, and the final war between destiny and defiance.
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Chapter 1 - Chapter 1 : The Fifth Dawn

The sky was broken.

To most in Duskmere, this was nothing unusual. The children had grown up beneath shattered heavens, and the elders had stopped questioning it long ago. To them, the three crescent moons dangling unevenly across the black tapestry of night were simply how the world had always been. They no longer remembered the stories of when the sky had only one moon, whole and radiant.

But to Kael, lying in the silence of a small wooden hut, the sight of the broken heavens was like staring into an old wound—one that should have healed long ago, but still bled each time it was touched.

He jolted awake, his breath sharp, his chest rising and falling as if he had run for miles. Sweat dampened his thin linen shirt, clinging to his skin. His heart thundered, not with the rhythm of a boy's peaceful slumber, but with the panic of a soldier who had died too many times.

The room was dark, only a faint silver glow seeping through the cracks of the shuttered window. The beams caught in the dust that drifted lazily through the air, turning each mote into a tiny star. The smell of dried fish, faint woodsmoke, and river water clung to the space—it was the smell of his family's life, ordinary and humble.

Yet within him surged memories that did not belong to a fisherman's son.

Kael pressed a trembling hand to his chest, his nails digging into his skin as images crashed against his mind, one after another, like waves against cliffs.

A battlefield of endless fire, corpses piled upon one another, his arms heavy with the weight of a broken sword.

A chamber of runes and flickering candles, his ink-stained fingers frantically scratching forbidden scripts onto parchment as the walls trembled with distant screams.

A golden throne drenched in blood, a crown pressing down until it felt like a shackle, as men and women cursed his name with their dying breaths.

A knife glinting in the dark, his own hand plunging it into the back of a friend who trusted him, buying a few stolen moments of hope that shattered into ash.

Four lives. Four deaths. Four failures.

And now… a fifth chance.

Kael stumbled from his cot, his bare feet touching the cold wooden floor. The old planks creaked softly, but his parents did not stir in the next room. His father, weary from the day's fishing, slept with the deep exhaustion of a man who labored to feed his family. His mother, who had spent the evening weaving by the dim glow of a lamp, finally rested beside him.

They were peaceful. Untouched by the knowledge clawing at Kael's heart.

He staggered to the window, fingers fumbling at the latch, and pushed it open. Cold night air swept into the room, carrying with it the scent of wet earth and river reeds. The village of Duskmere lay quiet beneath the fractured sky—small wooden houses huddled together like sheep, the faint glow of dying hearths flickering within. Beyond them stretched the docks, where boats swayed gently in the slow current of the black river.

It was peaceful. Ordinary. Safe.

But Kael knew better.

He tilted his head back, staring at the heavens. The broken moons pulsed faintly, as if each beat of their pale glow echoed with some distant, hidden heartbeat. And then he heard it.

The whisper.

It came not through his ears but through the marrow of his bones, through the cracks of his soul itself.

I am not gone.

Kael's breath caught. His hands gripped the window frame until his knuckles turned white.

It was the same voice he had heard in every lifetime. The same presence that had risen again and again, no matter how many times he tried to end it. Cold, patient, cruel, it clung to him like a shadow that could not be severed.

You will fail again.

His chest tightened, fury and despair tangling inside him. "No," he whispered, his voice raw. "Not this time."

But the whisper only deepened, curling through him like smoke. You are mine, soul-bearer. You were always mine.

Kael shut his eyes, forcing himself to breathe, to anchor himself in the now—in the sound of crickets outside, in the distant bark of a dog, in the rhythm of his father's coughing through the wall. This was not the battlefield of his past lives. This was Duskmere. His fifth life. His final chance.

He would not waste it.

Yet even as he tried to steady himself, memories continued to gnaw at him. He saw the faces of those he had failed—warriors who had trusted him, friends who had believed in him, innocents who had died screaming while he stood powerless. Their eyes haunted him, accusing and hollow.

"Kael…"

The voice startled him, but it was not the whisper of the dark. It was soft, sleepy. His little sister, Mira, stood in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. She was no more than eight, her dark hair tangled, her small frame wrapped in a blanket she had dragged with her from her bed.

"Why are you awake?" she asked, her voice drowsy.

Kael forced a smile, though his hands still shook. "Couldn't sleep."

Mira yawned, shuffling closer until she stood beside him, staring out at the broken sky. "Mama says the moons are beautiful tonight."

Beautiful. Kael almost laughed, but the sound that escaped him was bitter. To Mira, the fractured moons were nothing strange. She had never known a whole sky. She had never stood on a battlefield and watched those very moons weep blood.

But he did not tell her that. Instead, he knelt, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "They are," he whispered, though the words tasted like ash.

Mira leaned against him, her warmth grounding him in the moment. She was fragile, innocent. If the darkness rose again—and Kael knew it would—it would devour children like her without hesitation.

Not this time, he swore silently. I will not let it touch them.

He carried Mira back to her bed, tucking her beneath the thin quilt, brushing the hair from her forehead as she drifted back into sleep. He lingered for a long moment, watching her chest rise and fall, before returning to his own room.

Sitting on the edge of his cot, Kael clenched his fists until his nails cut into his palms. His past lives weighed upon him—the warrior's fury, the scholar's desperation, the king's burden, the traitor's guilt. Each one whispered their failures, their regrets.

But they also left him something else. Knowledge. Strength. Resolve.

Kael raised his head, eyes burning with a fire that had not been there when he awoke. The whisper in the darkness thought it would claim him again. It thought he would stumble and fall as before.

It was wrong.

The fifth dawn had begun.

And this time, Kael would not yield.