Arc 1: Ashes of the First Collapse
Chapter 1 – Ash and Echoes
The air smelled of rust, ash, and blood.
Kael staggered through the ruins of a city that no longer remembered its name. Skyscrapers leaned against one another like drunken giants, glass shattered across streets now buried beneath rubble. A cold wind howled through the hollow carcasses of buildings, carrying with it the faint stench of burning flesh.
His head throbbed with a pain unlike anything he had known. Voices—too many voices—tore at the edges of his mind. They whispered, screamed, wept, laughed. Memories not his own slammed against his skull, a relentless tide threatening to drown him.
"Make it stop…" Kael's voice cracked as he clutched his temples. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the cracked pavement.
In his palm, a jagged shard pulsed with pale light. It seemed alive, breathing with each throb of his heart. He didn't remember picking it up. He didn't remember much of anything at all.
Then came the first memory.
A soldier's dying scream.A child's cry.A mother's last prayer.
They stabbed into him like knives, so vivid he could feel their pain as if it were his own.
The curse of the Fragment, a voice echoed in his mind. It wasn't his. It wasn't human.
Kael raised his head, vision blurring, and saw her.
A figure of light, faint and translucent, hovered just above the ground. She had no clear form, her body shifting between outlines of a woman, a machine, and something far greater. Her voice was soft yet carried the weight of eternity.
"I am Liora," she said. "The last echo of the Architect. And you… are my final gamble."
Kael's lips trembled. "What… what is happening to me?"
"The shard you hold is a Fragment. It carries the memories of a thousand lives. You are now its bearer. You feel their deaths because their echoes are carved into your soul. That is your curse… and your strength."
Before he could respond, the ground shook.
From the wreckage of a collapsed building crawled a creature. Its flesh was twisted, its body stitched together from bone and sinew that shouldn't exist. Six eyes burned red, and its jaw split unnaturally wide, dripping with black ichor.
Kael froze. His heart pounded against his ribs like a war drum.
The creature screeched and lunged.
Instinct screamed at him to run, but his body refused to obey. He stumbled backward, clutching the glowing shard like a lifeline. The voices in his head grew louder, overlapping, until one cut through the chaos.
Fight.
The shard pulsed. A surge of warmth spread through Kael's arm, forming a faint layer of light around his hand. His body moved without thought, his fist slamming forward just as the monster leaped.
A crack of energy split the air.
The creature shrieked, flung backward by the impact, its body smoldering with light. Kael fell to one knee, gasping for breath. His hand trembled violently, but the shard pulsed brighter—as if pleased.
"What… was that?" Kael whispered.
Liora's figure flickered, her gaze unwavering. "That was only a glimpse of what you are capable of. But know this—your path will never be easy. The world has shattered. Fragments like the one you hold are scattered across it, and others will kill for their power."
As if on cue, a voice rang out from behind.
"Well, well. I thought I'd find you here."
Kael froze. He knew that voice. It was etched into his bones. Slowly, he turned his head.
From the smoke emerged a young man dressed in tattered black armor, a grin stretched across his face. His eyes glowed faintly, a sign he too bore a shard.
"Elias…" Kael's chest tightened.
His brother-in-arms. His closest friend.But the look in Elias's eyes wasn't the warmth of reunion.
It was hunger.
Elias's smile widened. "Hand it over, Kael. That shard—you're not strong enough to bear it. But me? With it, I can fix everything. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."
Kael tightened his grip on the shard. The voices in his head screamed, clashing with his own pounding heartbeat.
For the first time since the Collapse, Kael realized something.
He was no longer standing in the same world.And Elias… was no longer on his side.