The night sky was silent—too silent.
Not even the wind dared to move. The observatory stood at the edge of the city, bathed in the faint glow of dying mana reactors. Inside, a single monitor pulsed faintly, displaying a signal no one could explain.
> 03:00 A.M. — anomaly detected.
A faint blue shimmer rippled across the air as if the world itself had exhaled.
Arven leaned closer to the glass panel, his eyes reflecting the faint rhythm of the light.
It wasn't flickering randomly. It pulsed—steady, alive.
"Lyra," he called softly, "look at this."
Lyra turned, her long silver hair catching the reactor light. "That's… not a star. Its frequency repeats every three seconds."
She paused, her voice dropping. "Almost like it's trying to speak."
Arven smiled faintly, though his voice trembled. "Exactly."
The light flared once more—brighter this time—and a thin vibration ran through the floor. Metal pipes hummed, computers crackled, and even their mana rings began to resonate.
Daren, leaning on the wall, muttered under his breath, "I don't like this. Light isn't supposed to breathe."
No one answered.
Because the moment they looked back at the screen, it was no longer just a pulse.
It was a pattern—a sequence of shapes, spinning slowly like an ancient code.
And at the center of it, one word appeared in pure white:
> "KAELIS."
The lights died. The observatory went black.
Arven froze, unable to breathe. His own name—his true name—echoed in his mind like a memory he had never lived.
Then he heard it.
A voice—not from the speakers, not from the machines—but from the light itself.
> "You've forgotten me, Arven Kaelis."
"But I never forgot you."
A surge of pain tore through his chest. He fell to his knees as veins of blue light crawled across his skin. The others tried to reach him, but the air distorted—sound warped—reality bent inward like glass cracking under pressure.
The world flashed white.
And for a moment, he wasn't in the observatory anymore.
He stood in an endless sea of radiance.
Floating lights shaped themselves into faces, into whispers, into a woman's voice that trembled between sorrow and fury.
> "You took the fire, and you built a cage around it."
"Now, it's time to open it again."
When he opened his eyes, he was back—sweating, gasping, trembling.
The light in his palm pulsed once, then faded into silence.
Lyra's voice broke the stillness.
"Arven... what did you see?"
He didn't answer.
Because outside the window, where the night sky once was—
there was no sky at all.
Only light.
Pure, endless white, swallowing everything.