The northern wind didn't howl—it *screamed*.
Kael pulled his cloak tighter, the obsidian lotus warm against his chest. Three weeks he'd tracked the rumors from Veridia to the Frostfang Pass: villages abandoned mid-meal, livestock frozen in terror, children's toys scattered in snow with no footprints leading away. The people called it **Silent Winter**—not for the cold, but for the absence of sound. No birds. No wolves. Not even the wind's whisper.
He found the first village at dusk.
**Haven's End** was a cluster of log cabins buried in snow, smokeless chimneys like broken teeth against the violet sky. The door to the largest cabin hung open. Inside, a stew pot still simmered over cold coals. A child's doll lay in the center of the floor, its button eyes staring at nothing.
No blood. No struggle. Just… **emptiness**.
Kael knelt, pressing a hand to the floorboards. His **Void Sovereign** senses flared—not with soul-resonance, but with **wrongness**. The wood felt *hollow*, as if the very memory of the people who lived here had been scraped clean.
Then he saw it.
Outside, in the snow, leading away from the village toward the mountains: **footprints**. Dozens of them. Small. Barefoot. All facing the same direction. And between them, dragged through the powder, a single, deep furrow—like something heavy had been pulled.
He followed.
Night fell fast in the north. The aurora borealis shimmered overhead, green and violet, but its light cast no warmth. The footprints led to a clearing where the snow was blackened, as if burned. In the center stood a stone altar—crude, ancient, carved with symbols that hurt to look at. And on it, resting like an offering, was a **human heart**, still beating, encased in ice that glowed with a sickly silver light.
Kael's breath fogged in the air. This wasn't the Devourer's work. That hunger was chaotic, loud, *greedy*. This was precise. Silent. **Cultivated**.
A voice spoke behind him—not in his ears, but in his *mind*, smooth as starlight, cold as the void between worlds.
> **"You are the Empty One. The one who refused the Light."**
Kael spun, Lotus Dagger in hand. No one stood there. Only the wind.
> **"I have watched you. You unmade the Devourer not with power, but with… memory. How curious."**
The voice came from the heart. The ice cracked. The heart beat once, twice, then **exploded** into a swarm of silver moths. They swirled around Kael, their wings whispering fragments of thoughts:
*"…cold… so cold…"*
*"…mother, where are you?…"*
*"…it promised stars…"*
Kael raised a hand. **Void Shroud** activated—but the moths passed through it like smoke. One landed on his cheek. Instantly, a vision seared his mind:
*A cloaked figure on a mountain peak, arms raised to a bleeding star. Below, children march in silent unison, eyes filled with silver light. The figure turns—its face is a mask of pure starlight—and smiles. "Welcome, Kael Reyes. I've prepared a seat for you among the stars."*
Kael staggered back, swatting the moths away. They dissolved into snowflakes.
Then, the System returned—not as a menu, but as a **presence**, ancient and watchful.
> **[VOID SOVEREIGN SYSTEM — REACTIVATED.]**
> **[THREAT DETECTED: STAR-EATER (COSMIC ENTITY, ORDER OF HUNGER: VOID ASCENDANT).]**
> **[REALITY ANOMALY: SKY-RIFT — LOCATION: FROSTFANG SUMMIT.]**
> **[MISSION: INVESTIGATE HAVEN'S END. RESCUE LOST SOULS.]**
> **[WARNING: STARLIGHT CORRUPTS VOID. AVOID DIRECT EXPOSURE.]**
Kael looked back at the village. At the open door. At the cold stew. These people weren't dead. They were **taken**. Harvested for something worse than soul-fuel.
He touched the obsidian lotus. "Lyra," he whispered to the wind. "Send word to the Lotus. The hunger didn't die. It just… changed constellations."
He turned toward the mountains, where the bleeding star pulsed like a wound in the sky.
The Crimson Lotus had purged the earth.
Now, they would have to climb into the heavens.
> **[NEW STATUS (KAEL)]**
> **STR: 8 | AGI: 11 | VIT: 9 | INT: 17 | WIS: 16 | CHA: 14 | VOD: 20**
> **[VOID RESISTANCE: -5% (STARLIGHT EXPOSURE).]**
> **[QUEST: TRACK THE MARCH OF CHILDREN.]**
The wind screamed again.
But this time, Kael screamed back.