The dust hadn't fully settled from Kairo's battle with Vael when the visions began.
At first, they came in flickers—half-formed whispers, ghostly flashes in the corners of his sight. A face he didn't recognize. A temple buried in ash. A voice calling his name not as a person, but as a title.
"Kairo… the Chosen Rift."
Sleep was a luxury he no longer knew. That night, under the blanket of stars, he sat beside the dying embers of a campfire while Zevrin snored lightly nearby.
The third Fragment pulsed at his core like a heartbeat. Ever since the clash with Vael, it had grown… restless. Hungrier. And something else had awakened with it.
A direction.
He stood, eyes locked on the distant horizon.
> "East," he whispered to himself. "I don't know why… but I have to go east."
---
By morning, they were already moving.
The eastern path was wilder, less mapped. Locals in the nearby village had called it The Veiled Steppe—a wind-choked expanse haunted by mirages and lost time. No maps covered it. No Guild missions reached it.
Which meant Kairo was on the right path.
Zevrin trudged beside him, keeping a sharp eye out.
> "This place is cursed. You sure you're not chasing a fever dream?"
> "No," Kairo said. "It's more than instinct. Something's guiding me… someone."
> "You're talking about the Oracle, aren't you?"
Kairo nodded.
Zevrin groaned.
> "Of course it's an Oracle. It's always an Oracle."
---
The Veiled Steppe greeted them with howling winds and shifting ground. The landscape was dry and cracked, but filled with illusions. Shapes moved at the edges of sight—some humanoid, some monstrous.
And then, in the center of the desolate plain, a monument rose like a jagged tooth from the earth.
A tower of black stone, wrapped in silver roots and marked with symbols that shimmered and vanished when looked at directly.
It was real.
And it was waiting.
Kairo stepped forward.
The moment his foot touched the lowest stair, the wind died. The world stilled. Even Zevrin stopped speaking.
And then—light.
The symbols along the tower's surface began to glow.
Not white. Not gold.
But crimson.
> "Enter, Riftwalker," a voice whispered from within his mind. "The path is set."
---
Inside, the tower was impossibly wide—far larger than it looked from the outside. Mirrors lined the walls, each one reflecting not his current self, but versions of him from timelines that never were.
A version where he never awakened.
A version where he died in the Goblin Raid.
One where he wore a crown, face twisted in hatred.
He turned away.
And at the top of the winding spiral staircase, he found her.
The Oracle.
She wasn't old. She wasn't cloaked in mystery or shrouded in fog. She was young. Radiant. Her hair flowed like liquid silver, and her eyes glowed with swirling galaxies.
She was blind—but saw everything.
> "Kairo Velen," she said, her voice echoing through the chamber like music. "The world already bends around your footsteps."
> "Why am I here?" he asked.
> "Because the gods will soon make their move. And when they do, you must be ready to either bow—or burn them from the sky."
She raised her hand, and a vision bloomed before him—a burning sky, cities torn asunder, monsters the size of mountains walking among mortals.
> "This is the future your world faces. Unless the Fragments are united."
> "I don't know where the others are," Kairo admitted.
> "You don't need to know," she replied. "You need to become something they fear."
Then she placed her fingers over his heart—and the world exploded.
---
Kairo collapsed.
His mind filled with symbols, names of ancient beings, and knowledge that wasn't meant for mortals. His body shook with power. The Third Fragment had evolved. It now reached toward the Fourth—and beyond.
When he rose again, his eyes glowed faintly gold.
> "I saw them," he said. "The gods."
> "And now they've seen you," the Oracle replied. "Your next path lies within the Forgotten Vale. But beware, Kairo…"
She turned her head toward him, eyes blank and yet endless.
> "You are not the only one hunting the Fragments. The next Guardian will not test you. He will try to destroy you."