The shattered relic fragment in Kael's hand pulsed faintly.
It was unmistakable—etched with the same crescent glyph found on Zera's Wraith Bell. But this one was cracked, burned at the edges as if someone tried to destroy it with sheer aura force.
Drayke left it behind for a reason.
Kael stood amidst the dying embers of the broken domain, shoulders heavy, lungs aching from the burn of Ashen surge withdrawal. The pain had returned—livid and sharp—now that the temporary immunity of Soul Scorch had ended.
His ribs throbbed, his arm twitched involuntarily, and yet… he smiled.
He'd landed a hit.
Not on just anyone—on Drayke.
Not as the younger brother tagging along, but as a fighter.
An equal.
Still, the warning lingered: The Eternals are stirring.
He clenched the broken bell tighter.
What was Zera hiding?
[Moments Later – Surface Camp]
"You FOUGHT him?!" Lyra shouted, storming toward Kael, Sunveil Feather glowing anxiously. "You're not even fully Tuned, and you picked a fight with an S-Class domain user?!"
Kael sat on a stone, ignoring her concern, still staring at the relic shard in his hand.
Drayke Norr snorted. "That wasn't a fight. That was a one-sided schooling with a lucky counterstrike."
Kael didn't rise to the bait.
He spoke quietly. "He could've killed me. But he didn't."
Lyra folded her arms, visibly worried. "Then what did he want?"
Kael met her gaze.
"To send a message."
He held up the broken relic.
"Zera's involved in this. Somehow."
[Zera POV – Noctheron Marsh]
Zera's eyes fluttered open the moment her bell fragment was disturbed.
The echoes in the swamp screamed.
The connection hadn't been broken—it had been severed, forcefully, by Drayke himself. And now Kael had it.
Her lips curved in a humorless smile.
"So... it begins."
Behind her, inside the ruins of a submerged obelisk, the aura shadows coiled and whispered.
Old voices.
Dead voices.
All bound to her Cursed Mist.
The bell on her hip rang softly—without her touching it.
She turned her head slightly.
"You felt him too, didn't you?" she asked.
No answer came—only a cold wind that carried a scent of ash.
Drayke had awakened something beneath Emberdeep.
And Kael's Ashen aura was starting to resonate.
[Back to Kael's Camp]
Night fell quickly in Emberdeep. The skies above the ruins never stayed clear for long—clouds of soot choked out the stars, and the ground itself pulsed with residual aura.
Kael couldn't sleep.
He sat near the edge of camp, blade resting beside him, relic shard on his lap.
The system was quiet tonight. No prompts. No guidance. It almost felt like it was watching too.
He replayed the clash over and over in his mind. The weight of Drayke's domain. The overwhelming difference in aura control.
He needed to grow.
Faster.
And he needed answers.
So he called her.
"Zera."
There was a beat of silence.
Then a gust of wind stirred the ashes.
And she stepped from the mist.
She was always unnerving—moving without sound, dressed in veils that didn't flow with the wind but with intent. Her Wraith Bell hung at her hip, glowing faintly with pale blue light.
She looked down at the shard in Kael's hand and sighed.
"So. He gave it to you."
Kael nodded. "He said you knew what's coming."
Zera didn't answer immediately. She reached out, fingers ghosting over the cracked fragment. Her expression—usually unreadable—shifted.
Not fear.
Not guilt.
Sorrow.
"That bell," she said, "was once part of a seal."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "Seal?"
Zera nodded. "Long ago, before the Aura System fractured the world into ranks, there were no dungeons—only domains. And in one of those domains, the Eternals were born."
"You mean—?"
"Not born like you and I. Manifested. Incarnations of pure aura resonance. They were never meant to exist long… but one survived. And it didn't want to fade."
Kael's breath caught.
"You helped seal it."
Zera looked away.
"I was part of the cult that worshipped it."
Kael stood abruptly.
"You what?"
She didn't flinch.
"My Wraith Bell was forged from its dying scream. The Cursed Mist wasn't a gift—it was a punishment. A shackle. I betrayed it. Helped bind it beneath Emberdeep."
"And now it's waking up again."
She nodded once.
"Drayke found what we buried. And you—Kael—you're attuned to its pulse."
Kael's hands trembled slightly. Not from fear, but from the burning coil of understanding forming in his chest.
The nightmares.
The voices in the dungeon.
The whisper in the flames that called him by name.
He wasn't just adapting to aura types.
He was syncing with something ancient.
Zera knelt beside the fire, pulling a scroll from her cloak.
It was old—written in a dead dialect, scrawled with aura marks.
"Read this," she said. "It's the Hunter's Bane Doctrine—the true one. The system doesn't allow its full version to circulate anymore."
Kael took it cautiously.
"Why give this to me?"
"Because," Zera said, voice low, "if you survive long enough to reach Transcendence, you won't be human anymore."
His heartbeat slowed.
"What will I be?"
Zera looked up, eyes glowing faintly.
"A vessel."
[System Update Notification – Hidden Layer Accessed]
[New Skill Path Unlocked: Echo of the Bound]
[Effect: Absorbs aura remnants from relics tied to sealed Eternals. Skills gained will be unstable until Synchro-Fusion occurs.]
[Warning: Soul stability threshold at 72% – further integration may risk identity bleed.]
Kael stared at the prompt.
The choice was no longer about strength.
It was about control.
He could gain power faster than ever now—but at the risk of becoming something… else.
He looked at Zera.
"Why are you helping me?"
She didn't answer right away.
Finally, she whispered:
"Because last time, we sealed the wrong one."
[Somewhere Beyond Aurenya – Unknown Location]
Inside a forgotten cathedral of blackstone and bone, a figure stirred.
Its body was carved from crystalized aura—its face a swirling void. Around it, chained creatures knelt—failed hunters, corrupted relics, malformed fusions.
One of the chains trembled.
The figure turned.
And smiled.
"The Ashen has awakened."
Its voice didn't echo.
It erased sound.