"Some places don't forget. They wait."
The sky dimmed unnaturally the moment they crossed into Noctheron Marsh.
Clouds hung like mourning veils, and the sun became a rumor—its light diluted into a perpetual twilight. The air was thick, not just with fog but with memory. It clung to the skin. Sank into the lungs. Whispered in the back of the mind.
Lyra shivered despite her celestial aura.
"This place feels... diseased."
Drayke flicked fire from his fingertips, but the flame dimmed as if embarrassed to burn here. "Yeah. Marshland's cursed. You can smell it."
Zera stepped forward, her eyes half-lidded. Here, her aura shimmered like it belonged.
"It's not cursed. It's remembering."
Kael stayed silent, scanning the terrain. Cracked stone walkways wound through blackened water. Ancient lanterns hung on skeletal trees, each glowing faintly with trapped souls—aura echoes left behind by those who died inside the swamp.
It was here the Archivist of the Abyss hid.
The one who cataloged names bound to doom.
And Kael needed her.
As they moved deeper into the marsh, the fog thickened. Then came the voices.
Faint. Familiar.
Lyra heard a child's scream. She froze.
Drayke heard his own laughter—twisted, distorted.
Kael heard nothing.
Until suddenly—he did.
A voice he hadn't heard since he buried it in silence.
"Kael... run."
It was his brother's voice. Drayke Arclight.
Kael stopped mid-step. His fingers twitched, drawing the Ashen Veil unconsciously.
Lyra turned to him, worried. "What did you hear?"
"Something I already escaped," he muttered. "Let's keep moving."
The deeper they went, the more reality blurred. Time stuttered. Zera left markings—small silver threads—to keep their path from looping, but even those began to fray.
And then, without warning—
They found her.
Or rather, she found them.
A ripple in the water. A shadow beneath the roots. And then, she rose.
She was tall, unnaturally so, her face veiled in moth wings and stitched silk. Where her mouth should've been was a book sewn shut. Pages peeled off her arms like skin.
The Archivist of the Abyss.
She spoke not with a voice, but with aura—projected directly into their minds.
"Who seeks their forgotten name?"
Kael stepped forward. "I do."
Her head tilted. Pages fluttered, and the swamp responded.
Suddenly, the water shifted, revealing images beneath the surface—Kael's battles, Lyra's mercy, Drayke's rage, Zera's secrets.
"Memory is currency," the Archivist intoned. "What will you trade for a future unbound?"
Kael clenched his fists. "What do you want?"
"A name."
She turned to Zera.
"Her true one."
Zera didn't flinch. She stared at Kael. "If this is the only way... then take it."
The Archivist extended a tendril of ink-like aura. It touched Zera's chest, and the world paused.
Kael saw it—her past. A castle in the mist. A mother screaming. The moment her bloodline was cleaved.
And then—
"Zeraphine of the Abyssborne."
Her full name. Eternal by lineage.
Zera fell to her knees.
But the Archivist turned to Kael. A page from her body peeled off and floated to him.
He caught it.
On it, a single phrase burned:
"Kael Arclight – Catalyst of Collapse."
Kael felt his aura throb. His pulse warped. For a moment, he wasn't sure if he was holding the page—or if the page was holding him.
"The path is wound. You can still cut it," the Archivist whispered. "But every cut leaves a scar."
The fog parted behind her.
A gate of bone. A dungeon core hanging upside-down, bleeding light into a spiral pit.
The next dungeon: The Hollow Archive.
Not just a trial.
A reflection.
Kael turned to the others.
"Anyone backing out?"
Drayke grinned. "Are you kidding? That place looks like it's begging to be broken."
Lyra took a breath, nodded. "We follow your lead."
Zera stood slowly, eyes distant. "No turning back now."
Kael stepped through the gate.
The Hollow Archive opened its maw—and welcomed them home.