The rain fell in sheets of silver, washing the ash from the broken city.
From a high ledge above the ruins, someone watched Kaen.
A girl.
Cloaked in midnight-blue silk, her eyes glowed faintly—one silver, one gold. A strange fox-like creature perched on her shoulder, tails coiled around her neck like a living scarf.
"I saw it," she whispered. "The relic chose him."
The creature purred. "He shouldn't be alive."
"I know," she replied. "But now that he is… the balance just shifted."
Kaen stumbled through the ruins, holding his ribs. Every step burned, but he couldn't stop now. He had to disappear before the Academy found out.
He passed a mirror shard stuck in the rubble.
And froze.
The reflection wasn't his.
In the shard, he saw himself—but older. His eyes were glowing embers, his body draped in armor of flame and chain. Behind him, corpses lay in ash. A kingdom burned.
He blinked.
Gone.
His breath caught. Is that… what I become?
"Hey."
He spun around.
The girl stood behind him—unafraid, unreadable.
Kaen instinctively raised his hand, ember crackling.
She didn't flinch. "You're bleeding. And exhausted. If I wanted to hurt you, you'd already be ash."
He hesitated. "Who are you?"
"Someone who saw what you touched," she said. "And someone who knows what's coming for you."
The fox-like creature yawned. "She's Lira. Seer of Broken Fates. Has a tragic backstory and everything."
"Shut up, Vex," she muttered.
Kaen frowned. "Why are you helping me?"
Lira looked at him for a long moment. "Because I've seen what happens if I don't."
A gust of wind carried her cloak upward. Beneath it, glowing runes marked her arms—sigils of three different relics. Impossible.
"No one can wield more than one relic," Kaen said.
"Wrong," Lira replied. "No one should."
CRACK!
The ground behind them exploded. Dust and fire spiraled into the sky.
A figure stepped out—covered in bronze armor, helmet shaped like a jagged eclipse. Its voice was mechanical, cold.
> "Fracture-bearer located. Target: Kaen of the Shadowless Bloodline."
"Run," Lira said.
"I just got this power," Kaen said. "I can fight."
"You don't even know what you are yet!" she snapped. "That's not a soldier—it's a Vortex Hunter."
The armored enemy raised a spear crackling with gravity energy.
Kaen tried to lift his Archeflare blade—but it flickered, unstable.
The Hunter dashed forward. Too fast.
Suddenly, Lira moved like a storm—sigils on her arm flashing as wind, ice, and sound bent around her.
She clashed with the Hunter mid-air—magic clashing with metal.
"Move, Kaen!" she shouted, blade in one hand, a rune shield in the other. "You think this is your story? Then live long enough to tell it!"
Kaen clenched his fists. His blood burned. His breath turned red.
He didn't know how to control it, but he let it surge.
He screamed—
A shockwave erupted from his body, sending the Vortex Hunter crashing into a building.
Lira landed beside him, panting. "Okay… maybe you're not entirely useless."
Kaen grinned despite the pain. "You're kind of intense, you know that?"
Lira smirked. "You've seen nothing yet, flame boy."
Far away, in a throne room carved from obsidian and light, an ancient being sat motionless. A dozen shadowy figures knelt before it.
One spoke:
> "The Ember has awakened, my Lord."
The ancient being o
pened its eyes—flames within flames.
> "Then the game begins. Unleash the Second Eclipse."
End of Chapter 3