The ruin's breath was colder than the mountain wind.
Lior descended the cracked stone stairway slowly, his hand brushing the vine-carved wall. But he was not alone. Not this time.
Behind him moved a small company: two historians, a trio of freelance archaeologists funded in secret, four knights clad in subdued steel for protection, and a scribe who recorded everything he saw.
Only Marell remained at the surface, managing logistics, overseeing the flow of supplies, and ensuring plausible deniability should anyone from the Crown inquire.
The ruins went deeper than they expected. Much deeper.
Each level revealed new forms of architecture, some subtly different from the last, each marking what the historians whispered might be generations of usage. At first, marble columns and mosaic floors reflected the classic imperial style, grand and stately. But deeper still, the stone began to warp into strange organic curves, as though the place had been grown rather than built.
"The inner sanctum of the Order" murmured Scholar Avendis, one of the archivists. "They combined mysticism with structure, rites with stone. These halls weren't just ceremonial. They were living doctrines."
Lior stepped into a circular chamber. Its floor was glassy and black, reflecting the torchlight like still water. Above, the domed ceiling shimmered with inlaid crystal. At the center stood a raised platform, upon which rested a shattered sarcophagus of bronze and lapis.
[System Notification]
Area Discovered: The Chamber of Dissolution
Inside lay a narrow circlet of gold, impossibly delicate yet unyielding. Not a crown, not quitebut its presence was undeniable. Two golden strands entwined to form a solar knot, at whose center rested a shard of polished obsidian, dark as a starless void.
[System Notification]Item Acquired: Circlet of the Eclipsed Dawn
"Relic of the Order of Dual Dawn". Contains a trace of spiritual authority. When worn, may influence those of Imperial descent or devout roots.
Lior stared at it, caught in the stillness.
Then, as he lifted it into the morning light-
The world shifted.
[Vision Fragment – "Echoes of the Dual Dawn"]
Air fled his lungs.Color bled away.
Time itself seemed to fracture as his senses were dragged beneath the surface of reality—into memory not his own.
He saw all of it.
A temple burning from within.Marble columns collapsed like slain sentinels.A circle of twin-robed priests, half in black, half in white, standing motionless beneath a crumbling dome.They did not flee. They did not scream.
They chanted.
"We bind the sun.We break the chain.Let thrones fall,Let truth remain."
The scene folded inward.
Now a chamber of black obsidian. Two figures faced one another: a woman bearing a ritual spear and a silver-haired youth holding the same circlet that now pulsed in Lior's hands.
The woman offered the spear.The youth refused.And placed the circlet at the foot of the altar.
"No more kings" he said.
Another shift, jagged, like glass breaking in slow motion.
A ruined library, its books weeping ink.
A mural defaced by ritual blades.
An old man covering his eyes as statues of sunlit gods fell around him.
And then, nothing.
Only a single phrase pressed not into his ears, but into the marrow of his soul:
"We will return.Not in thrones.But in truth."
[End of Vision]
Lior gasped and staggered, the circlet still trembling in his grasp.
The knights rushed forward. The scholars remained silent, staring as though they had glimpsed something through him.
"My lord, are you well?" one of the guards asked.
Lior didn't answer immediately.
He looked down at the relic. Then at the stones beneath him.
He wasn't merely exploring ruins.He wasn't just defying the Crown.
He was witnessing something sacred.
Meanwhile Scholar Avendis was studying the etchings on the walls. "This chamber speaks of a final gathering. A choice. It seems the last of them sealed this place willingly. A burial, not of bodies aparently"
One of the knights stirred. "There's a secondary door. My lord."
They found it behind a tapestry woven with twin suns. The door was unlike the rest—metallic, industrial. Something added long after the Order's time.
[System Notification]
Optional Objective Discovered: Breach the Hidden Annex
Warning: Unknown origin. Risk of structural collapse and encounter with defensive relics.
Reward: Classified Imperial Memory Core, +50 FP, Advanced Faction Lore
Lior turned to the group. "Prepare the breach. Document everything. No relic moves until it's cataloged. We do not touch it until I give the word."
The scribe nodded quickly. The knights readied themselves.
As they worked, the archaeologists discovered a wall inscription hidden beneath a layer of hardened soot. Once cleaned, it revealed a pictographic record of the Order's final days. A council stood around a sun split in two, their hands raised not in war, but in surrender. At the center, a childlike figure held the circlet Lior now wore.
"What does it mean?" asked one of the knights.
"It means they passed their legacy to someone who wasn't ready" Avendis replied. "Or someone not of royal blood."
Lior remained silent, staring at the figure. For a fleeting second, it looked too familiar, like something pulled from a memory that wasn't entirely his.
That evening, as the company camped at the mouth of the ruin, Lior stood alone at the cliffside, the circlet once again resting on his brow.
He thought of the Order. Their failed dream. Their crypt of silence.
He thought of what he had once wanted, before the flames, before the system, before all of it.
Not power.
Not revenge.
But a chance.
A Kingdom without kings.
Where ruins were not hidden, but studied.
Where knowledge shaped law.
Where truth ruled.
And as the stars turned over Larmod's bones, he made a silent vow:
To build not atop the ashes of empire.
But within its hollow heart.
And let the new dawn rise from dust.