The church had been abandoned for decades.
St. Hollow's stood at the edge of the old district—half-swallowed by ivy, the stone facade cracked with age. No one remembered when its doors last opened. Some claimed it was cursed. Others said it had simply been forgotten.
Elior stood before the rusted gates, the letter still burning in his coat pocket like a second heartbeat.
The symbol on his palm pulsed again—once, twice—then dimmed.
He pushed open the gate.
The inside reeked of rot and old incense. Dust hung thick in the air, caught in beams of moonlight slicing through shattered stained-glass windows. Wooden pews lay overturned. Scripture books torn and blackened. But at the far end of the chapel, beneath a faded mural of an angel with three eyes, something called to him.
A single stone tile, darker than the rest.
He stepped toward it, and the mark on his hand began to glow again—this time brighter.
Kneeling down, Elior brushed away years of grime and ash. The tile had faint engravings—concentric circles, lines of runes he didn't recognize. At its center, the same three-circle symbol as on the letter.
His fingertips hovered over it.
And then—A pulse.A hum.A click.
The tile sank inward.
The floor groaned.
Dust fell from the ceiling as stone ground against stone. A section of the floor slid open, revealing a staircase spiraling down into darkness.
Elior hesitated only a moment. Then he descended.
Each step took him deeper into silence. The air grew colder, heavier—like it hadn't been touched in centuries. At the bottom, a single wooden door waited. Iron bands reinforced it, but time had worn them thin. His palm burned again.
He pushed it open.
The chamber beyond was… impossible.
Circular. Smooth black stone walls. Dozens of glowing glyphs floated in the air, rotating slowly like celestial bodies. In the center stood a pedestal, and on it, a black crystal suspended in a web of silver threads.
The moment Elior stepped inside, the glyphs turned.
The mark on his palm flared, and a voice echoed—not in his ears, but in his mind:
"Initiate recognized. Bloodline confirmed."
"Awakening sequence begins."
Pain.
White-hot and endless, racing through every vein like liquid fire. Elior collapsed, screaming, vision fracturing into shards of memory and light.
A vision—Mountains.Swords suspended in sky.A man cloaked in thunder.A lotus blooming in flame.An eye—watching him through space itself.
Then, silence.
When he awoke, he was lying on the cold stone floor.
The crystal on the pedestal had shattered.
The silver threads had vanished.
And the mark on his palm… had changed.
Now it pulsed faintly, lines of light stretching outward like roots beneath skin.
He wasn't just marked anymore.
He was bound.
To what, he didn't yet know.
But he had taken the first step.
And there was no turning back.