The village of Ellerin was nothing like the cities Raen once fought for.
No castles. No knights.Just dirt roads, wooden fences, and simple folk who smiled too easily.
It felt… peaceful.Too peaceful.
Raen sat at the edge of a well, watching kids chase a wooden ball while an old woman tended flowers nearby. The scent of fresh bread drifted from a bakery down the path. A boy his age walked by carrying firewood. No one stared. No one whispered.
No one knew who he was.
And yet the ground still trembled when he slept.
"Here," said the old man — Garrick, his supposed guardian — handing him a slice of applebread. "You'll need strength if you're to help around."
Raen took it silently. His appetite wasn't for food.
His dreams had been loud.
He saw a blade in them — the Celestial Severance, the divine sword he once wielded. But in the dream, it was rusted, buried, and weeping.
"You're not done," it whispered."You can't rest. Not yet."
Later that evening, Garrick brought him to a shack outside the village.
It was falling apart, wrapped in vines and moss, abandoned for years. "Used to belong to a blacksmith," Garrick explained. "He died during the Third Breach. Haven't dared clean it."
Raen stepped inside.
Dust. Silence.And something... pulsing.
Behind a cracked workbench, beneath a collapsed wall, something called to him. He moved rubble, hands trembling—not from weakness, but instinct.
Buried beneath stone and roots, he saw it:
A sword.
Not polished. Not blessed.
Just… waiting.
The hilt was wrapped in scorched leather. The blade was dull, chipped, but alive — radiating the faint hum of power sealed for far too long.
"This isn't Celestial Severance… but it remembers me."
He touched it.
The room shook.
A gust of wind exploded outward, shattering the windows and knocking Garrick off his feet. The vines retreated. Dust burned away. The sky outside dimmed.
Raen stood, sword in hand, eyes wide.
"This blade doesn't belong here," Garrick whispered."What… what are you, boy?"
Raen looked at the weapon.
It wasn't divine.It wasn't known.
But it chose him.
"Just a kid," Raen said. "Starting over."
But inside, the hero stirred.And so did something much, much older.