The fields beyond Virestead were silent, save for the wind whispering over broken earth.
Kael stood atop the ruined hill where the Hunger had fallen, gazing eastward.
The land was wrong.
It was subtle at first — a strange shimmer on the horizon, an oily feeling in the air, like the storm had bruised the world.
The villagers were already rebuilding, patching homes, burying their dead, giving thanks for their unlikely survival.
They hailed Kael as a hero.
The Slayer of the Hunger.
The Stormborn Guardian.
But Kael couldn't shake the sense that something had gone... unseen.
The Hunger was a symptom, he realized grimly. Not the disease.
Rynn seemed to sense it too.
"We bought time," she said, falling into step beside him. "But that's all it is, Kael. Time."
He nodded.
Time to prepare for what was truly coming.
2. The Shard
Two days after the battle, Kael found it.
Or rather — it found him.
He was alone by the river, cleaning Veyrion of the lingering dark residue, when he spotted something glinting beneath the water.
At first he thought it was a trick of the light.
But when he reached in and pulled it free, he realized it was a fragment — a shard of something ancient and alien.
A black crystal, humming softly, pulsing like a dying heartbeat.
The moment he touched it, visions tore through his mind:
Vast armies of shadow sweeping across golden fields.
Towers of light crumbling under an endless night.
A great serpent, coiling through the heavens, devouring stars.
Kael staggered back, gasping.
The shard burned his palm slightly, but he held onto it.
There was knowledge trapped within.
Knowledge he would need.
Whatever the Hunger had been serving… it was still out there.
And it was watching.
3. The Scholar
Rynn brought him to the oldest person in Virestead — Old Man Solas.
Solas had been a traveler once, before he settled down to drink and tell impossible stories at the tavern.
Most dismissed him.
Kael listened.
When he showed Solas the shard, the old man's face turned pale.
"By the gods," Solas whispered. "I never thought I'd see one with my own eyes."
"You know what this is?" Kael asked, hope and dread twined in his gut.
Solas nodded slowly.
"It's a piece of the First Storm."
Kael frowned. "The First Storm?"
Solas leaned closer, lowering his voice.
"Before men. Before elves. Before anything walked on two legs — the world belonged to forces beyond comprehension. Creatures of storm and void. The First Storm was their war. A war so vast, so terrible, the land itself still remembers."
He pointed at the shard.
"That's no ordinary relic. It's a fragment of memory. A piece of the war, still dreaming."
Kael's blood ran cold.
"And the Hunger?"
Solas's eyes darkened.
"One of the sleepers. A child of the old war, stirred awake by imbalance. You didn't kill it, Kael. You merely woke its kin."
4. The Eastern Call
That night, Kael dreamed.
He stood on a cracked plain under a purple-black sky.
Before him stretched a city — no, a fortress — half-buried under the sands of time.
At the center rose a spire of obsidian, crowned with swirling storm clouds.
A voice spoke from nowhere and everywhere at once:
"Come."
Kael woke, heart pounding.
There was no hesitation.
He had to go east — beyond the Stormwall Mountains, into the ruins whispered about only in drunken songs.
Rynn agreed to follow without question.
Sable too, pacing anxiously as if feeling the same pull.
They packed what little they could carry.
Kael stored the rest inside his Dimensional Storage, feeling a little smug that he didn't need to lug packs like some overburdened mule.
By dawn, they were gone — leaving Virestead behind.
5. Across the Blighted Lands
Travel east was harder than Kael had expected.
The land still bore scars from the Hunger's influence.
Fields lay fallow.
Rivers flowed black.
Forests moaned under unseen pressures.
Twice they were ambushed by twisted beasts — things half-wolf, half-man, dripping tar and hate.
Kael fought with brutal efficiency, wielding his Lightning Affinity to devastating effect.
He moved faster than human eyes could follow, teleporting between enemies with Shadowstep, cutting them down with a flash of Veyrion's gleaming edge.
Each battle honed him sharper.
Each victory carried a heavier weight.
One night, while they camped under the broken shell of an ancient tree, Rynn voiced what Kael had been avoiding.
"You're changing," she said, watching him carefully.
Kael looked at his hands, crackling faintly with leftover electricity.
"I know."
"Not just your powers. You."
He met her gaze, finding only concern there, no fear.
"I have to," he said simply. "If I'm going to survive what's coming."
Rynn didn't argue.
She just reached over and squeezed his hand once, grounding him.
Kael silently vowed to hold onto that humanity — no matter what power whispered in his veins.
6. The Watchers
Three weeks into their journey, they were attacked by something new.
Not beasts.
Not monsters.
People.
Or... what had once been people.
A tribe of gaunt figures with eyes like empty sockets and mouths sewn shut.
They moved with eerie precision, silent and swift.
Kael barely had time to react before they were upon him.
He activated Time Dilation, slowing the world to a crawl.
He wove through the attackers, slicing through tendons, disarming them with ruthless efficiency.
But even when crippled, the Watchers did not cry out.
Did not bleed.
Did not fall.
They simply melted into the earth, leaving behind only the faint scent of ozone and rot.
Kael and Rynn stared at each other, shaken.
"What the hell were those?" she hissed.
Kael shook his head.
"I think... I think they were scouts."
"Scouts for what?"
Kael looked eastward.
Toward the ruins that still called to him.
Toward the darkness that waited beyond the mountains.
"For whatever's still asleep," he said grimly.
"And whatever doesn't want us to wake it up."
7. The City of Ash
Finally, after months of hardship, they reached it.
The lost city.
It rose from the desert like a skeletal hand, half-buried and broken.
Walls crumbled.
Statues wept sand.
The spire still stood at the center, untouched by time, lightning dancing perpetually around its crown.
As they crossed the threshold into the city proper, Kael felt the shard in his pocket tremble — humming in resonance with something inside the spire.
"You ready for this?" Rynn asked.
Kael nodded.
"Let's wake the past."
They stepped forward, unaware that far above them, from a rift in the clouds, a great eye had opened.
Watching.
Waiting.
Smiling.