The battlefield burned with the cries of the dying.
Blades made of light and bone clashed in the scorched valley of Surneth, where the armies of the Realm of Voice made their last stand. At the front was Captain Lioren Vask, one of the last true Oracles—warriors who could shape the world with speech alone.
His armor was cracked. His comrades lay in broken heaps around him. And before him stood the enemy.
Creatures of the Flesh Realm—twisted, sinewed beasts with shifting limbs and faces that pulsed like muscle—pushed forward without rest, without fear. Behind them, the horizon boiled red, as fires from the Flame Realm surged across what little remained of neutral lands.
Lioren raised his hands and spoke a Word—one of the Old Words, from before the realms divided.
"Solvaran."
The ground obeyed. Stone spears burst upward, impaling dozens of Fleshborn. But more came. Always more.
He staggered, blood pouring from a wound in his side. Each Word he spoke drained his life now. His voice was nearly spent.
A younger soldier crawled to his side, missing an arm. "Captain... the gates... are lost."
Lioren looked to the distance, where a grand structure once stood—the Celestial Gate, the last link between the realms and the Higher Path. It was broken, split down the middle, its light gone. Heaven was closed.
He whispered, "Then the war is already over."
As the beasts closed in, Lioren pulled a small crystal from his belt and activated the seal. A single thought, a memory, recorded in soulstone—sent far across realms.
To Earth.
To a boy named King.
His final thought was not fear—but hope. Maybe he will succeed where we failed.
Then darkness.