When gods walk again, the sky forgets what it means to stay silent.
Kael wakes in the ruins of the Labyrinth, the Seventh Shard pulsing like a heartbeat within his soul.
The stars above him are wrong.
Constellations have shifted.
Time stutters around him. Flowers bloom and die in seconds. Birds fly backward before vanishing into flame.
Lia gasps when she sees him. Ihlon falls to one knee, his breathing ragged.
Kael is no longer just himself.
He is now the sum of seven powers, seven voices, seven divine memories awakened into one form.
His presence alone bends reality slightly. Footsteps echo before they fall. Trees lean away from him, as if recognizing an ancient threat—or greeting an ancient king.
The sky churns red as if trying to remember its proper color.
Whispers spread across the land before they leave the crater.
"The Godflame walks.""The Nameless One returns.""The end, or the beginning?"
Across the world, Kael's reawakening triggers ancestral alarms:
In Sol'Serath, high priests kneel at temples built to contain forgotten flames, feeling them flicker with life again.
In Nythereth, assassins of the Pale Order are dispatched to kill the Fireborn, but even they hesitate—some among them dream of firelight speaking their names.
In the Obsidian Spire of Vraem, a godlike king known only as The Black Regent—one who once served the Nameless One—awakens from centuries of self-imposed stasis.
The age of mortals teeters on the brink of collapse.
Magic becomes unstable.
Artifacts long sealed flicker to life.
And deep beneath the sea, in the drowned city of Elaran-Vhul, a sealed gate opens for the first time in a thousand years.
Kael sits alone atop the skeletal remains of a sky-giant—ancient bones embedded in mountain stone.
Lia joins him. For once, neither speaks. The silence is full.
Then Lia places a hand on his shoulder.
"You're still Kael, right? My friend?"
Kael doesn't respond immediately.
"I am. But I'm also… what was left behind. The memories, the power, the guilt. I see every possible version of myself, and none of them are good."
Lia clenches her fist.
"Then be the first one who is."
They sit together beneath a night sky that no longer obeys its names.
While Kael wrestles with identity, a new threat surges.
From the southeast rise the Abyssborn War-Tides, a collective army of exiled mages, cults, and sentient beasts, led by a man called Tharion Vex, the Heir of the Hollow Flame.
Tharion was once a failed vessel for the Seventh Shard.
Now he wants revenge.
He believes Kael has stolen his divinity.
He marches on the Coastal City of Haldriven, slaughtering all who won't join him.
He sends Kael a message carved into burning sky:
"Give up the Shards, or I will drown the world in screaming fire."
Kael watches the sky burn.
And whispers, "Let them come."
In the depths of the night, Kael calls the Seven Shards.
They form a ring of fire around him, and each whispers truths.
Each shows him a different world:
One where he becomes a tyrant and rebuilds the god-realm.
One where he dies saving Lia from Tharion.
One where he burns the world to purge the gods and starts anew.
One where he abandons power and walks the world healing it in secret.
He reaches into the flame.
And for the first time, doesn't choose a path.
He makes his own.
A new flame erupts in his chest—not of the past, nor the gods, but entirely his.
He no longer carries the Godflame.
He is the Godflame.