The night tasted like ash and blood.
Kael stood among the ruins of Bastion Theta, his breathing ragged, the air thick with ozone and smoke. Soldiers lay scattered—some dead, some fleeing. Elira was at his side, wide-eyed, her hands trembling.
Orin was gone.
Kael let him live.
Barely.
But not out of mercy.
Out of necessity.
"I have to go back," Kael said quietly, staring into the direction of Bastion Prime. "Whatever they buried under the city… it's connected to me."
Elira grabbed his arm. "Kael, you just survived a purge unit. You're wounded, exhausted, and—whatever that was back there—it almost destroyed you."
"I'm already destroyed," he muttered. "Now I want answers."
---
Bastion Prime. Two Days Later.
Once a jewel of the Northern wall line, Bastion Prime had become a shadow of its former self. Kael remembered its skyline glowing with golden domes and ancient spires. Now, everything was gray. Silent. The streets felt watched.
He and Elira moved through side alleys, avoiding patrol drones and checkpoint scanners.
The city was under lockdown.
No one in or out without Parliament clearance.
Kael's childhood home had become a prison.
They found shelter in the underground canals—tunnels long abandoned beneath the old quarantine zone.
Here, whispers echoed.
Kael pressed his palm to a rusted gate. The metal reacted—humming faintly—then slid open as if it remembered him.
Elira gasped. "That… wasn't normal."
"I think this place was built for me."
They descended.
---
Subterranean Depths — 4 Levels Below Bastion Prime
The deeper they went, the more reality twisted.
Walls throbbed with faint warmth. Strange glyphs flickered under Kael's footsteps. Pipes carried more than water—he could hear whispers in the currents.
The air turned colder.
And then they found it.
A sealed vault.
Thirty feet high, covered in scripture and chained shut with glowing black steel.
Kael approached, feeling a pull in his chest—like something inside was calling to him.
His hand reached out on instinct.
The moment he touched the gate—
Memories flooded in.
Not his own.
Visions of fire. Screaming. A great black heart, pulsing beneath a ruined sky. Thousands of voices crying out. A throne made of bone. A woman screaming his name as the world shattered.
And above it all…
A creature. Tall, featureless, with wings of shadow and eyes like broken mirrors.
"My Heir…"
Kael jerked back, gasping.
Blood trickled from his nose.
Elira steadied him. "What did you see?"
"My mother," he whispered. "She died here."
---
The Vault Opens
The chains disintegrated with a metallic shriek.
The door groaned.
And from the dark within, a shape emerged—
A human silhouette.
But wrong.
Its skin was translucent.
Veins blackened, pulsing with light.
Eyes all white.
It looked at Kael and smiled.
"You came back," it said in a voice like a thousand echoes. "Just as He said you would."
Kael raised his blade.
"Who are you?"
"I am what remains," the creature said. "One of the first who touched the Heart. I was meant to protect the seal. But your blood opens it."
"You're saying this… thing beneath the city is alive?"
"Alive. And hungry."
Behind the creature, the walls of the vault began to melt—revealing a vast, living cavern, pulsing like the inside of a heart.
A heartbeat echoed through the stone.
Kael could feel it in his bones.
Elira whispered, "Kael… this is no longer human. None of this is."
The creature stepped aside.
"Go on, Heir of the Devourer. It's time you met your true father."
---
Kael stepped into the chamber.
Inside, suspended in fluid, wrapped in cables and flesh-like roots, was a colossal embryo—not born, not dead.
It turned slightly.
And in the instant their eyes met, Kael heard a voice inside his mind:
"Come closer, Kael. Let me show you… the end.