The wastelands beyond Sector 3 stretched like a forgotten scar, a wound the city no longer bothered to heal.
The earth here cracked underfoot like brittle bone, crumbling with every step. Rusted power lines drooped low, buzzing faintly with the dying breaths of a long-dead civilization. Twisted trees, charred black by endless acid storms, reached for the heavy iron sky with skeletal fingers. Ash floated in the air, thick and restless, stirred by every movement, never settling, like the land itself refused to forget.
And in the middle of it all... the ring on my finger—Solheart—pulled at me.
It dragged me forward without mercy. Across dead fields. Beneath the shadows of collapsed bridges and past the husks of abandoned outposts, until finally, through the gray dust, I saw it.
A cathedral.
No—what remained of one.
Its once-proud spires now stabbed brokenly at the sky. Shattered mosaics of stained glass littered the ground, frozen mid-shatter like the last desperate tears of forgotten saints. The stone walls leaned dangerously inward, exhausted by centuries of holding up a heaven that had long since abandoned them.
And yet—beneath the ruin, deep in the fractured bones of the earth—something still lived.
Something that called.
I crossed the threshold.
Inside, the cathedral was little more than a graveyard of melted icons and crumbled pews. The carved scriptures spiraled unnaturally across the stone walls, twisting into unreadable madness, as if the weight of forgotten centuries had bent even language itself. The air was heavy, saturated with a strange static, thick enough that every breath tasted like a mouthful of broken dreams.
My boots scraped against fractured stone as I approached the altar.
And then—without warning—the ground gave way.
A stairwell revealed itself, spiraling downward, swallowing all light.
I hesitated for barely a moment.
Then I descended.
Every step was heavier than the last. Each one dragged me deeper, not just into the earth—but into something deeper. Something ancient. Something inside myself that whispered from a place I didn't know existed.
At the bottom, the path opened into a vast circular chamber.
The Elarin Vault.
The walls were carved with sigils older than any nation, glowing faintly as if recognizing me. At the chamber's center, suspended against all reason by fractured currents of gravity, floated a monolith—black as void, veined with hairline fractures of silver light. Around its base, swords—countless swords—had been driven into the ground like grave markers, silent witnesses to a forgotten oath.
The ring pulsed once more against my skin.
And then—
Footsteps.
I spun, blade drawn, muscles coiled tight.
From the shadows, a figure stepped into the Vault's dying light.
Elira.
Her dagger gleamed, but her posture wasn't hostile. Her face was calm—too calm. Not the uncertainty I had glimpsed before. No... now she wore her truths like armor.
"You followed," I said, the words cutting into the charged silence.
"No," she answered, voice steady, almost... mournful. "I was always leading you here."
Her dagger lowered, not in threat, but in offering.
"You don't remember," Elira said, locking her gaze with mine. "But you once stood here, Solhart. You and your First Blades. You sealed the Rift Shard when the balance first began to tear."
First Blades...
The words hit something deep inside me, something I didn't recognize—and yet, somehow, had always known.
Elira nodded, as if reading the confusion twisting inside me.
"We were guardians once," she said softly. "Before the Remnants fractured. Before greed and fear poisoned purpose." She slowly sheathed her dagger. "I was one of them. Before the others forgot why we fought."
"And me?" I asked. The question burned in my throat.
"You..." Her steps brought her closer, her voice barely a whisper now. "You were the Captain. The one who carried the Flame."
I swallowed hard.
Every instinct in me screamed to deny it.
To reject the tidal wave of impossible memories clawing at the edges of my mind.
But the ring on my finger—the thing I'd once thought a relic, a curse, a mystery—felt warm now. Familiar. Like it had always been mine.
"I don't remember," I said, voice shaking despite myself. "And I don't know if I want to."
Elira's eyes softened. A sadness flickered there—one she didn't try to hide.
"Memory doesn't ask for permission," she said. "It simply returns."
The Vault stirred around us.
A low hum vibrated through the stones as I stepped closer to the monolith.
The Rift Shard.
It loomed before me—silent at first.
Then—
A whisper.
Broken. Ancient. Carved into the marrow of the world.
Bearer of the Lost Flame... you are late.
The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once.
My vision blurred. Pain flared behind my eyes. Flashes—shards of another life—struck me one after another:
A battlefield, littered with broken glass and bone.
A tower collapsing, bleeding stars from its wounds.
A throne built from broken swords, crumbling to dust in my outstretched hands.
The Rift spoke again, words sinking into my bones.
The Eye stirs... The Fracture bleeds... and you... are late.
I fell to one knee, the cold stone biting through my armor.
My heart hammered wildly, every beat threatening to shatter me from the inside.
Who am I becoming?
Or maybe the better question was—
Who am I returning to?
The Rift's voice faded into silence, leaving behind only the trembling echo of its warning.
I staggered back.
Elira caught me before I could fall, her hands firm and steady against my shoulders.
"I'm not him," I growled, forcing the words past clenched teeth.
"You're whoever you choose to be," Elira said, meeting my gaze unflinchingly. "But remember this—those who still remember you... will not give you that choice."
I held her gaze.
For the first time, I saw it clearly.
We weren't enemies.
Not really.
We were survivors.
Two broken souls dragged forward by promises made long ago—promises neither of us could fully remember, but both of us still bled for.
Still... the air between us was taut, fragile.
A trust forged not from loyalty.
But necessity.
Together, we ascended from the Vault.
Back through the crumbling cathedral.
Back into a world already shifting beyond what we had known.
At the threshold, I stopped.
The city beyond writhed under a sky gone wrong.
Waves of distorted light rippled through the clouds, bending reality like heat haze over desert sands.
Something ancient was waking.
Something tied to the Fracture.
Tied... to me.
Elira stood rigid beside me. "They know," she whispered.
Somewhere far beyond our sight, unseen forces stirred.
And in a citadel of fractured glass and blackened steel, a figure sat atop a throne spun from shimmering threads of possibility.
He turned his masked face toward the trembling horizon.
And in a voice that bled through dimensions, he spoke to the darkness:
"Solhart lives. Begin Phase Two."
Because not all awakenings are blessings.
Some are warnings.
Written in scars.
Answered only with blood.
"The past does not ask to be remembered. It simply waits—for the day you can no longer forget."