Echoes of the First
---
The ruined city breathed around them.
Not with air — but with memory.
Each step Kael and the others took echoed strangely, as if a thousand unseen watchers mirrored their movements. Somewhere beyond the shattered towers, the black sun hung motionless in the bleeding sky, its light a dull, bruised glow over everything.
"Stay close," Kael said, adjusting the grip on Myrrh. His voice was steady now — anchored by the fire that had ignited inside him.
Nyssra nodded, her fingers weaving subtle patterns through the air, tracing spells of protection.
Theron scanned the alleys, blades drawn.
Dain muttered calculations under his breath, Veilmarks flickering across his skin.
The group moved forward.
At the heart of the city stood a broken ziggurat, half-swallowed by roots and shadow. It pulsed with a heartbeat of ancient power.
Kael felt it the moment they crossed the threshold — a cold hand brushing his mind, probing, testing.
The Warden's earlier warning echoed:
> "This was a prison, not a pathway."
He drew a slow breath and pressed on.
---
At the ziggurat's base, they found the entrance: a shattered archway engraved with glyphs older than language itself.
Theron stepped forward. "These markings... They tell a story."
Kael tilted his head. "Can you read it?"
Theron knelt, brushing dust from the stone. His brow furrowed.
"Fragments," he said. "Enough to understand the warning."
He pointed to a sequence of images: a figure holding a shard, stepping through the Gate, and — in the final panel — being consumed by tendrils of black flame.
Dain clicked his tongue. "Lovely. So basically, 'come in and die.'"
Nyssra studied the glyphs more carefully. "No. It's more specific. It says the first who entered were changed."
Kael frowned. "Into what?"
Before anyone could answer, the ground rumbled.
A mechanical groan echoed from within the ziggurat.
Then — stone by stone — something rose from the ruin.
---
It was a construct — humanoid, towering, draped in corroded armor, and powered by a shard the size of a man's heart embedded in its chest.
But worse than its size was its eyes.
They weren't lights.
They were windows.
And through them, Kael glimpsed faces — twisted, screaming — imprisoned inside.
Nyssra recoiled. "Those are souls. Dozens."
The construct's head tilted at an unnatural angle. A voice rasped from within — not from the mouth, but from the surrounding air:
> "You are not authorized."
It raised its arm.
Veins of molten Veilforce lit across its frame like lightning.
And without another word, it attacked.
---
Kael threw himself forward, Myrrh slashing through the air.
The blade bit deep — but the construct barely reacted. Its other arm lashed out, catching Kael midair and hurling him across the broken plaza.
Theron and Dain moved in perfect tandem.
Dain wove a cage of shifting runes while Theron darted in with impossible speed, striking at joints and weak points. Sparks flew — but the thing kept moving, relentless, mechanical, inhuman.
Nyssra chanted, gathering power.
A spear of crystallized light formed above her, humming with violent energy.
She hurled it — a comet screaming through the air — straight into the construct's chest.
Impact.
The explosion shook the ground.
Smoke roared outward in a shockwave.
For a moment, silence.
Then the construct staggered out of the smoke — its body cracked, the shard in its chest exposed.
Kael wiped blood from his mouth, rising to his feet.
He locked eyes with the others.
No words were needed.
This was their chance.
---
Kael sprinted.
Theron blurred in beside him, distracting the construct.
Nyssra unleashed a flurry of searing bolts.
Dain anchored the ground beneath Kael's feet with Veilforce, boosting his momentum.
Kael leapt — the world slowing around him — and drove Myrrh forward with both hands, plunging the cursed blade into the exposed shard.
The construct screamed.
The sound wasn't mechanical.
It was human.
Hundreds of voices, twisted into one.
Then it collapsed — not into rubble, but into a fine, shimmering dust that floated upward… toward the black sun.
Kael dropped to one knee, gasping.
The others gathered around him, battered but alive.
Behind them, the ziggurat's entrance cracked open wider.
And from the darkness within… something stirred.
Something that had waited a long, long time.