The shattered plains of Varn stretched before them like a wound in the earth, a desolate expanse where once-great mountains had been shattered into jagged ruins. The ground was cracked and uneven, broken by long-forgotten battles and the raw forces that had torn the world apart. A heavy mist clung to the ground, curling around Kael's boots like spectral hands, and the sky overhead was an endless ocean of dark, swirling clouds, rumbling with distant thunder.
Kael tightened the strap of his cloak and pressed forward, Veyrion pulsing faintly at his side. Rynn moved with him, silent and alert, her bow ready in her hands. The companions they had gathered—Sable the storm-panther, the hawk named Arlen, and the spectral stag—followed closely, their steps soundless in the mist.
Every sense Kael possessed screamed that danger lurked nearby. The mist seemed almost alive, shifting and coiling around unseen shapes. His storm-born instincts prickled along his spine, warning him of watchers hidden beyond sight. He activated Time Dilation with a thought, the world slowing to a sluggish crawl around him, allowing him to see details most would miss—the faint shimmer of movement where shadows crept, the way the mist parted as if breathing.
They were not alone.
"Something's coming," Kael murmured, his voice low.
Rynn nodded, her sharp eyes scanning the mist. "I see them too. Whatever they are, they're waiting for us to get closer."
Kael didn't wait.
With a surge of lightning through his veins, he dashed forward, Veyrion flashing from its sheath in a burst of stormfire. His Sword Mastery guided every movement, the blade weaving a web of light through the mist. He trusted his instincts, trusted the Luck of the Fates that had brought him this far.
The ambush sprang around him.
Figures rose from the ground, skeletal forms wrapped in tattered armor, eyes burning with an unnatural red glow. These were not ordinary undead; they were remnants of ancient warriors, corrupted by the Hunger's influence, their souls chained to the ruined land.
Kael struck first, a horizontal slash imbued with crackling lightning. The nearest skeleton exploded into fragments, but more swarmed forward, their broken weapons gleaming with a sickly light. Kael ducked under a swinging axe, retaliating with a thrust that shattered another foe's ribcage.
From the mist, Rynn loosed a volley of arrows, each shot precise, each arrowhead glowing with runic enchantment. The spectral stag charged through the mass of undead, scattering them like leaves, while Sable leapt and tore at them with claws sheathed in lightning.
Still they came, endless, relentless.
Kael's heart hammered in his chest, but he refused to give ground. He shifted into Shadowstep, blurring from one place to another, leaving afterimages in his wake that confused and divided the enemy. A sword cut through an image of Kael, and the real Kael appeared behind the attacker, severing its spine with a clean stroke.
His Regen ability kept him whole even when a spear nicked his side, the wound sealing itself with a crackle of power. His lightning affinity filled him with boundless energy, each movement faster and stronger than the last. He became a force of nature, a tempest wearing human skin.
Minutes or hours passed—it was impossible to tell within the slowed distortion of Time Dilation—but eventually, the last of the undead crumbled to dust, leaving the mist even thicker with the taste of old death.
Kael stood in the silence, chest heaving, Veyrion's blade humming with residual energy. Rynn approached, brushing blood from her cheek.
"You okay?" she asked, voice tight.
"Fine," Kael said, though his muscles ached from the constant movement.
They regrouped quickly, wary of lingering too long in one place. The plains had many predators, and not all of them would announce themselves so loudly.
As they pushed deeper into the desolation, they began to see the remnants of a battlefield. Colossal bones jutted from the ground, remnants of ancient Titans that had once defended the realm against the Hunger. Their corpses had fossilized into monuments of despair, and in some cases, their remains still twitched unnaturally, animated by cursed magic.
It was at the base of one such colossal skeleton that they found her.
A girl, no older than Kael himself, wrapped in a tattered cloak, her skin pale and marked with glowing sigils. She was unconscious, chained to the Titan's ribcage by bands of black iron that pulsed with dark energy.
Kael and Rynn approached cautiously.
"She's alive," Rynn said after a moment, checking the girl's pulse. "But barely."
Kael knelt beside her, studying the sigils. He recognized some of them—wards designed to suppress magical abilities, painful and ancient. Whoever had done this wanted her powerless.
He placed a hand on the iron bands. His storm magic reacted violently, sparking and crackling against the restraints. He gritted his teeth and focused, channeling a surge of pure lightning into the chains.
They shattered with a sound like a thousand bells breaking at once.
The girl gasped and coughed, curling into herself before slowly opening her eyes.
They were storm-silver, like Kael's.
"You… are Stormborn," she whispered, her voice ragged.
Kael nodded. "Who are you?"
She struggled to sit up, wincing in pain. "My name is Selene. I was a guardian of the Shard at Titan's Gate. But they came... the Heralds. They took the shard and... they turned the gate against us."
Her words sent a chill through Kael's blood.
If the Heralds had corrupted the Titan's Gate, they were one step closer to awakening whatever horror the Hunger was preparing.
"We're here to stop them," Kael said, offering his hand.
Selene hesitated, then took it.
A spark leapt between them at the touch—a recognition, a resonance.
"You'll need me," she said, voice gaining strength. "There's more you don't know."
Kael helped her to her feet. Rynn watched the exchange carefully but said nothing.
Together, they continued toward the heart of Titan's Gate, where the ground grew even more twisted and broken. Fissures filled with dark energy split the earth, and the bones of the fallen formed bridges across chasms of roiling void.
They moved quickly, aware that the enemy knew they were coming.
As they neared the massive remains of the gate itself—two shattered towers framing a void-torn sky—Kael felt the air grow heavy, the same feeling he had sensed before facing the Herald.
But this time, it was not one Herald that waited.
It was three.
They emerged from the shadows, cloaked in void and nightmare, their forms barely humanoid, their power suffocating.
Kael tightened his grip on Veyrion.
There would be no easy battle here.
The Heralds raised their hands, and the ground itself rebelled. Titans' bones rose from the earth, animated into twisted giants of death and hatred. Each one stood nearly forty feet tall, wielding broken weapons and shards of ruined magic.
Kael's breath caught in his throat.
But then he felt it—the storm rising inside him, answering the challenge.
He looked to Rynn, who nodded grimly, and to Selene, who was already summoning her own storm-forged weapon, a spear of crackling energy.
Kael activated Time Dilation once more.
The world slowed to a crawl.
He leapt forward, lightning gathering around him like a second skin, Veyrion carving arcs of stormfire through the sky.
The Heralds and their undead Titans loomed before him, massive and terrible.
Kael grinned.
The battle for Titan's Gate had begun.
And he was ready to show the world what it meant to be Stormborn.