The sigil burned on the stone wall behind him—bright and pure, yet carved with ancient grief. Auren stared at it not as a symbol of pride… but of responsibility.
He had returned, yes. But returning was not the same as being ready.
Lyra walked at his side through the winding underground tunnels of the ruined stronghold. Faint blue crystals embedded in the walls cast pale shadows on their faces. Each step echoed like a drumbeat through time.
"You think they'll come?" she asked, brushing a strand of silver hair behind her ear.
"The old members of the Hollow Sun? No," Auren replied. "They're scattered. Broken. Some think I died a thousand years ago. Others think I became a god. Or worse."
"Then what are we doing here?"
Auren stopped. The air had changed.
He looked up.
"We're lighting a signal."
They emerged into a wide chamber—an ancient war hall, where once celestial knights debated the fate of kings and kingdoms. The long blackened table was cracked in half, and broken banners of the Hollow Sun lay crumpled beneath centuries of dust.
At the far end of the chamber stood a monolithic altar—a sun-shaped mechanism, dormant and sealed.
"The Flame Spire," Lyra breathed.
"The first beacon," Auren said, walking toward it. "When it burns again, the other spires will know. The old oaths will tremble awake."
He raised Khar'Zariel, the golden blade, high.
The room answered with a tremor.
As his sword sank into the heart of the mechanism, runes across the floor flared to life. Light bled from stone like gold from cracked armor. The Spire let out a deep mechanical groan, and then—
FWOOM.
A pillar of karmic fire burst from the altar, shooting into the sky above the ruined fortress—visible from mountains away. It split the clouds, a divine flare ripping through the twilight, unmistakable to all who once bore the Knight's mark.
✦ Meanwhile… in the Eastern Borderlands
Two cloaked figures sat at a war table in a candlelit tavern. The flare split the sky.
One dropped his goblet.
"Is that…"
"It's him," the second whispered. "It's the Karmic Knight."
"He can't be alive."
"He is."
The first figure drew back his hood. A crescent-shaped scar cut across his left eye.
"Then the oaths still bind us."
✦ Elsewhere… in the Demon-hold
A towering figure of obsidian skin and horned armor stood atop a cliff, staring at the beacon.
His blade hummed in its sheath.
"The Balance shifts," he growled.
Behind him, a horde of shadowed warriors knelt. Waiting. Preparing.
"We march before he gathers them all. Kill the Hollow before it becomes a Sun."
Back at the fortress, Lyra's expression changed.
"You just declared war, didn't you?"
"I declared truth," Auren said. "Let them come."
Suddenly, a strange energy surged through the floor—unfamiliar. Hungry.
"Wait—Auren—this isn't from the beacon!"
Before either of them could react, the runes around the spire fractured, and a rift tore open mid-air.
A portal.
A blackened claw shot through it, massive and pulsing with infernal veins.
"Lyra—get back!"
But it was too late. A creature stepped through.
Twice the height of a man, its body stitched from flame and bone, eyes glowing with voidlight.
A Flame Revenant.
The first of the cursed warriors.
"Impossible… they were sealed in the Karmic Abyss," Auren muttered, stepping forward.
The creature snarled and charged.
Auren's blade met it halfway in a brilliant explosion of light and heat. Sparks rained like falling stars as their clash shattered stone and memory alike.
"This one… bears my old wounds," Auren whispered in horror. "It's wearing my sins."
Lyra fired off a holy seal, blasting part of the Revenant's mask—but its laughter echoed like a funeral bell.
Auren gritted his teeth.
He raised his blade, whispered a prayer under his breath, and shouted:
"Soul Purification!"
In an instant, golden chains burst from his armor, wrapping the Revenant in blinding light. The creature howled, trying to claw its way out—but the judgment was swift.
The final strike came with divine precision—a downward arc of flaming gold.
Silence returned to the ruins.
But not for long.
Because as the smoke cleared, a mark remained etched on the floor where the Revenant had died—a sigil not from this world.
A demonic house mark, long thought extinct.
Lyra's face paled.
"That's… impossible."
Auren stared at it, expression hard.
"They've returned. The Abyssals… they're no longer chained."
"The fire that awakens also reveals the shadows that waited for its return." — First Edict of the Hollow Sun