Smoke drifted above the Hollow Spine.
Thick and unnatural, it curled and pulsed as if alive—more than fog, less than matter. The fracture had grown deeper over the last week, jagged tendrils of black energy lashing out from within the canyon's depths. Local villagers had fled days ago, their crops withering overnight, their animals turning on them without reason.
And now, something had entered the pit.
Vorn moved without sound. His body—half-solid, half-void—shifted through rock and ash like a phantom. His mission was simple: awaken the fragment of consciousness buried at the Hollow Spine's core. A remnant of a forgotten god sealed during the Age of Fractures. A thing Kaen had once learned about but never had the power to reach—until now.
Vorn descended.
He passed shattered bones and fossilized blood. Symbols older than language. Echoes of screams trapped in the walls. And at the very bottom, beneath layers of runes and crystallized reality, he found it:
A heartbeat.
Soft. Slow.
But ancient.
He knelt.
"I carry the will of the Sovereign," he said.
And the heartbeat answered.
The void pulsed.
And something began to stir.
---
Meanwhile, in the western gate of Dominion, Wraith stood on the edge of a shattered cliffside overlooking the Watchfire Barracks.
He had infiltrated countless places over the centuries, but this one had been different. Layers upon layers of magical barriers, null zones, and blood wards. Dominion wasn't just guarding weapons here—they were burying something.
He tapped the thin silver ring Kaen had given him. A flicker of Void coated his body, bending perception. For most, this would be invisibility. But for Wraith, it was silence incarnate. Even the stones beneath his feet forgot he existed.
He slipped past guards and construct sentries. Through enchanted halls and code-locked vaults.
And finally, into a chamber so cold it burned.
Inside lay a vault of sealed glass tubes.
Within each one floated a figure—some whole, some missing limbs, some twisted beyond recognition. None of them were dead.
They were dormant.
Marked with the same sigil: V.XI Protocol – Memory-Class Threats.
Wraith stepped closer. He placed one palm on the glass. One of the bodies—a woman, silver-haired, with horns stitched shut—opened one eye.
She looked straight at him.
And smiled.
Wraith took a step back.
He activated the mark on his hand and vanished, his task complete.
The message would reach Kaen soon.
---
Far away, beyond Dominion, beyond the fractured eastern isles, two figures sat in a stone chamber lit only by floating blue fire.
One was a woman cloaked in bone-colored silk. The other, a man whose body shimmered with constellations tattooed across his skin.
"Valcarys has returned," said the woman, her voice a melody laced with static.
"He was supposed to be sealed forever," the man replied.
"He was," she said. "But you know how fate works."
The man stood and faced a mirror carved into obsidian.
Within it, an image of Kaen flickered—walking through Astranil's central plaza.
"We watched him die."
"You watched his body burn," she corrected. "But you never watched his soul leave."
They stood in silence.
Then the woman said, "If he reawakens the Hollow Spine, the chain will break."
"Then it's already too late."
She nodded. "Are we going to stop him?"
"No. Not yet."
"But we will watch. Because when the chain breaks… the gate opens."
---
In the core of K-XIV, Kaen stood before the central codex table. Maps, leyline readings, pulse crystals—they all pulsed with warning signs. But he didn't look at them.
He looked at the sealed crystal Wraith had delivered.
Inside, a flicker of something… alive. A piece of memory stored in Void. An emotion too sharp to be random. A whisper too clear to be coincidence.
He held it closer.
A single voice echoed.
"You forgot me."
His hand tightened.
He remembered now.
That voice.
That betrayal.
The one who smiled when he fell.
Kaen turned to Reven. "Change of plan."
Reven raised a brow. "We're not ready to attack."
"This isn't an attack," Kaen said.
"This is retribution."
---
Reven watched as Kaen prepared the ritual. He noticed Kaen's eyes weren't just darker—they no longer reflected light. Like voids in themselves.
"You're pushing too fast," Reven said. "Your connection to the fragment is growing, but too quickly. The longer you touch it, the more you—"
"Lose myself?" Kaen said, calmly.
Reven hesitated.
Kaen continued without turning. "I'm not losing myself. I'm becoming who I was always meant to be."
He raised a hand—and space around him rippled.
Time bent.
In that moment, Reven saw Kaen as he truly was.
A Sovereign of Void.
Not human.
Not divine.
Something in between.
---
Later that night, Kaen walked alone into the remains of Vel Arcanum.
Once the cradle of arcane knowledge.
Now, a ruin.
He stood before a half-shattered statue—the face missing, but the hands still raised in the pose of welcome.
"I studied here," he said quietly, though no one listened.
"I bled here. I believed here."
He looked to the center, where a single spire had collapsed inward.
"And this is where they tried to end me."
His hand rose.
Void spiraled.
And the entire plaza shook.
The stone rose—not rebuilt, but reshaped. Rewritten. Buildings realigned themselves. Runes formed in the air.
Kaen wasn't rebuilding Vel Arcanum.
He was rewriting it.
This place would be his again.
But not as a student.
As the last Sovereign.
---
Elsewhere, deep beneath the capital, Chancellor Vyrric stood before the Dominion Council again.
This time, no illusions.
Only silence.
"He walked through Astranil without resistance," he said.
"They saw him," one voice whispered.
"They remembered him," said another.
"The people will begin to talk," Vyrric said. "Worse—they will hope."
"And hope," he continued, "is harder to kill than a man."
One of the hooded figures stepped forward. "Then we must erase him again."
Vyrric nodded.
"But this time… we do not seal him."
"We unmake him."
---
Back in Vel Arcanum, Kaen watched as Void reshaped the bones of the broken city.
From behind him, a presence approached.
Not Wraith. Not Reven.
Something else.
A girl, barefoot, no older than sixteen, with eyes like empty skies. She wore no mark, no armor, no protection.
But Kaen didn't move.
She stood beside him.
And said, "I dreamed about this place."
Kaen glanced at her. "You're not real."
She smiled. "Not yet."
He looked back at the tower.
And for a moment, his expression shifted.
Faint recognition.
Then she said, "You'll have to choose, Kaen. Between vengeance… and what comes after."
He didn't answer.
But the Void behind him stirred uneasily.
And the girl was gone.
---
As night fell over the world, across the continent, strange things began to happen:
Stars blinked out, then reappeared in different constellations
Rivers reversed their flow for thirteen seconds
The bones of a long-dead dragon began to tremble under a forgotten temple
And in the west, a nameless priest whispered Kaen's name—and turned to ash instantly
The fabric of reality wasn't breaking.
It was bending.
Kaen Valcarys had not merely returned.
He was reshaping the world.
One piece at a time.
---
End of Chapter 13