The sky didn't heal.It just stopped bleeding long enough to pretend.
But the world remembered.
The mark in the sky — the vertical eye and seven broken crowns — was more than a symbol. It was a Reverberation. A cosmic pulse that echoed into forgotten places:
A slumbering wyrm beneath the Silt Ocean twitched in its sleep.
A blind oracle in the Tower of Remnants bit off her own fingers.
A God-Eater sealed in the Iron Abyss screamed for the first time in ten thousand years.
And at the center of it all, Kael Veyrin… just stood there.
🌌 Scene: The Scar of Return
Kael knelt beside a frozen stream outside Kaelstrem Hollow.The water didn't reflect him. It reflected the mark on his chest, spinning now in perfect stillness — like it had finally woken up.
His voice was quiet. Measured. Too calm for a boy who'd just erased a man from existence.
"What… did I bring back with me?"
Behind him, the wind howled — not from nature. From pressure.Reality was thinned here. His existence was peeling at the edges.
Then, he heard it. A second heartbeat.
Thump-thump.Thump-thump.
Not his. Nullren's. Or… maybe something deeper.
"Child of the Empty Throne."
Kael turned. No one.
"Bearer of the Unclaimed Name."
No voice. Just intent, pushed into his bones like iron nails.
"You are not alone. You are never alone. Not anymore."
Kael clenched his fist. His Veyra flared.
"Then come claim me, cowards."
And the forest exploded.
⚙️ Magic Reveal: Aspect of the Hollow Star
Kael doesn't cast spells.He doesn't chant.He intends.
"Echo: Collapse."
The trees folded inward — sucked into a singularity and then spat into dust. Not burned. Not broken. Unwritten. Like they were never there.
That's what makes Kael terrifying.
His Aspect doesn't bend the world.It removes it from the record.
🏛️ Elsewhere: Council of Black Glass
Five beings sat in a floating obsidian chamber—each cloaked in symbols that shifted when looked at. These were the Fifth Pillar, watchers of the World's Threads.
"The Hollowborn has activated his Aspect. Earlier than forecast."
"The Veyra didn't reject him... it submitted. That shouldn't be possible."
"Shall we erase him?"
A pause.
Then the eldest spoke, her voice like cracked glass:
"Erase him? No. Watch him. For now. Let the sins of the gods deal with their own mistake."
The chamber cracked. The meeting ended. And the world ticked closer to war.
💀 Back at Kaelstrem Hollow…
Kael walked through the ruins of what used to be half the forest.
He didn't cry. He didn't smile. He just walked.
But something followed him.Shifting behind trees. Whispering between the folds of space. A thing without skin.
And Kael whispered back:
"I see you. You're not the first.""But you'll die like the rest."
The shadow lunged.
Kael turned, palm out.
"Echo: Sever."
The thing didn't even have time to scream.
🔚 Final Scene
At the edge of the continent, deep within the Catacombs of Ash, a chained corpse laughed.
Its voice bled from seventy-seven mouths.
"He's awakened early… how delicious. Tell the Forsworn Heralds. The Game of Nullus has begun."