The air around the rift was different.
It wasn't just colder. It shrank the world, folding light and sound into something distant and wrong. The sky crackled with thin threads of red lightning, each one tracing the edges of the tear like veins around a wound that refused to heal.
Kael stood at the edge, the Fangsoul Edge humming low in his hand. The rift pulsed as if it recognized him—welcomed him.
"This isn't just a dungeon rupture," Lyra said behind him, her voice trembling despite her will. "This is a forced tear. Someone wanted this open."
"Then we give them what they want," Kael said, stepping forward.
Drayke cocked an eyebrow. "Just like that? No prep talk? No strategy?"
"We adapt inside," Kael said. "Like always."
And then he stepped through.
The sensation was immediate—like walking through fire and ice at the same time. A million needles of aura pierced his skin, tugged at his soul. Then the world flipped, spun, and reformed.
He landed on solid stone—no, bone. The floor of the rift zone was made from calcified remains. Towers of spines rose around him, twisting into trees of marrow.
The sky was a void above, and something vast moved through it, just beyond perception.
Lyra stumbled in next, catching herself with a burst of golden aura.
Drayke followed with a roar, cracking the floor with his landing.
"Next time," Drayke growled, "give me a second to brace!"
Kael ignored them, his senses reaching outward.
There were monsters here. Strong ones. He could feel their aura signatures—distant, but hungry.
Then he noticed something else.
"Look," Kael said, pointing ahead.
A gate. Massive, obsidian, and inscribed with runes none of them could read. It wasn't sealed. It was ajar.
Someone had been here before them.
Kael narrowed his eyes.
"Someone opened this from the inside."
Elsewhere—Above the Rift Zone
A figure in crimson robes stood on a skeletal outcropping, watching the trio move.
"The Ashen One has crossed."
Beside him, a hooded woman chanted softly, eyes glowing violet.
"The Fangsoul Edge resonates. Just as the Eye foretold."
"Then let them descend deeper. Let the truth find them."
Back in the Rift
As the trio passed through the gate, a sudden pressure dropped on them like a storm. The air thickened, their bones vibrated.
Something ancient was buried here.
The room opened into a black temple—pillars made of fused armor and weapons, shattered relics embedded in walls like forgotten prayers.
In the center lay a sealed coffin.
Kael stopped. His aura flared instinctively.
"It's alive," he whispered.
Lyra stepped back. "What is—?"
The coffin cracked.
And then it spoke.
"Who... dares walk the path of the Revenants?"
Kael didn't flinch.
"I'm Kael Arclight. And I've come to take back what your kind stole."
A groan of shifting stone. A hand emerged from the coffin—skeletal, wrapped in aura chains. Then another. The figure pulled itself up. Eyes like twin pits of night locked onto Kael.
"You bear his blade," the entity rasped. "The first traitor. The one who defied the Eternals."
Kael raised Fangsoul Edge.
"Good. Then you know how this ends."
The creature lunged.
BOSS: Echo Revenant, Wyrn the Bound
— SSS-Class Wraithblade
— Abilities:
• Chain Rend – Shatters aura armor with spectral blades
• Requiem Field – Creates a zone where defeated foes scream back to life as hostile phantoms
• Memory Lock – Forces opponent to relive their most painful moment
Kael ducked beneath the first slash, ash flaring from his shoulders.
Drayke slammed into the Revenant from the side, fire erupting from his fists. "I like this one already!"
Lyra focused, golden seals blooming beneath their feet, shielding them from phantom strikes.
But the Revenant didn't weaken.
It fed on memories. Each clash made Kael slower—more unsure. He saw visions.
His brother, burning.
His mother's last words.
That first dungeon, all blood and ash.
It threatened to consume him.
But Kael grit his teeth, digging the Fangsoul Edge into the creature's chest.
"You want memories?" he hissed. "Take this—!"
He activated Echo Rend.
The screams of the dead surged around them—but now they answered to Kael.
The Veilborn. The Aura Borer. Even the Whispered Hound from Dungeon Arc 1.
Their echoes struck in unison.
The Revenant screamed—not in anger, but in release. Its body cracked, light bleeding from inside.
"Revenants… do not… bow," it whispered.
Kael stepped close.
"Then fall."
With one final strike, Kael shattered the creature's chest, and its aura imploded inward.
The coffin collapsed.
Only a faint, pulsing crystal remained.
[Aura Core: Wyrn the Bound] obtained.
— Fusion-ready
— Memory Imprint unlocked
— Trait: Phantom Step (Phase forward mid-combat)
— Warning: Core is unstable. Sync may trigger evolution.
Kael picked it up, chest heaving.
Drayke clapped him on the back. "You just punked an SSS Revenant. I'm proud."
Lyra knelt near the remains. "This place… is older than any dungeon we've seen. We shouldn't stay."
Kael nodded.
But even as they turned to leave, Kael paused—because from deeper in the temple, a new voice called.
This one was familiar.
"Kael...?"
A figure stepped into the light.
Hair like his. Eyes like ash.
His brother.
"Drayke?" Kael whispered.
But it wasn't just a reunion.
Because Drayke Arclight wasn't alone.
And the symbol on his chest—the Ember Brood—glowed like fire reborn..