The throne room of Al'Zahir gleamed under stained glass mosaics depicting ancient victories. Here, golden light filtered in like fire trapped in crystal. At the far end, seated upon his high throne of marble and sandstone, King Siro Al'Vahir watched the three strangers approach.
Etreuf stepped forward, head bowed. Lyssara followed, her posture proud but wary. Adam kept a careful distance from the royal guards.
Siro studied them with quiet intensity. The weight of war, history, and legacy hung heavy in the room.
"You did not come here seeking glory," he said at last. "Yet you delivered it."
He rose from the throne.
"Nadrath's bandits had been strangling our border towns. What you faced was not simply a rogue faction—but a cult. You exposed it. You broke it."
A servant approached, holding a scroll bound in leather and gold. Siro took it and handed it directly to Etreuf.
"This is your reward. A relic from the Vault of Seers. A map."
Etreuf unfurled it carefully.
Etched in shimmering ink was a series of landmarks—mountains, chasms, ruins—and one symbol repeated across its surface: two curved blades crossing a sunburst.
Siro continued.
"It leads to a pair of legendary daggers, said to have unmatched affinity with all schools of magic. They choose their wielder. If you find them... the world may change because of it."
Lyssara looked at the map, then at the King.
"Why give this to us?"
He met her eyes.
"Because I know what's coming. And I want to ensure that when the final battle arrives... I am not the only one prepared to meet it."
Preparing the War Machine
Later, within the Chamber of Winds, where sand flowed through ancient time-devices and magical currents shimmered in tubes of glass, King Siro stood with his council.
The capital walls were being fortified. Every soldier trained with sandwalkers and mystics. All artillery was tuned for magical siege. Airships were repaired, and hawks were dispatched to other continents—each bearing a single warning:
"Zyrion no longer sleeps."
Lady Khareem entered quietly. "There's more."
She placed an artifact on the table: a shard of stone torn from the golem's chest. It vibrated unnaturally.
"It's regrowing. And more than that—it's beginning to hum."
Siro narrowed his eyes. "Hum how?"
"Not like music. Like pressure. Like the air around it weighs more."
That Night...
As torches dimmed across the city and the winds settled into uneasy slumber, far beyond the citadel, at the edge of the Wastes—the golem stirred.
Its chest pulsed.
Its eyes flared open, not golden as before... but deep violet, glowing like miniature event horizons.
The earth around it sank.
Boulders floated, trembled, and then crushed themselves as if gravity had turned sideways.
In silence, the Golem of Zyrion rose—not simply a beast of stone, but now a titan of crushing force. Its core radiated gravitational magic, bending the rules of reality with every breath.
And it began to walk.
For days, Etreuf, Lyssara, and Adam followed the ancient map given by King Siro—a relic of forgotten centuries etched in shimmering glyphs and shifting coordinates. It changed under moonlight, revealing new paths when firelight touched its surface.
They crossed blistering ravines, where heat shimmered like ghosts, and ventured through canyons carved by wind and long-dead rivers. Each step led them deeper into the Wyrmfang Expanse, a place not marked on modern maps.
"This place shouldn't exist," Adam muttered. "It's not on any record."
"That's what makes it worth hiding something powerful in," Lyssara replied.
The Cradle of Stone
On the fourth day, they reached a jagged valley where two mountains loomed like broken teeth. The ground shifted with ancient tremors. Black glass grew in veins across the canyon floor—obsidian scar-tissue from long-dead magic.
Here, the map revealed its first riddle.
At its center lay a circular altar, buried in dust and silence. Carvings showed twin daggers in perfect symmetry, embedded into the backs of two beasts—a lion with wings, and a serpent with three eyes.
Lyssara traced the glyphs. "These aren't just weapons. They're... seals."
Adam adjusted his glasses, muttering spells. "If that's true, then pulling them out might not just reveal the daggers... it might also unleash whatever they were holding back."
Etreuf stepped toward the altar.
He placed his hand on the center stone.
It burned cold.
And the stone beneath his feet began to shift.
Trial of the Twin Flame
From the dust emerged a voice—not of speech, but of memory, echoing in each of their minds.
"To hold the flame, you must offer blood."
Without hesitation, Etreuf pricked his palm and let his blood drop onto the altar.
Suddenly, the world twisted. Shadows bent. The canyon fell away.
They were no longer in the real world—but in a timeless trial space, an ethereal realm of red light and flowing sand. Before them floated two crystalline pedestals—each with a dagger hovering above it.
One was curved like a crescent moon, its blade glowing silver-blue.
The other jagged, obsidian black, with red veins pulsing inside it.
"They're... humming," Lyssara whispered. "I can feel their magic resonating with us."
But from the far end of the space, two forms began to rise—spirit guardians, born of ancient energy. The winged lion and the three-eyed serpent, reconstructed in magical flame and ash, roared in unison.
The daggers would not be taken without a fight.
"We have to earn them," Etreuf said, cracking his knuckles. "Let's do it".
The altar flared with golden light.
Then—
Everything vanished.
Elliot found himself alone in a place that defied sense—an endless horizon of swirling stardust and glowing sand, suspended in a sky that had no ceiling.
Ahead stood a man—a silhouette of command and battle-hardened grace. Silver and obsidian armor, hair tied in a warrior's knot, and across his back—the twin daggers: one glowing with fire, the other with the black shimmer of the void.
His voice echoed like memory and thunder.
> "You bleed as I once did."
Elliot took a slow breath.
> "You're the one who forged the daggers?"
The man stepped forward.
> "I am the first Flamebearer. And you—if you are worthy—will be the last."
He drew the daggers, their edges singing as they left his back.
> "But no name is given freely. You must take it."
Before Elliot could reply, the warrior surged forward with impossible speed, daggers flashing through the starlight like lightning. Elliot barely dodged the first strike. The second cut into his shoulder—not deep, but precise, as if testing.
Elliot rolled, planting a hand into the sand, and countered with a burst of force. His fist struck the ground, sending a shockwave outward. The warrior slid back, unfazed.
> "You fight with fury," the warrior said. "But fire without focus only burns the bearer."
Elliot's eyes flared crimson.
He launched forward again, trading blows—his fists against the rhythm of blades. Each strike of the daggers bent the realm around them. Flame arced through the air. Gravity twisted sideways. Space compressed, forcing Elliot to adapt on instinct.
Blood dripped from his lip. He smiled.
> "You think I don't know pain?" he growled. "You think I'm afraid of it?"
He slammed his elbow into the warrior's ribs, followed by a brutal uppercut glowing with demonic energy.
> "I was pain. But I chose to become something more."
The warrior paused, breathing hard for the first time. He looked at Elliot—not as an enemy, but as a successor.
> "Then take them."
He stabbed both daggers into the earth.
Elliot approached, and when he wrapped his hands around the hilts—
They didn't resist.
Instead, they responded.
The air around him shifted. His veins surged with power. He felt the echo of countless wielders, all burned into the legacy of these blades. And at their core—the same blood.
> "I knew it," the warrior said softly. "You are of my line."
Elliot's eyes widened.
> "Your blood... carries the flame of the first kingdom. The blood of heroes forgotten by the world."
As the realm crumbled around him, the warrior gave one final nod.
> "Make them remember."
Elliot awoke, kneeling at the altar.
In each hand, a dagger.
One burned like fire—but cool to his grip.
The other shimmered with nothingness—a void that responded to thought.
Lyssara stepped back, stunned. "What happened to you?"
Elliot stood.
Not smiling. Just certain.
I saw a good future.