"Do you hear it?"
Ayaka's whisper trembled like a broken string. The walls around them were no longer still — they breathed. Deep beneath the headquarters, behind doors sealed by forgotten languages and cursed bloodlines, the Covenant of Ashen Eyes had summoned them.
Kaizen stepped forward, his footsteps echoing like war drums through the chamber. An eerie blue fire danced along the ancient glyphs carved into the obsidian walls, and each flame seemed to stare back with hollow eyes. Ayaka clutched his arm, not in fear — but in warning. Even her Veinborn instincts were recoiling.
In the center of the dome-shaped chamber stood nine cloaked figures. Their hoods shadowed their faces, but Kaizen could feel their gaze — cold, ancient, dissecting his soul.
"You carry the Shard King's breath," one of them spoke in a voice so hoarse it sounded like the last gasp of a dying god.
Kaizen's veins pulsed — not from anger or fear, but recognition. As if some dormant part of him responded to that title.
"Why summon us now?" Ayaka demanded, her voice steady, defiant.
Another Elder moved forward. "Because the blood moon approaches, and the prophecy has already begun to unravel. The boy's presence distorts the threads of fate."
Kaizen clenched his fists. "I don't care about fate. I want answers. About the Veinborn. About me. About the war you're all hiding."
A long silence.
Then a voice behind them spoke — a voice they knew.
"You already have the answers, Kaizen. You just refuse to see them."
Razen stepped out of the shadows, still wearing the Umbra insignia, but his eyes carried a deeper burden now. Not guilt. Purpose.
"Razen?" Ayaka stepped forward.
Razen nodded. "There is something beneath the Flame Network... an echo older than time, older than the Bists, older than humanity itself. It calls to you. It called to me too once."
The Elders nodded slowly. "He was our failed vessel. You are our final hope."
Suddenly, the floor beneath them trembled. From the side hallway, a scream echoed — a chilling cry that cracked like thunder.
Kaizen rushed toward the sound. Inside a small adjacent chamber, he found Luro, a Squad Umbra scout, clutching his head, eyes wide with horror.
"He... he's inside my head," Luro stammered. "A voice... chanting... I can't — make it stop!"
Kaizen grabbed him. "What did the voice say?"
Luro looked up, blood trickling from his ears. "Varthazil... rises... Veinborn must bleed."
Ayaka gasped. The name was from the forbidden records. Varthazil — the Devourer of Worlds. A being said to be sealed inside the Vein core of the planet. A being that only the Shard King could unseal.
Back in the chamber, one Elder stepped forward and pulled out a crystal shard — glowing faintly red, throbbing like a heart.
"Touch it," he told Kaizen.
Ayaka protested, but Kaizen, driven by the hunger for truth, placed his hand on it.
A flash.
In an instant, his mind was hurled across space and time. He saw himself, but not as he was. He wore obsidian armor. His eyes were pits of molten fire. Around him, cities crumbled. Skies turned black. Humanity — Bists — everything — burned. His hands dripped with the blood of gods.
And standing before him was another version of himself.
"You are the flame that ends the world. Accept it."
Kaizen jerked back, gasping, his skin cold despite the fire in his veins. The Elders merely watched.
"Now you understand," one said. "You are not just a Veinborn. You are the vessel of the End Flame. The reincarnation of Varthazil's wrath."
Kaizen staggered back. Ayaka held him up, her grip unshaken.
"No..." he whispered. "I won't become that monster."
Far away, in an underground crypt carved into the veins of the earth, Nerovar knelt before a pit of black ichor.
"It begins," he whispered.
A shadow opened its eyes within the pool — eyes that did not blink, only watched.
And far above, the moon began to bleed red.
---
To Be Continued...