The world had grown quieter after the wars.
The Hollowborn were scattered remnants, the factions of humanity battered and bruised, their banners tattered, their heroes buried in shallow graves across poisoned fields. Kaela stood among the ruins of what had once been a proud city, her hand tightening on the worn hilt of her blade.
Arin stood by her side, silent, his face grim.
The sky above them was a washed-out grey, but today... something was different.
A rumbling — deep, low, wrong — rolled under their boots.
Not the tremor of an earthquake, nor the roar of a storm.
It was deeper, older, like the Earth itself was groaning in pain.
"Did you feel that?" Arin said quietly.
Kaela didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she turned her gaze towards the horizon.
In the far distance, black clouds were spiraling inwards — not like a storm, but like a whirlpool in the sky.
The Genesis Core, the object she had bled and fought to protect, now pulsed faintly at her waist.
Once bright and vibrant, its light was growing weaker.
And with it… so was the world.
They moved quickly through the ruins, reaching the shattered outpost where Chris's old command base had once stood. Only fragments remained now — charred husks of helicopters, collapsed bunkers, the bones of desperate last stands.
Arin helped clear a path through the rubble.
Inside the wreckage, they found old logs — battered data files, some still active.
Kaela wiped dust from one cracked console and powered it up.
A distorted voice crackled to life:
"If you're hearing this... the seal is breaking. The Genesis Core was never meant to be used. It was meant to be a prison key — to keep It asleep. If the Core fades... It wakes."
Kaela stiffened.
Arin leaned in.
The recording continued, the voice almost a whisper:
"We thought the Hollowborn were the worst. We were wrong. They were just dreams. It is the dreamer."
The console sparked and died.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the dead wind howling through empty streets.
Then — a scream.
Not human.
Something far worse.
From the broken city outskirts, shapes emerged — twisted beasts unlike anything Kaela had fought before.
Their bodies were part bone, part writhing darkness, and their faces were just gaping holes where features should be.
Arin drew his weapon.
Kaela raised hers.
The first wave of monsters charged.
The battle was fast, chaotic.
Kaela's blade carved arcs of silver through the tainted air.
Arin fired precision shots, dropping creature after creature.
But for every beast they felled, more took its place.
"Fall back!" Kaela shouted, blood streaking across her armor.
They retreated through the ruins, fighting every step.
Each blow, each cut revealed something chilling — the monsters weren't attacking blindly.
They were driven, called — something was pulling them toward the Genesis Core strapped to Kaela's belt.
"They're not after us," Arin realized. "They're after the Core!"
Kaela gritted her teeth.
She tightened her hold on the artifact, feeling its weakening pulse against her side.
If the monsters got it...
If the Genesis Core fell...
Then the prison would break.
And Nyxothar would awaken.
They barely made it to a defensive line — a ragtag camp of surviving soldiers, mercenaries, and even a few old enemies from defeated factions.
Everyone left alive had gathered here.
Everyone left who still had the strength to fight.
Among them, Kaela saw the faces of veterans — scarred, tired, but still burning with stubborn life.
General Holt, who had once led the Iron Circle.
Commander Myra, the Blade of the Eastern Front.
And others — worn remnants of great armies long shattered.
They looked to Kaela as she entered the camp, dragging blood behind her.
"You brought it, didn't you," Holt said, nodding toward the Genesis Core.
Kaela said nothing.
She didn't need to.
They all knew.
They had gathered because they had heard the whisper in their dreams — the same whisper Kaela had heard since the first tremor shook the world:
It wakes.
That night, around a sputtering fire, Kaela stood before them.
They had no leaders anymore.
Only survivors.
But they still listened.
"We can't run," she said, voice hoarse. "We can't hide. If we do nothing, the world ends."
The fire flickered.
Someone shifted uncomfortably.
"You've felt it too," she continued. "The air is heavier. The ground trembles. The monsters... they're just the beginning."
A pause.
"If we don't fight — if we don't find a way to reseal the Heart — there won't be a tomorrow."
Arin stood behind her, silent but steadfast.
Holt crossed his arms. "And how do you plan to fight a god?"
Kaela stared into the flames.
Memories flashed — of Chris's last stand, of the lives lost at the Genesis War, of the endless blood and ashes.
"I don't know," she admitted.
Honesty.
The kind only a leader could show.
"But we fight anyway."
Because if they didn't… who would?
In the dead of that broken night, as the camp drifted into uneasy sleep, Kaela stood alone on a crumbling balcony overlooking the ruins.
Arin approached quietly, holding two battered metal cups.
"Coffee," he said with a small, grim smile.
It was half-burnt and bitter, but it was something.
Kaela took it gratefully.
For a while, they just watched the stars — or what was left of them.
Then, Kaela whispered, almost to herself:
"Do you think we'll make it?"
Arin looked at her, really looked.
"You made it this far," he said. "Maybe that's enough."
Kaela closed her eyes.
Tomorrow, they would begin the final march.
Toward the Abyss.
Toward the Heart That Sleeps.
Toward the end of everything.