Location: Andes Mountains – Monastery of the Red Path
The wind howled along the ridgeline, whispering prayers through chimes made of bone and obsidian. The high-altitude monastery stood like a relic out of time—its stone walls cracked by age, yet defiant against nature's fury.
Inside, silence reigned.
Not a peaceful silence—but one born of reverence. Fear. Anticipation.
At the center of the great meditation hall, a man sat cross-legged on a mat woven from llama wool and gold thread. His skin was the shade of burnt copper, his black hair shaved close. Tattoos of spirals, suns, and broken wings danced across his muscular arms.
His name was Ayar, though the monks had long stopped calling him that. To them, he was simply the Herald.
And tonight—he awakened.
---
The Awakening
The moment the red moon reached its zenith, Ayar's eyes opened.
He exhaled slowly, and frost coated the stone beneath him despite the burning incense.
On his chest, a sigil pulsed—three serpents devouring a blazing sun. It writhed, not carved into flesh but beneath it, alive with ancient energy.
The walls trembled.
Chimes shattered.
Candles extinguished in perfect synchrony.
Ayar stood.
Behind him, the Grand Abbot stepped forward, fear etched deep into his lined face.
"You remember," the old man said.
Ayar nodded, rolling his shoulders as if shaking off millennia of sleep.
"Typhon breathes again."
The Abbot bowed his head. "Shall we warn the others?"
Ayar's voice was like thunder beneath stone.
"No. Let the gods come."
---
Descent
He walked through the halls like a force of nature. Monks bowed, some trembling, others weeping. They had waited years, generations even, for the signs foretold.
But none had expected it would be him.
The stories had painted the Herald as a monster.
The destroyer of harmony.
The serpent god reborn.
Yet as Ayar stepped into the courtyard, lightning crackling in the sky above him, he felt no hunger for destruction—only clarity. His mind was ablaze with memory: visions of golden palaces and broken chains, of gods who ruled without mercy and mortals who begged for change.
He remembered being Typhon—not the villain of Olympus, but its rebel.
A god who challenged tyranny.
A god who failed.
---
Flashback: The War of Myths
He stood once beneath a sky of fire, staring down Zeus himself. His many heads had screamed defiance. His wings blotted the heavens. Mountains shattered beneath his steps.
The gods had feared him.
And so they chained him.
Beneath a volcano, in darkness eternal.
He remembered the laughter of gods who called it justice.
And the whisper of a storm god—Kairon—who almost freed him.
But the betrayal came not from the sky, nor the sea.
It came from her.
The one with the frozen eyes.
Velkyr.
---
Present Day: The Decision
The wind calmed as Ayar stepped outside the monastery walls. His sandals touched the earth, and the mountain trembled with every footstep.
He turned south.
A presence stirred.
Two of them.
Fire and lightning.
Kairon lived again. And the Phoenix.
But something else whispered from below. A deeper darkness. A forgotten myth awakening.
Ayar looked to the sky and spoke not a prayer, but a warning:
> "If you chained me once, gods… I dare you to try again."
---
Elsewhere: Avalon's Council
Back in the floating city of Avalon, Isaiah stared through the observation dome as Velkyr's stasis pod pulsed with faint light. Suri stood beside him, arms crossed.
"She's stable," Lucian said, walking in with a datapad. "We've suppressed her consciousness temporarily. But her Mythborne identity… it's fully bonded now."
Isaiah nodded grimly. "No going back."
Suri frowned. "So what now? Lock her away forever?"
"No," Isaiah said. "We show her she has a choice."
Lucian cleared his throat. "Before that—there's another issue. A new signal. Andes Mountains. Strong. Primordial."
Isaiah looked up.
"Who is it?"
Lucian's eyes were dark. "The World Serpent."
---
Suri's Dream
That night, Suri dreamed again.
But this time, she wasn't alone.
She stood on a black plain, beneath a sky filled with shattered stars. Before her coiled a creature of impossible scale—eyes glowing like dying suns, mouths whispering endless names.
> "You are fire," it said. "But fire burns, and burns, and burns… until it dies."
Suri stepped back. "Who are you?"
The serpent grinned.
> "I am what the gods feared. I am the reckoning beneath their throne."
Then she saw Isaiah—bound in chains of gold, screaming her name.
And the serpent asked:
> "Will you burn them too, to save him?"
She woke in a cold sweat.