The first step onto the valley floor felt like crossing into another world.
Aric's boots sank slightly into the ashen soil, the ground cracked and scorched beneath his weight. The air tasted of burnt metal and something darker—ancient, predatory. The Vale of Echoes was no longer a place of mere death; it had become a hollow echo of a time long forgotten, a cursed land where the past refused to remain buried.
Kael moved ahead cautiously, his sharp eyes scanning the horizon as though expecting an ambush at any moment. Selene was quieter now, her hand resting on the hilt of her blade, ready for anything.
Aric walked as if in a trance, drawn toward the black stone monolith that loomed at the heart of the valley. The closer he came, the more the weight of its presence pressed against him, like it was calling to the very core of his being.
He heard the whispers again, faint at first, like a forgotten language. The voices swirled in his mind, incomprehensible but undeniably familiar. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had been here before, in a life that wasn't his, in a world that never truly existed.
The monolith grew larger, its dark surface covered in intricate symbols that seemed to shift and change the closer he got. The air around it hummed with a strange energy, a pull that threatened to overwhelm him.
"Aric, stop," Kael warned, his voice tense. "This is madness. You don't know what's down there."
"I have to know," Aric said, his voice distant. "I have to understand what this is... what it's doing to me."
Selene stepped forward, her eyes narrowing in concern. "Aric, don't let it take you. Whatever this thing is, it's not your destiny. It's an anchor, a tether to something darker."
But Aric didn't hear her. His hand reached out, fingers trembling as they brushed against the cold surface of the monolith. The moment his skin made contact, a surge of raw power shot through him, unlike anything he had ever felt before. It burned through his veins, scorching him from the inside out.
Pain. Power. Memory.
He saw the past.
He saw himself—a younger version—standing before this very monolith, arms raised in reverence, calling forth the fire that would consume the world. He saw the flames of destruction licking at the edges of reality, sweeping away everything in its path.
He saw Malrik.
But not the Malrik they had come to fight. This was the Malrik of the past, a shadow of what he would become, wielding a power that could reshape the world.
The visions faded as quickly as they had come, leaving Aric gasping for air, his heart pounding in his chest.
Kael and Selene were beside him in an instant, pulling him away from the monolith.
"What did you see?" Selene asked, her voice urgent.
Aric swallowed hard, trying to steady his breath. "I saw… the flame. The fire I once called. The destruction I unleashed."
"You didn't do it," Kael said sharply. "That wasn't you. That was a different time, a different person. A part of you that's been buried."
Aric shook his head, confusion clouding his thoughts. "But it felt real. It felt like I was the one who did it."
"It's the monolith," Kael said, his voice grim. "It doesn't just show the past—it manipulates the mind. It makes you believe you were someone else, someone who wielded its power."
"But what if I am that person?" Aric whispered. "What if that's who I'm becoming?"
The ground beneath them trembled, and a low rumble echoed through the valley.
Kael turned sharply, his hand on the hilt of his blade. "It's him. Malrik."
The earth split open as the shadow of the man they had been hunting for weeks finally emerged. Malrik stood tall, his presence a dark omen that swallowed the light around him. His eyes were like burning coals, and the air around him crackled with the same energy that had surged through Aric only moments ago.
"Aric," Malrik said, his voice like a whisper carried on the wind. "You have come to face me. To stop me, you think."
"I've come to stop what you've become," Aric said, his voice steady despite the uncertainty that gnawed at him.
Malrik's smile was a thing of malice, twisting the air with its darkness. "But what if we are the same, Aric? What if the very power you fear is the one that will make you stronger?"
The ground beneath Aric's feet began to glow, and the power in the air thickened. The flame—the Third Flame—was awakening, and it was calling to them both.
The time for answers was over.
The time for battle had begun.
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