The sky had never been this still.
Even the clouds hung like carvings, unmoving and pale, as Kael and his companions trudged up the blackened slope of Vareth's Spine—a jagged mountain said to rest atop the bones of a forgotten titan.
Iris tightened her cloak. "I feel like the air here… watches us."
"It does," Rael muttered, thumbing the edge of an obsidian talisman. "The wind carries whispers of gods who died with regrets."
Ash snorted. "Then let's not add to the choir."
But Kael said nothing.
The fight with the Silent One had changed something in him. His mark burned more often now, but it wasn't just pain—it was as if it hungered. He heard echoes when no one spoke. He dreamt of blood rivers and black suns.
And he was starting to remember things no one had ever taught him.
Things not meant to be remembered.
The Legend of the Godbreaker
At the summit, where the snow should have howled, they found a door buried beneath frozen ash and ancient bones—a vault-gate made of jagged star-metal and runes that pulsed like veins.
Etched into the arch:"Here lies the one who slew the first god and paid the price in madness."
Kael reached out and touched the gate.
It screamed—not in sound, but in memory. He saw flashes: a giant with eyes of flame, shackled by men made of glass. A hammer carved from dying stars. Blood so powerful it warped the sky.
And a man. A warrior. Not unlike Kael.
A Godbreaker.
Kael's mark flared violently, and the gate split open.
Inside the Tomb
They stepped into a tunnel carved from black rock and lined with bones that still whispered. Torches lit themselves as they walked. Shadows twisted wrong.
The tomb had no guards.
It didn't need them.
Because inside was a curse so deep, the air itself wept.
In the main chamber, they found it: a stone dais, cracked from a sword buried in it. The weapon pulsed with molten red veins and whispered in the Old Tongue.
"Come. We share blood."
Kael stepped forward.
Rael grabbed his arm. "That blade—"
"I know," Kael interrupted. "It's calling."
Ash looked at the sword. "What is it?"
Kael blinked. "It's not a sword. It's a seal."
The Truth Beneath
As Kael touched the hilt, the chamber exploded in light. Runes blazed. Time twisted.
The others vanished from his sight.
And Kael stood in a memory not his own.
He saw the first war between gods and men—beings of fire, hunger, and song waging war across a sky of shattered moons.
He saw the Godbreaker rise. Not out of glory, but out of vengeance. A mortal who lost everything and chose to challenge eternity.
And he saw how that Godbreaker had won—by binding a piece of godhood into a blade.
A blade made from the spine of a dead star.
A blade that should never have been found.
A Warning
The vision ended.
Kael gasped and stumbled back, the blade still humming in his hand. His veins felt molten. His eyes—burning.
Iris caught him. "What did you see?"
Kael's voice was hollow. "This sword… it doesn't kill gods."
Rael frowned. "Then what does it do?"
Kael looked up, eyes glowing faintly. "It remembers them. Stores them. And if wielded wrongly… it unleashes them."
Ash backed away. "So what? You're saying we just dug up a god battery?"
Kael turned to face the vault. "No. We dug up a prison."
And behind them… the wind whispered a name.
A name no mortal had spoken in ten thousand years.
Zor'Kael.
The name of the first god to fall.
The name Kael had never told anyone… because it was his birth name before the world was rewritten.