The darkness pressed close, swallowing sound and thought alike. Yet Kaelen could not ignore what he had seen—the broken armor glowing with a Keeper's dying essence. It wasn't a warning. It was a signal.
He rose, scanning the fractured horizon. At first, there was nothing but the endless plain of drifting shards. Then, faintly, another pulse shimmered far ahead—blue, fleeting, like a candle's last breath.
Another fragment.
Kaelen tightened his grip on his blade and began to move.
The trail was uneven, shifting beneath his boots. At times, he had to leap across gaps between floating stones, each one suspended in the void like the pieces of a shattered mirror. When he landed, the echoes of past voices would rise again, murmuring at the edge of comprehension.
"Lost…"
"Chained…"
"Set us free…"
Each whisper sank deeper into his bones, urging him forward.
The second fragment revealed itself as the shattered remains of a Keeper's gauntlet, still clasping a hilt that no longer held a blade. The faint light bled from within the broken metal, pulsing against his skin.
As Kaelen crouched to touch it, the Abyss inside him reacted violently, flaring in his veins. For a moment, the world around him bent—showing not broken plains but a battlefield drenched in fire and screams. He saw Keepers falling, one by one, their chains shattering as something colossal devoured them whole.
Then it was gone.
Kaelen's breath trembled as he stood. Whatever left these fragments wasn't just history—it was memory, bleeding into his own.
Ahead, another pulse glimmered faintly in the dark. And beyond that, deeper still, the ground rumbled again.
The trail was leading him somewhere.
Somewhere that didn't want to be found.
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