The rain was not merely falling it spoke, each drop carrying whispers that seeped past Sorin's ears and sank deep into his bones.
He stepped into its embrace without hesitation. Cold clung like a second skin, yet the Silence Path did not waver; it sharpened, as if the storm itself had become its voice. Layers of the world unfurled before him: the slow pulse of the earth, the faint draw of roots drinking, and further still, the steady heartbeat of something vast and unseen.
Each droplet became a note in an endless symphony, and Sorin found his movements falling into its rhythm.
The rain washed away the bitterness of the Graveyard clash, the spectral dust of shattered titans, and the lingering weight of his confrontations with mercenaries and monsters.
Yet the whispers did not fade—they grew sharper, deliberate patterns forming like runes etched in water, threading through his thoughts.
At the storm's edges, shapes began to stir, not of light but of sound given form, bending with the rhythm of the rain. The pull was neither from the road ahead nor from any mortal voice, but from the forbidden current of the Silence Path. It urged him forward: not to flee, not to seek shelter, but to sink deeper into the unknown.
The echoes of the Titan's Graveyard still vibrated in his bones; the unspoken warnings pressed heavier, threads of intrigue winding tighter around him.
Beside him, Lys moved in silent synchrony, her presence steady, grounding. Their shared glances carried unspoken reassurance, a warmth growing amid the storm's ferocity.
Sorin realized the connection that had begun in fire and bone now thrived in rain and shadow, a subtle bond knitting them together as each step drew them deeper into peril.
Somewhere beyond the curtain of rain, echoes waited to be heard, truths awaited to be claimed—truths that could bind the fate of realms to his own.
They circled him, pressing closer with every measured step, as though the storm itself had been waiting for him to arrive.
The path shimmered between reality and dream, and Sorin knew without proof that the choices he made here would ripple across worlds long after the rain ceased to fall.
Through the downpour, Lys's hand brushed his, an accidental contact yet weighted with promise.
The storm embraced them, violent and alive, and for the first time, Sorin felt the Baptism of the Storm not as a trial of silence alone, but as a baptism of trust, camaraderie, and something tender yet unspoken—a beginning forged in rain, heartbeats, and shared resolve.