Silence.
Nameless knelt beside the body — still warm, still bleeding — as if death had yet to decide whether to take her.
Elara...The only soul who had remembered him when even time forgot.
His hand trembled as he cupped her chin, lifting her face toward his view.
The "sky" was not a sky at all.
It was a ceiling of endless black depth, rippling faintly, as though it were the skin of some vast, sleeping thing. From it, motes of dim light drifted downward — not snow, not ash, but something in between. Each glowed for a heartbeat before fading into grey dust, vanishing into the soil without a sound.
"I don't know how I got here," he said, his voice low and raw, like gravel grinding in his throat. "I don't know how I escaped… but it feels like you are the reason I'm breathing."
Blood ran from the corner of her lips. He brushed it away with a thumb, slow and careful, as if she could still feel it.
"I don't know what drove me to that rage — the fire in my bones, the need to kill every monster around you. But I was late. Too late."
He lowered his head until his forehead rested against hers. His breath shuddered.
"Why are you dead? I didn't get to ask you anything. Didn't get to thank you. Didn't even get to know you."
No scream. No sob. Only that still, sharp ache that could splinter the world.
Nameless rose slowly.
The ground at his feet trembled.
With a mere flicker of will, the black soil split open before him. Ash swirled as the earth lowered itself into a perfect hollow — edges clean, depth precise, as if carved by unseen hands. The void's drifting dust bent away from the grave, as though respecting it.
He lifted her in his arms for the first time, or for the one last time and stepped forward. Her weight was nothing. Her absence was everything.
Gently, he placed her within the hollow. Her hair spread like ink in water. Her arms folded over her chest.
The soil closed in silence, sealing her from the falling ash. A ripple of energy sank into the ground, leaving the earth smooth and undisturbed.
The winds here carried no scent, but the silence that followed pressed against his ears.
When he straightened, he was bloodstained — his face cold, eyes burning faintly red. His hair was long like a warrior. His clothes, black as shadow, clung to him in ragged layers, their edges torn but still carrying the weight of something regal. His hands dripped with blood that wasn't all his.
And yet, he stood like a man unbroken.
Behind him, out of the seven crystals over his spine... Only one glowed faintly. The rest stayed normal, as if waiting.
As he was standing there no knowing what to do and where to go,
A voice broke the silence.
Lazy. Unafraid.
"Took you long enough, though i myself just got here"
Nameless turned.
A young woman leaned against the jagged remnants of a wall. She was slim, bronze skinned, wearing jeans and a black top streaked with soot and dried blood — worn like armor rather than clothing. Round glasses clung to the bridge of her nose, reflecting the dim fall of ash. A lit cigar rested between two fingers, its ember burning bright in the gloom.
Her eyes were sharp, blue like cut glass — the kind that looked straight through and found what it wanted. she looks confident, like someone who had already seen the ending and stayed anyway.
"You're prettier than the stories," she said, exhaling a slow curl of smoke. "But a lot messier right now."
Nameless said nothing. His gaze lingered, searching her face.
"Who are you?" he asked.
She stepped forward. Boots cracked bone fragments underfoot.
"You're the big mystery. I'm just the idiot who lights a cigar in ."
She flicked the ash.
"Call me Ryne."
She circled him, eyes scanning the crystals over his back.
"So… only one's awake? That means six more disasters waiting to happen."
He remained still. with a judgemental look on his face.
"What is this place?"
Her smirk widened.
"You really don't remember anything, do you?"
She gestured to the distant horizon, where towers of charred flesh and twisted steel burned without smoke.
"This is the First Realm — Fleshfire. Where the dead walk, the demons rule, and the humans forgot they were ever human."
Her hand lifted toward the ceiling of the world.
"This isn't a sky. It was ripped away centuries ago. Your war did that."
His fists clenched.
"My war?"
"Yeah," she said, walking closer until her shadow crossed his. "The Great Collapse. Seven realms. Seven gods. Seven betrayals. And you — right in the center of it all."
She leaned in, her voice dropping.
"They erased you. Wiped your name from memory. Burned your history. Shattered your crystals. They thought you'd never crawl back."
His eyes flicked to Elara's grave. Then to her.
"Then they were wrong."
One of the crystals pulsed faintly. Just once.
Ryne crushed the last of her cigar under her shoe, the ember dying in the ash.
"Well, I might be aware of a lot more things that you're not...also I've got a death wish with a map," she said, stretching her arms. "You've got power, and a reason, I hope."
She turned, motioning toward the distance.
"Let's wake the rest of you up."
He didn't answer. He just started to walk along with her, Because he had no other option now.
The ash continued to fall from the void above.
And far away, something stirred.
The First Realm stretches endlessly — a blackened desert of bone and fire.
Ryne walks, humming some forgotten hymn.
Above them: skies torn open.
Beneath them: ash and screams.
Then… the ground trembles.
They crest a hill, and below them sprawls a nightmare.
A city — twisted towers of flesh bound stone, hooked chains dangling from their tops like spiderwebs.
Every building breathes.
And in the center: an arena.
Massive.
Loud.
Alive.
Crowds chant from the balconies of that arena.
Drums beat like war hearts.
Something is happening inside.
Nameless stares, wanting to figure out what actually is happening inside.
Ryne just exhales smoke from a new cigar.
"Welcome to Ghastmaw," she says. "City of Chains. Built on bones. Ruled by beasts."
"They don't eat food here. They eat what you remember."
He doesn't flinch from that information.
But his eyes darken.
"Why would they do that?"
"Because memories are sweeter than flesh," she says. "And twice as dangerous."
As they approach the gates of the city arena...Two grotesque gatekeepers bar the entrance. Eyes hollow. Tongues too long.
Their blades drip with blood.
One hisses.
"Names. Offerings."
Nameless just walks past.
Both guards freeze...
Their blades disintegrate into rust.
Their knees buckle.
They fall, screaming — not in pain...but in recognition.
One chokes, "Y-you were never supposed to return…"
Nameless does not reply, looks at them with disgust.
The chains above the gates rattle like they remember him too.