The sky over Wamena changed color.
The fog that had hung over the valley for weeks began to shift, as if afraid of something new. In the stillness of night, Yohwa stood before the cracked stone that once only trembled. Now, it glowed again—faint, but alive.
The Soul Carving necklace hung around his neck, pulsing gently like a second heartbeat. He could feel resonance from the earth beneath him, from the stones around him, from the air thick with memory. The world was not silent. The world was waiting.
Yohwa closed his eyes. He didn't know what would happen. He only knew he couldn't turn back. He placed both hands on the stone, and as his skin touched the fractured surface, light erupted.
His body lifted from the ground. Glowing fissures spread from his arms to his chest, to his face, to every part of him. His skin hardened, transforming into a living layer of stone. But not dead stone—this was stone that remembered. Stone that carried history.
Armor grew from within. His shoulders were covered in ancestral-carved plates. His chest glowed with a spiral symbol slowly turning. His eyes opened, and golden light burst from within. He was no longer just Yohwa. He was something older, deeper, brighter.\
Wind swirled around him. The earth trembled. In the distance, the fog of Kelam began to stir, as if sensing that a new guardian had awakened.
Yohwa fell to his knees, breath heavy. But he was not weak. He was simply new. He touched the ground, and the stone beneath him lit up. He could feel voices from the past—cries, laughter, prayers. All flowing into him.
He rose slowly. In his hand, a stone hammer formed from shards of earth fused together. The weapon was heavy, but it did not burden him. It was part of him.
From within the fog, a voice echoed: Kelam's whisper. "You are not light. You are only a shadow that refuses to fade."
Yohwa looked toward the sound. "If I am a shadow, then I am a shadow that remembers."
And with his first step, he became the Stone Light Warrior.