The journey back to the surface was silent, but the world around them was anything but. The veins beneath the ground pulsed with an unnatural rhythm, a heartbeat that reverberated through the soles of their boots and the walls of the earth alike. It wasn't just power—it was alive, aware.
When they emerged from the ravine, the landscape had changed. The air shimmered faintly, laced with gold and violet, and the shadows of the ruins now twisted unnaturally—as though time itself was moving out of sync.
Kaine was the first to speak. "The Veins have shifted the flow of magic." His voice was quiet, reverent almost. "Everything feels… heavier."
Arlen said nothing. His eyes were still distant, his hand occasionally flickering with threads of golden energy he couldn't quite suppress. The fourth fragment had changed something deep within him—not just his power, but his perception. The world now felt louder. The air buzzed with whispers, voices of elements and echoes of forgotten souls.
Lira walked beside him, her expression unreadable. Every few seconds, she'd glance at him, as if afraid he might vanish again.
"You haven't said a word since it happened," she murmured finally.
He exhaled slowly. "I don't know what to say."
"Then start with what you saw."
He hesitated. The vision haunted him—the throne, the countless celestial figures kneeling, the alternate version of himself whose gaze carried the weight of entire worlds.
"I saw… me," he said quietly. "But not this me. Something else. Someone who had already lost everything."
Lira frowned. "You're scaring me, Arlen."
He turned to her, the faintest smile touching his lips. "I scare myself sometimes."
Rynel stepped ahead, breaking the tension. "Whatever that thing did to you, we'll figure it out. But right now, we've got a bigger problem." He pointed toward the horizon.
The sky to the east was fractured. Thin lines of light were crawling across the firmament like cracks in glass, and through them, Arlen could see glimpses of something vast and cold—an ocean of stars moving in unnatural rhythm.
"The Rift network's destabilizing," Kaine muttered. "The Veins are overloading the conduits."
"Meaning?" Lira asked.
"Meaning," Kaine said grimly, "the world's core is awakening faster than we can adapt."
A low rumble tore through the plains. The ground convulsed, and fissures split open, spewing golden mist into the air. Arlen stumbled but steadied himself, feeling the same energy surge through his veins.
Then he heard it—a voice beneath the chaos. Not external, but within.
> "You lit the spark. Now, bear the pulse."
His eyes widened. "No…"
The veins across the landscape flared, linking together in a radiant pattern that formed a colossal sigil stretching miles across the wasteland. The light surged upward, piercing the heavens.
Kaine shouted over the roar, "We have to get back to the Vale! If that pulse reaches the capital, the containment wards will—"
He never finished the sentence. The light exploded.
A shockwave of raw celestial force swept across the plains, flattening everything in its path. Lira was thrown backward, Kaine barely shielded himself with a runic barrier, and Rynel vanished into the haze.
Arlen, at the epicenter of it all, fell to his knees as the energy burned through him. The pulse wasn't destroying him—it was merging with him. Every heartbeat felt like thunder, every breath like the tide of a storm.
He screamed, the sound echoing across dimensions. For an instant, his body flickered—half human, half radiant. His shadow stretched and split, showing faint outlines of wings made of light and frost.
When it was over, he collapsed, the world eerily silent once more.
Lira crawled toward him, coughing through the dust. "Arlen! Hey—look at me!"
His eyes opened slowly. They glowed faintly gold, like molten amber.
"Arlen?"
He blinked once. Then twice. "I can hear it," he whispered. "The world's heartbeat. It's… calling to me."
Kaine approached cautiously. "What's it saying?"
Arlen looked past them, toward the distant mountains where the pulse light still shimmered faintly. "It's not a message," he murmured. "It's a warning."
"About what?" Lira asked.
He stood shakily, the wind whipping around him. "Something's rising beneath the world. Something older than the Rifts." He looked up at the fractured sky, voice low and cold. "And it's waking because of me."
The wind howled again, carrying faint whispers—words none of them could quite understand. But Arlen did.
He turned toward the horizon, eyes burning brighter than before. "It's not over," he said softly. "The pulse… it's just the beginning."
The camera of fate seemed to pull back then—revealing the vast world below, its continents laced with glowing veins, each one throbbing in rhythm with a colossal heart buried deep beneath the crust.
And in that heart's chamber, a single golden eye opened.
---