Chapter 2 – The Unsealing
The storm came without wind.
Across the dunes, the night thickened, light bending toward the excavation pit as if drawn into a mouth. From the shattered earth, a pulse rose — one beat, then another — spreading through the air like the echo of a colossal heart.
Elian Vale stood trembling beside the open sarcophagus. The man within—no, not a man—sat upright now, motionless except for the slow rise of his chest.
His skin shimmered faintly, as if light remembered him.
"Stay… still," Elian managed, his voice barely more than a gasp. He raised his flashlight instinctively, but the beam fractured against the god's face, breaking into threads of silver.
The stranger turned his head, studying the human before him. His movements were deliberate, ancient in their slowness, like mountains shifting.
"What year is it?" he asked, voice low and resonant, each word trailing a faint echo as if the walls themselves answered.
Elian hesitated. "The… the Third Era of Aurelius. Year four hundred and thirty-seven."
The name struck something in the god's eyes — recognition, then fury. His fingers curled around the edge of the sarcophagus, veins of gold flaring beneath his skin.
"Aurelius," he repeated, tasting the name like venom. "You dare speak that false dawn in my presence."
Elian took a step back, heart pounding. "It's— it's the age of the New God, the one who saved the world from the old evil. From—"
"From me," the god finished, voice hollow with disbelief. "They named their lie after salvation and buried truth beneath its shadow."
A silence stretched between them, heavy as stone. Dust fell from the ceiling in trembling sighs.
Elian swallowed. He was not sure whether to bow, flee, or speak. His academic mind fought against the impossible, clawing for sense, but the creature before him was undeniable.
"You can't be—"
"Dead?" The god's lips curved into something too sharp to be a smile. "They tried. They bound me, fed their light on my corpse, and called it holiness."
He stood.
The chamber's light dimmed around him, bending inward. His height was not unnatural, but his presence made the space smaller, the air thinner. Power pressed from him in waves, tasting of old blood and incense.
Elian stumbled backward until his shoulder struck a column. His flashlight clattered to the floor, flickering out. Only the god's faint inner glow remained, casting long shadows that rippled like living things.
"Why are you here?" Elian asked hoarsely.
"You woke me."
"It was an accident—"
"Nothing is accident." His voice softened then, almost gentle. "Fate favors the curious. Even when curiosity kills."
Elian's throat went dry. "If you are who you claim, then you— you created this world. You created us."
The god tilted his head, studying him. "I remember creating something. But I remember, too, how it rotted." His eyes lingered on Elian's face. "Perhaps the rot remains."
Outside, thunder broke — a sound that did not belong to weather. The ground shuddered. Sand poured through cracks above.
The god looked up, nostrils flaring as if scenting the storm. "They know."
"Who—?"
"The thieves of my light." His voice grew low, dangerous. "The ones who chained me to mortality and drank divinity to preserve their flesh."
Elian's mind raced. The Council of Light? The saints of Aurelius? But those were myths, the very foundation of civilization—
The god stepped from the sarcophagus, bare feet meeting the stone with a quiet, decisive sound. The moment his skin touched the ground, the golden veins beneath it pulsed once, and every glyph in the chamber flared awake.
The air shimmered. The symbols writhed, rearranging themselves into new shapes, like a thousand eyes opening.
Elian shielded his face. "Stop— you'll bring the whole thing down!"
The god only looked at him — gaze unreadable, power restrained by a thread. Then, with a flick of his wrist, the light dimmed again.
"You are trembling," he said softly.
Elian exhaled shakily. "You— you shouldn't exist. You're—"
"—a ghost written out of your history?" The god's tone was both amused and weary. "Then perhaps I haunt you for good reason."
He took a step closer. The space between them thinned. Elian could feel the warmth of him now — like standing near a flame that refused to burn.
"Tell me your name," the god murmured.
"Elian Vale."
"Elian," he repeated, savoring the syllables. "You will help me remember who I was."
Before Elian could respond, the ground above cracked open with a scream of metal and sand. Starlight poured through the fissure, cold and frantic. Voices echoed faintly from the surface — his team, shouting his name, their words swallowed by the wind.
The god's gaze flicked upward, then back to Elian. "They cannot see me."
"Why?"
"Because they are not meant to."
He lifted a hand, and the shadows bent toward his palm. They spread across the walls, swallowing light, until the chamber darkened to black. Elian felt weightlessness, the strange sensation of being unmoored.
When vision returned, they stood in the open air, at the edge of the excavation. The night sky above them was alive — constellations twisting, the moon splitting briefly in two before rejoining. The desert groaned like a living creature.
Elian staggered, breathless. "How— how did you—"
The god looked toward the horizon where the first fires of chaos flickered faintly in distant cities. "The unsealing has begun," he said.
Then his gaze softened, a rare quiet sliding into his tone. "You called me lord. Keep it so, until I recall my true name."
Elian, still on his knees in the sand, whispered the only thing his trembling lips could form.
"Yes, my lord."
And the god turned his eyes toward the sleeping world, whispering a vow only the desert heard:
> "They made me their devil. I will show them what devils are."