Silence swallowed the chamber after the elder's final sentence.
Aurelianth stood motionless, feeling the world tilt under him not physically, but emotionally, like someone had yanked the foundation out from beneath his identity.
The last Aurelianth… vanished.
The runes unfinished… because his task was unfinished…
And I woke up in his body.
The elder watched him with cautious reverence, as though he were a blade someone wasn't sure was meant to cut or protect.
"You say the last one with my name disappeared while sealing the Great Unfinished," Aurelianth said quietly. "What happened to him?"
The matriarch exhaled, as though his question dragged buried memories into the open.
"He was swallowed," she whispered.
Aurelianth's stomach lurched.
"By the Unfinished?" he asked.
"No."
Her voice dropped into a hush so thin it nearly broke.
"By something inside it."
The heartbeat-click in Aurelianth's chest snapped into sync, pounding against his ribs like a warning.
clickTHUMP
clickTHUMP
clickTHUMP
Every lantern in the chamber dimmed for a breath.
The elders stiffened.
"Enough!" the matriarch barked, raising her staff. The lantern at its head flashed like a star igniting, and the strange synchrony stopped abruptly leaving Aurelianth gasping from the sudden emptiness.
The elders exhaled in shaky relief.
Aurelianth pressed a hand to his sternum. "What is that thing?"
"The Hollow Pulse," the matriarch whispered. "The oldest hunger. The one that gnaws the world from the inside out. The one that took the first Aurelianth."
Aurelianth felt ice claw through his spine.
Lioren moved closer, placing a delicate hand on his arm. "You're shaking."
He looked down.
His veins weren't glowing....they were blazing.
Silver-bright, erratic, pulsing in desperate rhythm.
The runes on his shoulder writhed, shifting into jagged shapes.
"Why is this happening to me?" he choked.
An elder stepped forward. "Because you are in his body."
"And because," the matriarch added, "the world expects you to finish what he began."
Aurelianth felt sick.
"I don't even know what that is."
The room stiffened.
One of the elders whispered, "He does not remember."
"He is too new," another murmured.
"No," the matriarch said sharply. "He is too alive. The last Aurelianth died as he entered the Great Unfinished. His soul screamed into the void. This one....." She pointed her staff at him. ".....is not the same person."
Her eyes softened.
"But the world does not care."
A tremor rippled through the cliff.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Lantern-light wavered.
Lioren clutched Aurelianth's sleeve. "The Sea… it's reacting again."
A low rumble rolled beneath their feet.
Then another.
The basin of shadow-water at the center vibrated, ripples forming from no visible source.
The shadows inside twisted into a spiral...
a spiral that matched the world's shape.
The matriarch leaned over the basin, her face growing pale.
"The Sea is showing us something."
The spiral darkened.
A point of light pulsed at its center.
Then lines branched outward like cracks in glass.
"No…" an elder whispered. "That's the Heart Void....."
The Great Unfinished.
Aurelianth's vision tunneled.
The basin showed a silhouette suspended above the Heart Void.
Tall.
Slim.
Covered in runes.
Veins glowing faintly.
Aurelianth's breath caught.
It looked exactly like him.
But older.
Tired.
Broken.
The figure reached toward the Heart Void.
And something reached back.
A black tendril erupted from the darkness and wrapped around the figure's wrist.
The image snapped apart.
The basin went still.
Everyone stared.
"What…" Aurelianth whispered, "…was that?"
Lioren swallowed. "The Sea just showed us the last Aurelianth's death."
"No."
The matriarch shook her head slowly.
"That was not his death."
Her eyes turned to Aurelianth, burning with dread.
"That was a warning."
A sudden crack echoed through the chamber as a deep tremor shook the cliffs.
Then...
click.
Soft.
But clear.
click.
The elders stiffened, heads snapping toward the entrance of the chamber.
Another click...closer.
Too close.
Aurelianth felt the vibration in his bones before he saw the cause.
Shadows dripped down the corridor like spilled ink.
Pooling.
Spreading.
Crawling toward them.
Half-born creatures.
Dozens.
Maybe a hundred.
They dragged themselves from the darkness limbs half-formed, faces unfinished, bodies trembling like water trying to hold shape.
The elders panicked.
"Seal the chamber!"
"Protect the Lumen-Born!"
"The Hollow Pulse is driving them here!"
Aurelianant stumbled backward.
Lioren grabbed his arm. "Don't let them touch you!"
The first creature lurched into the chamber.... a human-like shape made of ink and moonlight.
Its jaw fractured open.
"…au…"
"…re…"
"…li…"
It tried to say his name.
Every creature was trying.
Aurelianth's glowing veins flared.
The creatures shrieked.
Not in anger.
In pain.
The resonance between them and him was too strong....too chaotic.
"What do they want?!" Aurelianth cried.
"To be finished!" an elder shouted. "They are drawn to completion.....your runes, your veins ....they think you can heal them!"
"But I can't....."
"You mustn't!" the matriarch yelled. "If you touch them, the world will rewrite itself..... chaos will spread!"
Another creature lunged forward.
Aurelianth stepped back. His body lagged again, the runes glitching. Panic clawed his throat.
A creature's hand...dripping shadow..... brushed his shin.
Aurelianth screamed.
The world lifted him off the ground.
Literally.
His feet left the earth as if gravity forgot him. Runes erupted across his body in violent white arcs. A shockwave burst outward...
SLAM.
Every creature within ten feet was hurled back.
Elders shielded their faces from the light.
The matriarch fell to her knees.
Lioren cried out, covering her eyes.
The shockwave slammed into the cliff walls, sending rock sliding and dust choking the air.
When the light faded....
Aurelianth collapsed to the floor, trembling, gasping, skin glowing like molten silver.
The chamber was silent.
The creatures had fled.
Or dissolved.
Or both.
Aurelianth clutched his chest, breath ragged.
"What… what was that?"
The matriarch approached him slowly, eyes wide in awe and horror.
"That," she whispered,
"was the incomplete power of the first Aurelianth."
She kneeled beside him.
"And it is waking inside you."
Aurelianth stared at the runes writhing across his forearms.
"I don't want this."
"I know," the matriarch said softly.
He looked up at her, voice breaking.
"I don't want to destroy anything."
"And yet the world trembles when you breathe."
Aurelianth felt something hot sting his eyes.
Lioren gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "You're not alone. I'll help you. My people will help you."
The matriarch's expression hardened.
"No," she said. "Not help. Guidance."
Aurelianth's head snapped up.
"Tomorrow," she said, rising,
"we take you to the Moon-Carved Cliffs."
"Why?"
"So the runes can decide if you deserve to exist."
Aurelianth's pulse stopped for a beat.
"What… if they decide I don't?"
The matriarch turned away.
"Then," she said,
"the world will erase you."
And the heartbeat-click answered with a whisper of delight.
click.