Ash lingered in the air, soft as falling snow, heavy as ancestral sin.
Kael Vanthelmir stood alone atop the ruins of the Thousand Ashes Sect—now a graveyard of glass and smolder. The night above refused to shine. Even the stars turned their gaze elsewhere, unwilling to witness what came next.
He did not mourn. He did not savor.
He simply listened.
For beyond the veil of wind and ruin, he heard the Echoes.
Not whispers of the dead—but something older. Louder. Hidden deep within the bones of reality.
> "Kael…" the Echo breathed—not as a word, but as a truth.
It was the realm itself, remembering.
A name once carved in divine stone.
A name struck from heavenly decree.
Now spoken again in a voice louder than fate.
Kael looked to the east—toward the Sacrosanct Court, where the Heavenly Scribes recorded all truths, and where his name had been erased by celestial order.
> "Write it again," Kael said into the wind.
Miles away, in a monastery of ink and prayer, a scribe coughed blood as his brush moved against his will.
The paper burned.
The name was written.
KAEL VANTHELMIR
The heavens trembled.
---
In the shadows of that moment, others stirred.
In a sky fortress coiled in eternal dusk, the Order of Twilight Thorns awakened their High Seers.
> "The Silent Heir walks again," one whispered, tears of ichor streaming from his blind eyes.
In the Inner Realms, the ancient Sect of the Hollow Crown convened after ten thousand years of slumber.
> "The Aetherion Body has returned."
And deep within a sealed crypt beneath a sea of screaming glass, a chained creature smiled.
> "So the last Veilborn walks again... Let the gods remember fear."
---
Kael moved without haste. The remains of the sect dissolved behind him, carried by winds that now feared him.
He reached into his robes and drew forth the first of his weapons—a blade not forged, but remembered.
> Noctis-Aurem
The Silent Fang.
A sword born from a black star that never burned.
It pulsed in his hand. Not with power—but with restraint.
This was the beginning.
He knew what must come.
To unseat the Celestial Courts.
To awaken every forgotten Dao.
To reclaim every divine body stolen from mortal memory.
To silence the gods who speak only lies.
But first, he would carve a path through the Nine Grand Realms.
And then—he would make the heavens beg for silence.
---
> "You will not speak my name in reverence," Kael murmured.
"You will scream it… as your world ends."