The battle within the burning Solstice Citadel raged on.
Fen Yalyph hovered above the battlefield like a goddess of ruin, her Hollow Aether spiraling around her in ribbons of black and violet energy, warping reality with every movement. Her army of Twilight agents surged forward with relentless precision, overwhelming the defenders of the Solstice. Rhea and Lysander fought with everything they had—silver arcs of pure Aether and blinding flashes of light danced through the chaos—but even together, they were barely a distraction to Fen.
Kai had tried to help. He charged into the fray with his sword crackling with fledgling Aether, adrenaline surging. But the gap in power between him and Fen was vast—insurmountable. In a blur of movement, Fen struck him with a whip of Hollow Aether that bypassed his weak guard. The impact sent him flying across the battlefield and crashing into the broken stone steps of the Citadel's inner sanctum.
"Kai!" Rhea shouted, but she couldn't get to him.
Everything around Kai turned dark.
---
In the dream...
Kai floated in an endless void. Warm light flickered around him, and slowly, the shape of a man emerged—a tall, broad-shouldered warrior in silver and crimson armor, his eyes glowing with intensity and sorrow. In his hand, he held a blade that looked eerily familiar—sleek, obsidian black with glowing red veins running along the flat.
"…Who are you?" Kai asked, his voice faint.
The man smiled. "I'm your father, Kaien Sol."
Kai's breath caught. He had never known his biological parents.
"I was once the leader of the Solstice Guild… and Number 1 of the World 5. But I was betrayed—by Zerath and the others. During the Fracture War, we tried to protect the Sacred Eclipse… but they wanted its power. When it shattered, its Aether scattered into a thousand shards across the world."
Kai's heart pounded.
"My sword—your sword—absorbed part of the Sacred Eclipse's core. That's why you're different, why the Aether answers to you in ways it doesn't with others. Deep inside you, Kai, lies something more ancient than Hollow or Pure Aether. Something raw… primal."
As Kaien faded into golden mist, his voice echoed: "When you wake up, remember who you are. You are my son—and the bearer of Raw Aether."
---
Back in the real world…
Kai's fingers twitched. His chest rose sharply as he gasped back to consciousness. Blood trickled from his temple, and the battlefield roared around him.
Lysander was barely standing. Rhea was on one knee, blocking a final strike from Fen's Aether scythe. The battle was all but lost.
But Kai rose.
The air around him shifted.
Red energy began to swirl—first in embers, then in torrents. It wrapped around his limbs like a divine flame, and his blade, cracked and weathered, began to glow with a deep crimson hue. The ground cracked beneath him as the power surged outward, creating a shockwave that momentarily stalled even Fen Yalyph.
Rhea turned toward him, eyes wide. "Kai…?"
Fen narrowed her eyes. "You're still alive?"
Kai looked up, and for the first time, his eyes were blank—glowing white, emotionless, like the calm before a divine storm.
Then he smirked.
"I just had a revelation."
Without warning, the red energy exploded outward from him—Raw Aether. It pulsed with untamed power, neither light nor dark, but something that predated both. It roared like a beast being unleashed for the first time in centuries.
Fen's expression twisted. "What… is that?"
Kai stepped forward, his voice calm, low, and charged with purpose. "This… is Raw Aether."
As his blade surged with power, the battlefield froze—agents stopped, the air screamed, and even Fen took an instinctive step back.
And then Kai vanished—blinking from sight in a flash of crimson.
The counterattack had begun.