Kelvin collapsed against the wall. The bunker was a tomb of shadows, the air in there were stale and heavy with the scent of ancient metal. His eyes adjusted, getting hold on faint light from cracked pipes overhead. He tore a strip from his shirt, wrapping it around his bleeding thigh, and he forced himself to stand up. The hounds wouldn't give up, they continued to rage at the door and the storm would only draw worse Riftborn. Kelvin needed a way out, or something to trade for his life. He limped deeper, his spear tapping the floor like a blind man's cane. The bunker was a maze of corridors, its walls etched with faded symbols, pre-apocalypse warnings, or tamer runes.
Kelvin's knowledge of tamers were scraps, patched together from wasteland rumors. There were warlords, binding Riftborn beasts with sigils, ruling strongholds while scavengers like him scratched out a life. He had seen a tamer once, a woman with a hawk-beast that tore through a pack of hounds like paper. That kind of power was a dream, as distant as clean water. A subtle vibration echoed through the floor, growing stronger with each step. Kelvin stopped, rounded a corner and froze.
The passage brought him into a very large chamber, the ceiling of the chamber were covered in darkness. A big steel vault stood at the center of the chamber, the surface of the steel were engraved with a spiraling runes that glowed with a ghostly crimson light. The vibration has the ability deafen, with the vibration that his bones rattled. He approached the center with his spear raised, every instinct screaming to run. But scavengers don't survive by running from opportunity, and that vault was not an ordinary relic.
The runes pulsed, their light blossomed as Kelvin drew near. He reached out to the steel with his fingers brushing the steel, and his nerves lit up as if it is been set ablaze, the jolt was too sudden that he could not scream, like lightning but it was cold and deeper. The vault grunted making it seem as if it was about to split, and a wave of heat erupted, knocking Kelvin to be on his knees. The spear in his hand fell off, and his chest jerked, making him to gasp for air as the air grew thick, heavy with the scent of melted stone and ancient anger. A voice whispered in his mind, not mere words but with an echoing force that shake his thoughts like a storm.
"Blood calls to blood."
Kelvin's vision became blurred, his hands were trembling as he stared at the vault. Cracks began to spread across the surface as crimson light were spilling through, and the ground shook, dust were raining from the ceiling. The growling of the hounds faded away, their sounds were drowned by a deeper sound - a growl that seemed to have risen from the earth itself, raw and apocalyptic. The vault moved in a roar of metal and fire, shards of steel passed through Kelvin as he scrambled for shelter.
A shape emerged, this shape is massive, draconic with its scales glowing like a molten lava, its eyes were weapon cores - white-hot, steady and built for cleansing cities, not sparing life. With wings born of sacrifice and shadow, the Xerion stretched its full, monstrous span. Its claws were black as sunless pits, drove through the stone, not carving, but unmaking, as if the ground had never been whole. The presence of the beast was a weight, a force that crushed the air from Kelvin's lungs. This was no hound, no Riftborn scavenger's prey.
This was Xerion, the End-Tyrant,
A legend whispered in the wastes, a beast said to have burned the First World to ash Kelvin scrambled backward, his wounded leg screaming, but there was nowhere to run. Xerion's gaze locked onto him, its voice tearing through his mind again. "You are the heir". The sigil wakes. Pain erupted from kelvin's arm, sharp and very severe, as if something had been pressed into his flesh. He tore his sleeve, which revealed] a burning crimson mark, twisted in a spiraling pattern that is pulsed with life - one with the vault's marking.
The Sigil of the Overlord.
The chamber shook, the ceiling cracked as the rift storm's energy surged. Xerion roared, a sound that shattered stone, and the bunker began to collapse. A survival instincts kicked into Kelvin's mind which over powered his fears. He took hold his spear and flew for the passage while avoiding the debris that were falling. Xerion's presence followed, not physically but in his mind, a burning weight that urged him to turn, to face the beast, to claim it.
But Kelvin said to himself, "I am not a tamer, I am not a warlord. I am a scavenger, and scavengers ran".
He burst through the steel door, the hounds scattering as the storm's violet light bathed the ruins. The air crackled with raw rift energy, swirling in hungry eddies as the sigil flared. Kelvin felt its heat bloom under his skin, spreading like wildfire through his veins. The hounds regrouped, their claws sparking, but something shifted. A shadow loomed behind Kelvin, not Xerion's form but its aura, a wave of untamed wrath made the hounds to release a trembling whine, crouched low with ears flat.
Kelvin's fear hardened into something else— a resolve. He didn't understand the sigil, he didn't know what the Xerion wanted, but he knew one thing: he wasn't dying today. As he raised his spear a surge of power flowed through him, not his own power but Xerion's, raw and untamed power. He plunged his spear, and a blast of wave erupted, a sonic boom of crimson energy that sent the hounds flying, their bodies slammed into the rubble.
Kelvin staggered, the power were draining him, his vision swimming. The storm raged overhead, but the hounds didn't rise. He had won, for now. Kelvin limped while he went away, the sigil burned on his arm, Xerion's voice remained a low growl in his mind.
The rifts called out, "heir. Tame or be torn apart."
He didn't know what it meant, he did not know why a scavenger like him will bore a tamer's mark. But as he vanished into the wastes, the ruins trembling behind him, one truth was clear: the world had changed, and Kelvin, whether he wanted it or not, was no longer just a survivor. He was the Overlord of the Riftborn, and the apocalypse is waking.