The stairs creaked beneath his steps, but he did not slow down.Kael climbed steadily, back straight, eyes half-closed, as if listening to the heartbeat of something long dead.
The Senmora Tower was more than a prison: it was a mausoleum, a living ruin built upon the remnants of magic older than the kingdoms themselves.The mana here was weak. Twisted. As if it refused to flow freely.But Kael fed on it.
Reaching a higher landing, he stopped before a wide metal door.
An engraving covered its entire surface: a chained dragon, its maw wide open, and in its tongue, a shining stone set within a spiral of runes.Kael brought his hand closer, fascinated."This is not a lock. It's an inverted key."He placed his fingers on the stone.The mana around him seemed to scream — a silent cry in a forgotten octave.
The metal began to slowly melt, like paper soaked by rain.The door opened.Behind it, a staircase… descending this time.
Towards what he sensed as the true heart of the Tower.He smiled."Always downwards, huh?"
A few minutes later, an immense underground dome revealed itself to him.
Vaster than anything he had imagined.
Ancient pillars supported a vault engraved with forgotten constellations.At the center of the chamber, a structure floated: an incomplete Primordial Ark.
A black crystal, suspended in midair, pulsed like a heart. It emitted a heavy, unnatural, almost unpleasant throb.Kael approached slowly.
Each step made him lose a fragment of his perception: space rippled, time seemed to hesitate.
But he did not retreat."You are what they hid. What they swore never to awaken."He stretched out his hand.The crystal reacted. An ancient tongue appeared in a circle around him. The words vibrated in his memory, as if he had always known them.
"Those who touch the Nameless Ark… see the veil of the world tear."
Kael touched it.A black light burst forth.
The ground vanished.He was elsewhere.An endless desert. Ash. Bones. Torn skies.And before him, a throne floating in the void, empty as well.
No one sat on it. But its presence alone made space tremble.Then a voice, older than time:
"Who dares disturb oblivion?"
Kael did not answer immediately. He looked up at the throne.
"I did not come to pray."
A laugh. Deep. Muffled.
"Then you came to reign."
He snapped back to himself with a spasm.
The crystal was gone. No — merged with him.Black marks now covered his left arm, reaching up to his shoulder.
They pulsed slowly, like a second heart.He felt… stretched. Lightened. But whole.
The void did not reject him. He had accepted it.And this power came with no price to pay.No soul offered. No oath sworn.Because there was nothing. And in nothing, everything becomes possible.
A sound.Hasty footsteps. A woman's ragged breath.He turned around.
A figure emerged from the darkness: a young woman in torn armor, her side bleeding. She held a broken spear, and her eyes, slate-colored, were full of panic.She stopped dead upon seeing him."Y-you… who are you?!"
Kael did not answer immediately. He observed.She was wounded but still standing. A soldier. Perhaps an enemy. Or not.
"That depends. Are you planning to attack me?"
She hesitated."…No. I'm running away. They… they're going to kill me."
She looked around, then toward the place where the crystal had vanished."This is where they did… their rituals. Did you… wake them?"
Kael stepped forward. A black breath rippled around his feet."No. I replaced them."