Kael felt every heartbeat like a war drum in his ears. The chamber cracked further as the Mirror Seed's energy spiraled out of control. The Riftspawn with his face snarled as they lunged at him—pale imitations, wearing warped versions of his skin. Their eyes were soulless, mouths filled with rows of jagged, glistening teeth.
He ducked the first, driving his dagger into its side. But it didn't bleed.
It screamed like shattered glass.
Toran fired his pulse rifle from behind, dropping two more. "We can't hold this ground for long!" he shouted.
Seris moved like wind and fire, her daggers a blur as she sliced through the closest creature. "We're not here to win a war—we're here to survive it!"
But Kael wasn't so sure.
The energy in his body began to react—not just with the environment, but with the Mirror Seed itself. The more the doppelgängers bled light instead of blood, the more the glow in Kael's chest intensified.
He parried another strike, then focused.
The world slowed.
Not stopped—just... stretched. Like the seconds themselves bent at his will.
He moved faster than thought, sliding beneath a creature's claws, flipping it with raw instinct, and sending a blast of energy from his palm that shattered the mirrored floor beneath it.
"Kael!" Seris shouted, pointing toward the Seed. "It's destabilizing!"
Cracks webbed across its black surface. Garmon energy poured from within, spiraling upward like a storm trying to break free of its prison.
And Lyssa stood at its center, untouched.
"I warned you," she said, her voice like velvet wrapped around a dagger. "You were never meant to reject him."
Kael glared at her. "What are you talking about?"
"The Sovereign didn't bring you back to wander aimlessly," she said. "You were a failsafe. A memory given flesh. You are the key to the Thirteenth Gate."
The floor cracked again—and the chamber began to collapse.
"Fall back!" Toran ordered.
But Kael didn't move.
The Seed called to him.
Not with words. With presence.
He stepped forward, raising a hand to it. "If I'm a key... then let's find out what door I open."
The moment his fingers touched the surface, the world exploded in light.
---
Kael awoke in silence.
No walls. No roof. No gravity.
He floated in a space filled with swirling fragments of color—scenes from other dimensions, realities stitched together with energy he couldn't explain. He saw a version of Earth untouched by war, another where the oceans burned red, and one where monstrous gods walked cities made of bones.
"You walk the Corridor of Truths."
Kael turned. A figure drifted beside him, faceless and robed in tattered gold.
"Who are you?" Kael asked.
"A remnant. A thought. The last echo of what the Sovereign once was."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "The Sovereign... is he a god?"
"No. He was a gatekeeper. Until he broke the rule of reality and fell."
Kael's heart pounded. "Why me?"
"Because you were born from his failure."
The echoes around them shifted. Kael saw a memory—his mother's face, a town burning, soldiers dragging people into pits.
"You died," the remnant whispered. "But the energy from the Garmon Rift kept a piece of you alive... drifting. And the Sovereign touched that fragment, reshaped it, and placed it into a vessel to walk the world once more."
Kael felt sick. "I'm not even real?"
"You are as real as the choices you make."
Another vision: Lyssa standing before the Mirror Seed.
"She serves the Second Gate," the remnant said. "There are twelve. Each holds part of the lock on the Thirteenth—the Sovereign's prison. If it opens, the end begins."
Kael clenched his fists. "So what? You want me to stop him?"
"You must choose," the remnant replied. "Become the lock—or become the key."
The Corridor dissolved.
---
Kael's eyes snapped open.
He was back in the ruins of the Deadspire.
The chamber had collapsed. Mirror shards littered the ground, and the Seed was gone—imploded into nothingness. Seris knelt beside him, relief washing over her face as he sat up.
"You were gone," she said quietly. "Almost twenty minutes. You didn't move."
Kael rubbed his forehead. "I saw something. Someone. They called it the Corridor of Truths."
Toran helped him to his feet. "That's an ancient myth. Where gate fragments go when they touch a Seed... and survive."
Seris's voice was low. "Most don't."
Kael met their eyes. "I know what the Sovereign is. And I know what we're up against. There are Twelve Wardens. Twelve Gates. We have to reach them before they open the Thirteenth."
Toran frowned. "That's suicide."
"Maybe," Kael said. "But if we don't try, there won't be anything left to die for."
---
Their next destination was an ancient Garmon vault—buried deep within the jagged cliffs of the Ardent Scar, where forgotten weapons of the first Rift War were sealed away.
Kael needed a weapon strong enough to match what was coming.
They traveled for days through windswept plains, encountering only shadows and half-formed beasts too weak to hunt. But the farther they went, the stranger the sky became. Colors bled unnaturally. Gravity fluctuated. Time twisted, forcing them to relive the same moment more than once.
It was the influence of a sleeping Rift.
And at its heart: the vault.
Built into the rock face, the vault looked more like a scar than a doorway. It pulsed with energy older than history. Seris studied the inscriptions. "This place predates even the first Rift breaches. Could be Pre-Human tech."
Kael stepped forward. As his hand neared the gate, the energy responded.
The door opened.
Inside, the air shimmered with violet light. Weapon racks stood in rows—each blade humming with dormant power. But Kael passed them all, drawn toward the back of the chamber.
There, atop a stone altar, rested a strange gauntlet. Silver, marked with runes that pulsed blue.
Kael reached out—and the moment his fingers touched it, the gauntlet clamped onto his arm.
It felt like fire.
Then power.
He stumbled, bracing against the wall. Seris ran to him. "What happened?"
Kael's vision blurred. "It's not a weapon. It's... alive."
Toran inspected it cautiously. "Looks like a conduit. Designed to channel raw Garmon energy. But this one's fused with your body now."
Kael stood. "Then it's mine."
---
That night, Kael sat alone beneath a fractured sky.
He turned his hand, watching the blue runes flicker.
His thoughts wandered to the Corridor. To the choices ahead.
Be the lock—or the key.
He didn't know which he'd choose.
But he knew one thing:
He was done running.
Tomorrow, they would head toward the Wastes of Dronamar. The Third Gate was rumored to stir there—and with it, the next Warden.
Kael's journey had a purpose now.
Not to survive.
To stop the Sovereign.
Even if it meant facing the monster he might become.