The battle didn't pause. It tightened.
The Forgotten Kin pressed in, relentless and organized, like an echo of ancient warfare rather than a swarm of the mindless. They weren't monsters—they were knights stripped of soul, bound by some forgotten command to guard this place. And Kael had trespassed.
Their swords struck with deadly precision, black steel crackling with crimson lightning. Even Darric, shield braced and unyielding, was beginning to falter.
"We're being surrounded!" Pyra shouted, dragging her emberblade across the ground, igniting a ring of protective flame. It slowed the enemy, but it wouldn't hold for long.
Kael didn't back down.
He stepped forward.
The mist coiled around him like a crown, responding to the pulsing mark on his back—the Crimson Brand, now fully awakened and blazing beneath his cloak.
"They're drawn to me," Kael said calmly, voice low. "Because they remember the bloodline I carry."
Isryn's eyes widened. "Kael—don't provoke them more than—"
Too late.
Kael drove his blade into the ground.
"Crimson Rite: Sovereign's Claim."
The red aura exploded outward in a circular blast, incinerating the nearest Forgotten Kin and scattering the rest. The mist retreated as if afraid. Kael's figure stood at the center of the crater, flaming aura streaked with black lightning and dark tendrils flickering behind his back like wings.
The statues… moved.
One of the hollow monarchs turned its head. Its jaw cracked open with a whispering groan.
Lyra nocked an arrow. "They're reacting."
"They're awakening," Kael corrected, looking up as glowing red light leaked from the eyes of all the statues.
Isryn stepped back. "Kael… you're not just activating the test. You're summoning a memory."
The central statue—taller than the rest, crowned with iron thorns—split down the middle. From within stepped a figure wrapped in robes of ash and armor carved from flame-kissed obsidian. His face was a perfect mirror of Kael's—but older, crueler, crowned with a halo of burning swords.
The air dropped to silence.
Even the Forgotten Kin knelt.
Darric growled, "Who the hell is that?"
Kael knew.
"…Me."
The figure opened its arms, smile hollow, voice like thunder crawling through fire.
"Come then, rightful heir. Let us see if you are worthy to rewrite what I once shattered."
Kael stepped forward. No hesitation.
"I don't need your throne."
He raised his sword.
"Only your defeat."
The Sovereign Echo roared—and the chamber became fire.
Their blades clashed. Sparks filled the void. Crimson fire versus ancient flame, future versus past. The others could only watch as Kael's fight became something greater than survival—it became a reckoning.