MASTERS OF THE ETERNITY
CHAPTER 18: THE FIRST CHOSEN
The Hollow Scar wasn't marked on any map.
Even Kaien had only whispered of it, like speaking its name too loudly might draw something ancient and listening.
It wasn't just a battlefield.
It was where a legend bled.
---
They reached the edge of it by midday.
The forest broke into a jagged canyon, stretching miles wide, where black earth pulsed faintly underfoot — like a heartbeat buried deep beneath the soil. Twisted bones jutted out from rock. Old weapons stuck halfway into the ground, their hilts rusted, blades humming with faint residue.
"It's... wrong here," Izek muttered, staring out across the ravine. "Like the world remembers."
Raian stepped forward.
The Blade buzzed in his hand, not violently — but expectantly. The same way it had in the Vault. Only now… there was something familiar beneath it. Something buried.
Lira shivered behind him. "This is where the first bearer fell?"
"No," Raian said, his voice low. "This is where the first order began."
---
That caught Izek's attention. "You mean the Creed?"
Raian shook his head. "The Order came first. Before the Creed split. Before they became fanatics chasing power."
Lira's eyes narrowed. "Then what was the Order?"
Raian closed his eyes.
Visions flickered behind his mind — not like before, not just illusions. This time, they felt... encoded into the Blade itself. Memories that weren't his.
"A collective," he whispered. "Of chosen. Those who resonated not to conquer... but to protect. The Blade wasn't a weapon to them. It was a balance. A seal."
"Seal?" Izek asked, crossing his arms. "Of what?"
Raian looked up at the sky.
"…Something beneath us."
---
As if on cue, the ground trembled.
The Blade's edge cracked with green and silver light. Resonant pulses rippled across the Hollow Scar, activating long-dead glyphs that flared awake along the canyon walls.
Lira stumbled. She clutched her chest.
"The mark…" she hissed.
Raian caught her. "It's reacting to something."
"No," Lira said. "Someone."
---
From the other side of the canyon, a slow, rhythmic sound echoed.
Metal scraping bone.
A figure emerged from the mist.
Tall. Wrapped in funeral-gray robes, face masked in cracked porcelain. A sigil of both the Order and the Creed burned across his chest — split in two, fused unnaturally.
Raian stepped forward, Blade drawn. "Who are you?"
The figure's voice came like a whisper, but it carried across the canyon like a scream:
> "I am the Keeper.
Last of the Order.
First of the Betrayed."
---
Lira stepped beside Raian. "Is he—?"
Raian's eyes narrowed. "He's what the Blade remembers."
The Keeper lifted his hand.
Renkai energy spiraled from his fingertips — not chaotic like Hollowkind, but primal, elemental. Wind, ash, water, and earth coiled in harmony.
Raian's heart pounded.
He felt the Blade pulling again — not toward the man, but in response. His arm trembled, not from fear… but awakening. A second resonance.
The Elemental Thread.
---
The ground cracked open near his feet.
A spiral of dust and pressure surged upward — not random, not destructive. It gathered around his legs, then shot outward in a burst of force that flung nearby debris aside. Gravity shifted in pulses.
Raian gasped.
Izek blinked. "Did you do that?"
"I—" Raian looked at his hands. "I didn't try to."
The Keeper's head tilted. "The Blade remembers... and so shall you."
---
A gust hit them — not wind, but a wave of memory. For a moment, Raian wasn't in the canyon.
He stood in a time before his.
Surrounded by nine warriors — some wearing symbols of the Order, others in cloaks with unfamiliar shapes.
They weren't fighting.
They were sealing something.
A crack in the sky. A mouth of stars. A voice whispering backwards.
Then everything went black.
---
Raian fell to his knees, panting.
Lira held him. "What did you see?"
Raian looked up, shaken. "The Order didn't just die. They gave themselves up… to lock something away."
Izek glanced around. "Something we're waking up."
Raian stood. "No. The Creed is waking it. And I think the Pale Twin is part of it now."
Lira's voice cracked. "Then what are we supposed to do?"
Raian looked at his blade — still pulsing, but incomplete.
"We learn what the Order died for."
He turned to the Keeper.
"Teach me."
---
The Keeper lowered his hand. The canyon quieted.
"Then follow."
And without another word, the last of the Order turned and vanished into the Hollow Scar's shadow.
Raian followed.
And the next thread of eternity began to unravel.
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TO BE CONTINUED