MASTERS OF THE ETERNITY
CHAPTER 25: THE AWAKENING PATH
The wind plains stretched endlessly, swept by gales that whispered old truths through the shifting grass. The sky above remained fractured — veins of red from the encroaching Eclipse running like wounds across the heavens. The light had changed. It no longer fell gently but crashed in pulses, as though the world itself were breathing heavier, preparing for something.
Raian stood at the edge of the hill overlooking the plains, his cloak billowing behind him. The Blade of Eternity was quiet now, its resonance tempered, held close — but it pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, as if something within it had aligned more deeply after the dream.
> "You saw her, didn't you?" the Pale Twin asked, approaching without a sound.
Raian didn't turn. "You know who she is."
> "Renkai. The Hollow Seer. Once companion to the First Wielder. Once more than that."
He finally looked at her. "She's alive."
The Pale Twin's expression didn't change. "That's… complicated."
---
Lira sat nearby, sketching the fractured symbols from her dream onto parchment. She had awoken with echoes in her blood, her skin warmer than it should've been. The mark on her neck now pulsed not just with resonance, but with timing. Like a countdown.
Izek was pacing — impatient, angry. His power still hadn't fully returned since the clash with the First Spear. But something else had taken root in him — a deeper pull of gravity, a kind of planetary rhythm.
> "We're scattered," he growled. "Outnumbered. Hunted. And the Eclipse is accelerating. How the hell are we supposed to stop this?"
The Pale Twin remained still. "We don't stop it."
> "Excuse me?"
"We walk into it. And we shape it."
---
The eastern wind plains were once home to the Ardent Chorus — a civilization that had learned to commune with environmental resonance, shaping forests, weather, and even light with voice and harmony. But they had long vanished… or so it was believed.
But as the group descended into the heart of the plains, guided by the whispers of the Blade, ruins emerged. Not dead. Not silent. Breathing.
Stone structures grown around trees, rivers that curved unnaturally, forming mirrored paths, and altars that still hummed with half-sung lullabies of old rituals.
Raian placed his hand on one such altar. It lit up instantly — the Blade harmonizing with the structure.
And in the light, visions appeared:
A vast resonance storm devouring cities.
The Eclipse shadow falling over the world like a guillotine.
The First Wielder locked in combat with another figure — this one crowned in broken horns and surrounded by void-kin.
And finally… Raian, standing alone, his friends fallen behind him, facing the same crowned figure, now wearing the Blade like a parasite.
Raian ripped his hand away.
> "What was that?" Lira asked.
> "A future," the Pale Twin said. "But not the only one."
---
Night fell again, but none of them slept.
Instead, they lit the old chorus stones. When placed in sequence and sung to correctly, they created a dome of resonance that stabilized environmental anomalies. A protective ritual once used in the Chorus's dying days.
As they worked, the Blade began to change again. It lengthened slightly, and symbols — ancient ones even the Pale Twin didn't recognize — etched themselves into the metal. The hilt pulsed with environmental channels. The air itself seemed to listen.
Raian didn't notice the vines curling gently toward him, or the way the wind stilled when he spoke. But the others did.
---
> "You're changing," Lira said quietly, sitting beside him. "It's like you're… merging with something."
Raian looked down at his hand. His veins shimmered faintly — not blue or violet, but green-gold. A color not native to resonance, but something older.
> "What if I lose myself?" he asked.
Lira looked at him. "Then we find you. Together."
---
At dawn, they reached the heart of the plains — the final altar, said to connect directly to the oldest leyline beneath the continent. A place of convergence. A place of trials.
Awaiting them was not a guardian.
But a child.
She stood barefoot in the grass, eyes silver and distant, her skin etched with shifting glyphs. She spoke with a voice too old for her form.
> "You carry the Blade. Then you must walk the Hollow Spiral."
The Pale Twin paled. "No. That rite was lost."
> "Only hidden," the girl replied. "Only those chosen by the Origin may walk it. Only those with memory etched into soul."
Raian stepped forward. "What is it?"
> "A proving. A purification. A fracture of self. To hold the Blade's full truth, you must shatter."
He didn't hesitate.
---
The spiral was not a place.
It was an experience.
Raian entered the altar, and the world inverted.
He fell through skies made of screams, walked on memories that bled when touched. He stood in a hundred past lives — not his own — and bore witness to every death, every betrayal, every war sparked by the Blade.
He saw himself, over and over, breaking. Failing.
And then, in the deepest layer, he saw her again.
Renkai.
> "You are not him," she said softly. "But you are his echo. And you must make your own choice."
She offered him a shard of the Blade — jagged, humming.
> "To become more, you must embrace what was broken."
---
When Raian emerged from the Hollow Spiral, hours later, he was changed.
Not visibly.
But the Blade no longer pulsed — it breathed.
His presence alone calmed the wind, stilled the trees. His friends looked at him with a mix of awe and fear.
> "You passed it," the Pale Twin said.
Raian nodded.
> "The Eclipse won't wait. Neither will I."
He turned eastward.
Toward the edge of the world.
Toward the next war.
---
TO BE CONTINUED…