The morning came quiet… too quiet.
Kairis opened his eyes to the soft hum of wind brushing through the cracked windows of the inn. Kaiyara's warmth lingered beside him, her arm draped across his chest like a ribbon of peace he hadn't known in years. For once, the nightmares didn't chase him. No burning cities, no screams, no echo of Lucien's crimson eyes.
Just silence.
He rose slowly, careful not to wake her. His hair, still damp from last night's rain, glistened faintly under the pale sunlight. The suit Lucien gifted him hung on the chair nearby, its texture shifting subtly as if woven from gravity itself. He didn't put it on. Not today. Today felt… heavy.
As he stepped outside, the scent of ash and steel filled his lungs. The city—Aetherys—was rebuilding, but scars remained. Children played between the ruins. Vendors set up makeshift stalls. The world was trying to move on, even if its bones still remembered the war.
Kairis walked with no destination, his boots crunching against cracked stone, his mind drifting.
Each step pulled memories from the abyss—his mother's laughter, his father's hand resting proudly on his shoulder, the faces he'd failed to save.
He didn't realize he'd wandered into the southern district until the tremor hit.
BOOM—!
The ground cracked, sending dust spiraling into the sky. Screams erupted as debris flew across the streets. Kairis turned sharply—his eyes narrowing as his senses flared.
Something massive moved between the ruins.
Through the smoke, a figure leapt backward, crashing into a wall and rolling to his feet. His armor shimmered with constellations—starlight pulsing through etched patterns on his skin. The Apostle of Constellation. Kairis recognized him immediately. His name was Orion—a man said to channel the movements of the stars themselves.
But now, Orion was bleeding. His breaths came ragged.
Opposite him stood a creature that shouldn't exist—eight feet tall, its skin a patchwork of steel and rotting flesh, eyes glowing violet. A mutated zombie, its body warped by void exposure. Its veins pulsed black. And worse—it smiled.
Orion lunged forward, his blade coated in light. "Stellar Sequence—Fifth Path!" he shouted. Lines of constellations burst to life around him, forming a cosmic circle that trapped the beast.
But the monster laughed.
Laughed—like it understood.
It reached out, caught the blade mid-swing, and shattered it with a twist of its hand.
"...No," Orion whispered, stumbling backward. "They're learning—!"
The creature's claws descended like a guillotine.
Kairis moved.
A blur. A ripple of distortion in space.
And then—silence.
The creature froze mid-swing. A faint hum filled the air, like gravity itself was holding its breath. Then, with a flash of violet-black light, its upper body slid off cleanly from the waist—split by a blade forged from the weight of collapsing stars.
"Graviton Blade…" Kairis muttered, his eyes gleaming like dying suns. He exhaled slowly, letting the blade dissolve into streaks of gravity dust.
He stood between Orion and the fallen creature, coat fluttering in the breeze.
"Void Step," Orion breathed, wide-eyed. "You—how did you move so fast…?"
Kairis didn't answer immediately. He looked down at the corpse—the way the veins still pulsed faintly, as though the void refused to release its hold.
"It wasn't speed," Kairis said finally. His voice carried that low, unshakable calm that silenced storms. "It was inevitability."
He turned to leave, but the Apostle of Constellation called out, "Wait! That thing—it spoke before it attacked. It said something about 'the convergence of apostles.' Do you know what that means?"
Kairis stopped mid-step. His pulse slowed.
"…Convergence?" he echoed, eyes shadowed.
Orion nodded grimly. "Yes. They're changing. The infected ones—some are organizing. They move in clusters now, protecting something deep underground. One called itself 'Rank Two of the Hollow Chorus.'"
Kairis's expression darkened.
Malthior's warning came back to him—Some zombies will gain intellect. The mutated ones will start to rank themselves.
He looked toward the distant mountains where the horizon burned faintly crimson.
"Then it begins," he whispered. "The dead are remembering who they were."
A gust of cold wind swept through the streets, carrying with it the faint sound of something vast moving underground—like a beast awakening after centuries of silence.
Kairis sheathed his blade, but the air around him rippled with unseen gravity, the mark of the Void Apostle pulsing beneath his collarbone.
"Orion," he said quietly without turning, "if the stars ever dim… run. Don't look back."
And with that, he vanished—leaving only a faint distortion in the air where space itself bent to his will.
As the wind howled through the empty street, Orion looked down at the bisected creature.
Its lips were still moving.
Whispering.
"...Apostles… must… converge…"
Then its skull split open—and from within, a black seed pulsed once before fading into dust.
The stars above flickered.
And somewhere beyond the veil of the mortal world, Lucien Dreamveil opened his eyes.