The lake boiled under a sky that had forgotten silence. Lightning rippled without thunder, silver veins cutting through the clouds as if the heavens themselves recoiled from what was rising below.
Arka stood on the trembling shore, armor cracked and dripping with black water. The sigil on his arm pulsed uncontrollably gold and silver struggling for dominance.
"Seraphiel," he said through his teeth, "what's happening to me?"
Her voice was strained, echoing in his mind like the toll of a distant bell.
"The seal of Aeltharion was tied to both realms. When you broke it, the resonance bled into your essence. You're carrying part of his awakening."
Before Arka could respond, the surface exploded.
A pillar of blinding light shot skyward, splitting the clouds. Out of it rose a colossal figure wings torn and yet magnificent, body forged of light and shadow intertwined. Chains of golden fire clung to his limbs, melting away one by one.
The First Herald had returned.
The very air bent around him. Trees warped into glass, stones turned to dust. Every heartbeat in the world seemed to echo his own.
Lysander and the knights fell to their knees, shielding their faces. "By the stars what is that thing?"
Seraphiel's voice quivered. "He was once the highest among us the one who questioned the Court. They called him heretic, but he saw something we could not. He believed Heaven and Abyss were never meant to be divided."
Arka stared at the being that hung between clouds and flame. "And they sealed him for that?"
"For trying to prove it."
The last chain snapped. The light dimmed, revealing Aeltharion's face ageless, serene, terrible. His eyes met Arka's across the ruined lake.
"The child of wolf and star," he said, voice reverberating across the valley. "You bear the wound of creation. You are proof that my truth was not madness."
Arka raised his sword, its silver edge flickering. "If your truth means burning this world, I'll end it here."
Aeltharion smiled faintly not cruel, but knowing.
"End me? I am the song that gave your soul its name."
The world shifted.
In an instant, the battlefield vanished. Arka found himself standing in a city of glass and gold, under a sky full of twin suns. Around him, beings of light walked side by side with shadows that moved like living smoke. There was no war, no corruption only harmony.
"Where am I?"
"What was," said Aeltharion's voice beside him. He stood in the city square, radiant yet weary. "This is the world before division. When all life sang the same song. Heaven, Earth, and Abyss one rhythm, one purpose."
Arka frowned. "You're showing me illusions."
"Memories," Aeltharion corrected. "Do you not see what was lost because of fear? The Court severed the universe into halves, and called it order. But you" He touched Arka's chest lightly. "You are the bridge they feared most."
Arka stepped back. "I'm not your prophecy."
The Herald's eyes gleamed. "Perhaps not. But you are its consequence."
The city around them began to flicker, the harmony twisting into dissonance. The twin suns darkened, one turning black, the other bleeding red.
In the distance, a familiar voice cried out. Seraphiel but not the one within his mind. She stood among the light, radiant and unfallen.
Aeltharion turned toward her. "She was my disciple once. Before faith became obedience."
Arka felt the illusion pressing on his mind, pulling at his emotions. "Stop this!"
"You want truth? Then look."
The world shattered.
He saw Seraphiel's fall her wings burning as she defied the Court. He saw the First Herald chained beneath the lake, his light torn from him by those he once led. He saw the Celestial Court rewriting history to bury their sin.
And then he saw himself standing over a dying world, his eyes glowing with both divine gold and abyssal black, as the stars collapsed around him.
Aeltharion's voice echoed through the vision.
"This is your fate, wolf of the stars. You will either unite creation or destroy it. There is no middle path."
Arka screamed, slashing his sword through the illusion. The vision shattered into blinding fragments.
He fell to his knees on solid ground again the lake now boiling red beneath the dawn. The Herald hovered above, light dimming, wings folding like the closing of a great book.
"Remember what you saw," he said softly. "When Heaven turns on you remember who chained me first."
And then, with one final surge of power, Aeltharion vanished into the sky, leaving only falling feathers of molten light.
Lysander rushed to Arka's side. "You're bleeding what happened?"
Arka looked down. His veins shimmered faintly with gold and black. The mark on his arm had changed again now shaped like a broken halo entwined with a wolf's fang.
Seraphiel's voice was barely a whisper. "He's not gone. He's awake… inside the heavens themselves."
Arka's eyes lifted to the horizon, where faint lights rippled through the clouds like the gaze of something vast watching him.
"If he's awake," he murmured, "then so is war."