The plains ended without warning.
Beyond the last stretch of withered grass, the earth fell away into a hollow — a vast basin of blackened glass and ash. The air shimmered with faint heat, though no sun reached here. Kael stood at its edge, the scent of scorched stone and metal filling his lungs.
Below them lay the corpse of something enormous.
It stretched across the basin, half-buried in obsidian dust — a being of impossible scale, its form neither man nor beast. Bones the color of pale moonlight jutted from the ground like spires. What remained of its flesh shimmered faintly, cracked like old marble, and from those cracks leaked slow streams of crimson light.
Mira stood beside him, silent. Her eyes reflected the glow, awe and fear tangled in equal measure. "Is that… a god?"
Kael's voice came out rough. "What's left of one."
They began their descent, boots crunching through brittle shards that glittered faintly underfoot. The ground seemed to hum with every step — a resonance deep and mournful, as if the world itself remembered what it had lost.
As they neared the basin floor, Kael could see the details more clearly. The being's face — or what might have been one — was shattered, the features eroded by time and divine decay. Yet fragments of shape remained: an eye socket vast enough to hold a house, a mouth frozen mid-breath, teeth carved from crystal.
"It's… beautiful," Mira whispered.
Kael looked at her. "Beautiful?"
"In a way only something that should never have died can be," she said softly.
He didn't respond. His gaze lingered on the faint pulse of light within the corpse's chest — a rhythmic flicker that matched the heartbeat of the earth. The Vein's influence was here too, threading through divinity's remains like veins through marble.
They stopped before the chest cavity. It rose before them like a canyon wall, the light pulsing from deep within. Mira reached out, her hand trembling. "Do you feel it?"
Kael did. It wasn't warmth or cold — it was presence. A pressure behind his eyes, a hum in his bones. Something vast and ancient stirred just beneath the surface of awareness, like a memory of creation itself.
He stepped closer. The pulse intensified. For an instant, he could hear whispers — not words, but impressions. Sorrow. Anger. Resentment.
Mira's eyes widened. "It's alive."
"No," Kael said slowly. "It's remembering."
They stood in silence for a long time. The basin felt like a grave, and yet… not one of death. More like a cocoon waiting for something to be reborn.
Mira knelt, touching the ash at her feet. It was fine as silk, but faintly warm. "Do you think the gods fell because of the Vein?"
Kael shook his head. "No. The Vein came after. This… this was the first wound."
She looked up at him. "Then what killed them?"
Kael's gaze darkened. "Maybe they tried to kill each other. Maybe they saw what was coming and tore themselves apart before it could reach them."
He didn't say the rest aloud — that maybe, in their war, the gods had cracked reality itself, and the Vein had merely spilled through the fracture.
Mira rose slowly, her expression unreadable. "It feels… sad," she murmured. "As if the world still mourns them."
Kael turned away, staring at the horizon. "It's not mourning," he said. "It's waiting."
A soft wind passed through the basin then, carrying with it a faint sound — not quite a voice, but not silence either. The ground trembled ever so slightly beneath their feet.
Kael's hand moved instinctively to his weapon. "Something's stirring."
Mira's gaze snapped to the god's chest. The pulse had grown faster, brighter. The cracks widened, faint streams of crimson energy leaking upward like rising mist.
"Kael," she said quietly, "I don't think we should be here when it wakes."
He nodded, but he couldn't look away. For all his instincts screamed to run, he was transfixed. There was something familiar in that divine pulse — a rhythm that resonated deep within him, echoing his own heartbeat.
Mira grabbed his arm, dragging him back as the ground split beneath the god's remains. A low hum rippled through the air, rising to a deafening roar. The light flared, and for one fleeting instant Kael saw —
— a face within the glow.
Eyes like stars, weeping fire.
A voice that spoke not to his ears, but directly into his soul.
"You are what remains."
Then the light collapsed inward, devouring itself, leaving only silence and the faint echo of those words.
Kael stood frozen, his pulse hammering, his mind reeling with echoes that weren't his own. Mira's hand tightened around his wrist. "Kael. What did it say?"
He turned toward her, eyes distant. "It didn't say anything," he lied.
But deep inside, something stirred — a hunger that was not his, and a memory that did not belong to him.
When the light died, the silence that followed was alive.
Dust drifted in slow spirals. The god's body no longer glowed, but faint veins of red still pulsed beneath the stone flesh like dying embers. Mira steadied herself, coughing softly as the air thickened with metallic scent.
Kael's heart hadn't yet calmed. The words still rang inside him — You are what remains.
He stared at his own hands, half-expecting them to shimmer. They didn't, but something had changed. Beneath his skin, faint lines of silver flickered and vanished like veins of starlight.
"Kael…" Mira's voice was soft, uncertain. "What happened?"
He forced a breath. "It reached for me."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know," he said, but his tone betrayed him. He did know — or at least, part of him did. Something ancient had touched his mind, threading through his thoughts with the intimacy of memory. It wasn't communication. It was recognition.
They stood there, surrounded by the corpse of divinity. Then, as if drawn by instinct, Kael began walking toward the hollow left by the collapsing chest cavity. The entrance yawned open like a wound.
Mira grabbed his sleeve. "You're not seriously thinking of going in there?"
He didn't look back. "Whatever this place is, it chose to show itself to us. That means something."
"Or it's trying to consume you," she snapped.
He smiled faintly. "Then it should try harder."
With reluctant fury, Mira followed.
The tunnel was narrow, carved from crystallized bone. The light from the surface barely reached inside; what guided them now was the faint, rhythmic pulse emanating from deeper within. Each beat made Kael's skull ache. The sound wasn't just heard — it was felt, echoing through their blood.
When they reached the end, they found a chamber unlike anything human.
It was a hollow sphere, its walls etched with glyphs that shifted and flowed like liquid light. Suspended in the center, weightless and still, floated a fragment — a shard of the god's heart. It pulsed faintly, each rhythm sending ripples through the air.
Mira exhaled slowly. "It's alive."
Kael took a step closer. The glyphs responded instantly — flaring bright, aligning themselves into coherent symbols that neither of them had ever seen.
"What are they?" she whispered.
He shook his head. "Not language. Memory."
The light washed over him — gentle at first, then overwhelming. The glyphs unfolded like wings, encircling him. Mira shouted his name, but her voice dissolved into the hum.
Kael saw everything.
Cities made of light. Oceans that sang. Beings that walked not on land, but in the currents of stars. He saw the first vaults being woven — cages not of steel, but of faith, built to hold the dying essence of gods so the world would not unravel. And then he saw the betrayal — mortals stealing fragments of divine memory, twisting them into power.
He saw himself — or someone wearing his face — standing before the same corpse, holding a sword of flame and whispering, "We must end what we began."
When the vision broke, Kael staggered to his knees. Blood trickled from his nose.
Mira caught him, her voice sharp with fear. "Kael! Talk to me!"
He blinked, dazed. "I… saw the beginning."
"What beginning?"
"The first Vault," he said quietly. "It wasn't built to contain the gods. It was built to protect us from them."
Mira froze. "You mean—"
"They didn't die," he said. "They were sealed. Their essence… spread through the Vein."
Mira's face paled. "And now the Vaults are breaking."
Kael nodded slowly. "The world's veins are bleeding divinity back into flesh."
The shard pulsed again — brighter now, as if reacting to their understanding. Kael felt it calling, resonating with something deep inside him. Against every rational thought, he reached out. His fingertips brushed the surface.
The shard dissolved into light, sinking into his palm.
For a heartbeat, his body arched — eyes glowing white, every nerve on fire. Then silence.
Mira stumbled back, horrified. "Kael!"
He rose unsteadily. His eyes were no longer the same. In their depths burned a faint crimson halo, like the reflection of dying stars.
"I'm fine," he said — but his voice carried an undertone that wasn't human.
"Kael," she whispered. "What did it do to you?"
He flexed his hand. Symbols flickered across his skin and vanished. "It gave me a fragment of what they were. Power… but also something else."
"Like what?"
He hesitated. "Memory. Pain. Regret."
Mira's expression softened, though fear lingered in her eyes. "Then what happens now?"
Kael looked toward the chamber's exit. The pulse had stopped. The god's remains were silent once more.
He turned back, voice low. "Now we find the others before the world wakes up completely."