THE WOUND OF KYRETHRON AND THE SOUND OF THE LOST THUNDER
The clouds of memory fell slowly, gray, like an old storm that never quite passed. The wind blew cold between the ruins of what once had been the heart of Kyrethron, the kingdom that shone like a beacon above all others before it burned in the fires of war.
But this time, it wasn't a vision. Zyrion walked upon the sacred land of his past.
His boots sank into the reddish mud, soaked by the drizzle that didn't dare to become a downpour. The silence was absolute, broken only by the distant echo of thunder… and by a tremor, small, barely perceptible, in his chest.
Zyrion stopped before a burned tree, its branches twisted. The bark bore marks as if lightning had struck it again and again.
"This was the place," he murmured.
Caelithra approached silently. She walked behind him, along with Taliena, Kyrahna, and Karion. The others waited farther back, granting him that moment.
"What place?" Caelithra asked softly.
"Where I saw her for the last time."
The silence deepened.
Kyrahna lowered her gaze. They all knew he spoke of his mother.
Zyrion closed his eyes. A whirlwind of images hit his mind… and then, he saw it.
[Flashback – Kyrethron, 15 years ago]
A small stone house, hidden at the edge of golden fields.A child with dark hair and intense eyes, barely three years old, ran with a cloak far too big for him.
"Mother!" he shouted, laughing.
A woman bent down to embrace him. Her hair was a cascade of silver, her face soft and gentle — but her eyes… those eyes were white as well.
"My little Zyrion," she said tenderly, lifting him in her arms. "You are stronger than you imagine. But difficult times will come…"
A roar shook the heavens. It was not thunder. It was something else. The sky turned violet.
A figure emerged from the shadows: a hooded man, wearing black armor crackling with violet lightning.
"Run, Zyrion!" his mother screamed.
The child cried. She placed him between the roots of the burned tree — the same as in the present. And she launched herself at the figure.
A lightning bolt fell.And everything vanished.
[Present]
"I remember her voice…" Zyrion whispered, fists clenched. "Her eyes were like mine. White. But… she closed them for me."
Caelithra placed a hand on his shoulder. Taliena stepped closer in silence. No one spoke. Only Karion, with a voice strangely serious, said:
"Zyrion… that tree is charged with power. It still holds a connection to you. It's not just symbolic."
Zyrion turned, his eyes still burning with the intensity of the memory.
"I know. And the fragment they hid near here… it's the lightning fragment. It has something to do with my mother."
Kyrahna raised an eyebrow. "Do you think the fragment was created by her… or given by her?"
"I think the fragment was altered. Changed. And now someone is searching for it."
At that moment, an explosion of energy burst from the hillside.
A woman descended. She wasn't alone. At her side floated a young man with silver hair and sky-blue armor. Lightning crackled around his hand.
"It can't be!" shouted Quindarion from behind. "That's the Lightning Bearer!"
Zyrion stepped forward.
"Loryan…" he murmured.
But what he saw next was far more disturbing.
Loryan's eyes weren't blue as the legends claimed.They were white.
Taliena stepped forward. "That's not the same one we saw before!"
And then he appeared.Out of the mist.Walking slowly.
White cloak.White mask.Aura so powerful the earth trembled under him.
Everyone knelt. Even the fragments inside their bearers reacted. As if something superior had entered the world.
The man in the white mask stopped before the tree.
"So this is the origin…" he murmured in a distorted, deep, almost inhuman voice.
Zyrion could barely move. His eyes flashed white for a second… the same white.
And the figure spoke again:
"Your mother defied me. Now you inherit her mistake."
"Stay away from him!" Caelithra shouted.
But it was already too late.
A spear of lightning descended from the sky.
And the battle began.
The ground cracked, not from their steps, but from the power descending from the heavens. White lightning — not from this world — rained down, carving scars into the landscape. The earth vibrated with a frequency so sharp that stones levitated momentarily before falling, as if gravity had briefly forgotten them.
Every bearer — Velkran, Quindarion, Taliena, Kyrahna, Cilera, Ryvak, Maerisse, Ysmera — had fallen to their knees.
Not out of devotion.
Not out of fear.
But because the air itself refused to support their bodies in the presence of two entities who no longer seemed human.
Zyrion stood. His body inhaled the silence between the lightning bolts.The white mask before him was empty — no emotion, no face, only a symbol on the forehead: a closed circle split by a vertical bolt.
The aura of the masked man was not warm nor cold.It was ancient.And Zyrion knew it.He recognized it.
Even if he didn't know his name.
"You also… see the void between worlds?" Zyrion murmured, his voice deep, carrying a tone none of his companions had ever heard.
The masked man gave no reply.He walked slowly, as if every step was a sentence upon the world.
Zyrion activated the White Eyes.
Aura engulfed him.
The sky shattered.
And the battle began.
Their first clash wasn't physical.It was visual.
They vanished.Only distortions remained — light bending, space cracking.
Taliena collapsed to her knees. "I can't track their movement!"
"It's not movement!" screamed Quindarion. "They're rewriting time around themselves!"
Kyrahna swallowed hard. "This… isn't magic."
The ground exploded.A sphere of white energy burst.Zyrion was hurled out of it, smashing through a distant mountain, splitting it silently — the sound arriving seconds later.
"Zyrion is losing… for now," Velkran muttered.
Inside the collapse of that mountain, the Lightning Fragment burned within Zyrion.This time, it spoke.
Not with words — with memories not his own.
A voice echoed between bolts:
"This power was not created for you.But you… have broken destiny."
Zyrion crashed to the ground. His body burned — not in pain, but in existence.
Then he understood.
The Lightning Fragment wasn't a gift.It was a cage.
Someone had altered it.Someone placed a consciousness inside.A will.
And Zyrion, by accepting it… became chained to something greater.
"Who…?" he whispered.
The masked man spoke for the first time.
"You were chosen to contain the Judgment.But I… am its executioner."
Zyrion rose. Fists clenched. His blood sparked — literally.Lightning fused with his soul.
He ran — faster than ever.
The masked man as well.
Collision.
The sky bent.
Thousands of parallel visions burst around them: in one, Zyrion died; in another, the world burned white; in another, the mask fell to the ground… empty.
Each strike tore a crack into reality.
"I WON'T LOSE!" Zyrion roared, piercing the enemy's chest with a lance of lightning.
But the enemy dissolved… and reappeared behind him.
"How much of yourself will you sacrifice?" the faceless voice asked.
Zyrion bled — not externally, but internally. With every pulse of the fragment, a piece of his soul dissolved.
Caelithra felt the void and trembled. "Zyrion… he's not just fighting that man. He's fighting something inside."
"They're fighting for the soul of the world," Maerisse whispered.
"Or we already lost it," Cilera muttered.
Ysmera stepped forward. "No. He promised he'd never cry. The only thing he'll do before dying… is give us victory."
The final clash erupted.What happened next cannot be written.Or explained.
Only felt in the world's tremors.In eyes that forget to blink.In souls that awaken with invisible scars.
Zyrion faced him.And defeated him.Or maybe not.
When the light faded, both were gone.
Only the echo of one last lightning bolt crossing the sky.And a white mask on the ground, faceless, ownerless.
The air sliced itself. Almost as if the world struggled to breathe.
And while the duel ended elsewhere in a storm of realities, the battlefield below still raged. The appearance of the masked man had summoned the Saekrim Noxar — hunters of fragments who followed the Core's signal to Darakthar.
Velkran spun through the air, wrapped in violet aura, each slash leaving trails of pure speed, disintegrating the ground as he unleashed a storm of cuts.
"Don't you dare touch Taliena!" he roared.
Quindarion, surrounded by collapsing dimensional spheres, opened short-range portals to evade a silver-haired woman trying to break into the group's center.
"Not even the Gods cross my lines without permission."
Taliena and Kyrahna fought back-to-back, blocking two enemies wielding black flames and slicing shadows.
"Is Zyrion okay?" Taliena asked, parrying a spear.
"Is he ever?" Kyrahna answered with a tired smirk, unleashing a wave of scorching heat that melted the battlefield.
Cilera, Ysmera, Maerisse, and Nivhira fought in a tight formation — styles clashing and complementing: essence magic, illusion sweeps, freezing chains, wind dances.
Because they all felt something.
A presence.An aura.Not terror.Not salvation.Something else.
One word.Zyrion.
"You feel that?" Ryvak asked, bloodied, flames dancing around his hands.
Valric nodded, his axe trembling. "Yeah… like the world itself is breathing his name."
Ysmera looked up. "He's close."
"He's returning," Maerisse whispered.
And then… a figure appeared at the edge of the battle.
He didn't run.He didn't float.He simply walked.
Leaves did not crunch beneath him.The wind did not dare blow near him.But silence… followed him.
It was Zyrion.
His cloak torn. His armor cracked. His gaze… deep, empty and alive at once.The White Eyes were off.
But something was wrong.
Taliena stepped toward him. "Zyrion…?"
He lifted his head. No blood visible — yet something trembled inside him.
"Where were you?" Caelithra asked.
Zyrion closed his eyes. "Fighting."
"With who?" Kyrahna asked.
Zyrion breathed. "With something that shouldn't exist… but does."
Velkran smirked. "At least you're still standing."
Quindarion nodded. "Looks like you saw the Ancients and came back."
Zyrion stared at them with calm — almost spectral.
"I haven't returned completely…"
Ysmera stepped forward. "What did you see?"
Zyrion hesitated.And that alone scared them.
"The truth. Or an illusion of it. I'm not sure yet."
Maerisse touched his arm. "It doesn't matter. You're here now."
A moment of peace.For the first time in days.
But then…
A chill tore down Cilera's spine. She spun around.
"What… is that?" Kyrahna asked, narrowing her eyes.
Taliena tensed, hand to her hilt.
It was there.
Behind Zyrion.
Standing between moonlight and the shadows.
The Man with the White Mask.
Unmoving.Impossible.
Everyone saw him.
Zyrion's breath froze.
But he didn't turn.
He only whispered:
"He… never left."
And then, when the tension peaked—
The silence wasn't natural.It was a void.
Zyrion fell to his knees.
His hands shook, stained with blood. His sword slipped from his fingers and sank into the earth. His breathing broke into uneven bursts — and the white-masked man behind him showed no emotion.
No one saw how it happened.No one.
Caelithra screamed first.
"Zyrion!"
She ran without thinking. Kyrahna behind her, tears falling unknowingly.Karion said nothing — no jokes, no words — only pure terror on his face.Taliena's aura trembled like it was about to explode.Velkran and Quindarion, though wounded, sprinted with everything they had.
Zyrion's body did not move.
He was standing…But as still as a statue carved from tragedy.
A sword protruded from his back.
Ysmera cried out his name.
Maerisse fell to her knees, clutching her chest.
"This… this can't be happening," Cilera whispered, pupils wide.
Valric clenched his fists.Ryvak drew his weapon as if he could fight fate itself.Nivhira advanced quietly, rage and terror swallowing her expression.Tzarelle dropped to her knees as if the universe itself had struck her.
The masked man stepped back… slowly… like a performer admiring his show.
Then… Zyrion turned.
He was bleeding — a lot — but he didn't fall. Didn't scream. Didn't speak.
His eyes couldn't be seen.
But they could feel him.
A white aura emerged from him.Dense.Terrible.Ancient.
Kyrahna swallowed. "Impossible… that aura…"
"It's like the masked man's," Caelithra said. "No… older."
Taliena trembled. "Zyrion… what are you… really?"
Zyrion lifted his head.
His lips parted. Not to speak — to breathe. To stay conscious.
But he said no words.
The masked man remained behind him, silent… blade still held.
A cold wind swept through the field.Trees bent.The sky turned into a timeless gray.All fragment lights flickered.
"What… was that?" Velkran whispered.
"A fracture," Quindarion said. "Something… is breaking."
No one dared move.
Zyrion stepped forward, away from the sword's blade… though blood continued to fall.
"Zyrion, please!" Cilera cried.
"Say something! Anything!" Karion yelled — humorless for the first time in his life.
Zyrion turned just enough…Caelithra saw a tear fall down his cheek.
But it wasn't a normal tear.
It was liquid light.
Aura turned into pain.
And then—
The masked man vanished.
Like a shadow that never existed.
Zyrion collapsed to his knees.
His hands pressed against the ground.
And the chapter ends there.
No answers.No words.Just the sound of a heartbeat… slower… weaker… but still beating.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Author's Update:
The journey continues.
I hope you continue to enjoy the story.
Notice
Due to adjustments in world development, the organization "Zykrath Nolthem" will now be called "Saekrim Noxar."
Previous chapters will be updated to reflect this change.
For You
I'm thinking of writing additional chapters (special chapters) to expand the world and delve deeper into the characters.
Which one would you like?
1️: A moment between Zyrion and Kyrahna
2️: The past of Kyrahna, Zyrion, or another character
3️: A dark interlude about Umbraek
4️: A tense encounter between two wielders of the Fragment
5️: A chapter about a scene that caught your attention (Expand the chapter, delve deeper into it)
6️: The story of the Dragon Masters
7️: The truth about the Fragment Zyrion possesses or the origin of his White Eyes
I can also continue or expand any chapter that particularly interested you. Let me know in the comments.
Author's Note
If you enjoy Kyrethron,
if you felt something ancient begin to awaken…
Then I would greatly appreciate your support.
The Power Stones help this story grow, reach more readers, and continue to unveil the fate of Zyrion and the world of Kyrethron.
Each stone you donate is like adding fuel to the fire of the Eternal Flame.
Thank you for joining me on this journey. The war has only just begun.
The fragments respond to will, not command.