THE BLOOD THAT AWAKENED THE WORLD
Zyrion's blood fell drop by drop upon the ancient earth, not with the light fluidity of a mortal man's wound, but with a mercurial density, staining the mud a red so deep and vibrant it seemed to emit its own light, a hue that definitely did not belong to this world. The wind, which seconds before had howled with the fury of a thousand storms, suddenly died away. The leaves of the nearby trees were petrified mid-fall. Even time, that invisible force that sweeps everything into oblivion, seemed to run aground on an eternal sandbank.
Caelithra could no longer bear the sight of that broken body. She broke free from the paralyzed grip that held the others and ran toward him, her white cloak billowing behind her like the wing of a fallen angel. She knelt in the bloody mud, ignoring how the filth stained her garments, and cupped Zyrion's face in her trembling hands.
"Zyrion!" she whispered. Her voice was barely a whisper, as if she feared that a shout would be a betrayal of the sacred and absolute silence that enveloped that clearing in the forest.
But he didn't answer. His eyelids were closed, sealed by a weariness that transcended the physical. He only breathed, a weak, rhythmic rattle, as if the air itself had solidified and refused to enter his ravaged lungs. The sword of darkness that had pierced him through was gone; the Masked Man had vanished into the stale air like a waking nightmare, but his shadow... his shadow remained. It was felt in the air, felt in the chill that ran down the necks of everyone present. It was inside them, like an echo of evil that refused to be silenced.
Taliena arrived just after, collapsing beside him. With practiced fingers, yet unusually agitated, she touched the fallen warrior's cheek. She felt the sticky warmth of blood, but beneath the skin, she detected something that defied all medical logic.
"It's... it's ignited inside him," Taliena murmured, her eyes wide with astonishment. "He shouldn't be alive, Caelithra. No one survives a void wound to the solar plexus. But his core... it's reacting. It's not just that he's not dying, it's that he's transmuting."
Velkran limped in, covered in deep cuts and his armor dented from the previous battle. He fell to his knees on the other side, his face contorted with a mixture of rage and despair. His hands, hardened by a thousand battles, trembled visibly as he tried to find a pulse.
"What the hell did they do to you, Zyrion...? This isn't a normal wound. I can smell ozone and sulfur," Velkran growled, gritting his teeth to stifle a sob of helplessness.
Kyrahna was the last to approach. Her eyes, normally sharp and alert, were glassy, clouded by a layer of tears she refused to shed in front of the others. She stood for a second, taking in the scene: the leader, the friend, the pillar, reduced to a human wreck in the mud.
"Why does it always have to be you?" she asked the air, her voice breaking. "Why are you always the one who sacrifices the most, the one who carries the burden that we should all share?"
Suddenly, a spasm ran through Zyrion's body. Very slowly, he raised his head a few inches. His face was partially covered by dark veins that throbbed beneath his skin, but when he opened his eyes, the breath of those present froze. They were no longer the white eyes of the lightning wielder. They were crystalline, a translucent gray that seemed to contain entire collapsing galaxies. They reflected everything he had seen on that threshold between life and death, forbidden truths that no mortal should possess.
He spoke. It was barely a whisper, but in that unnatural silence, his words resonated with the force of thunder inside the skulls of his companions.
"Not everything... not everything is over yet..."
And with that final effort, his head fell again. It collapsed completely.
The world didn't explode, nor did the sky split in two, but the effect was far more profound. Everyone, from the strongest warrior to the most sensitive soul, felt a pulse. It was a telluric heartbeat that didn't originate from the heart of Zyrion, but from the very roots of the earth. As if Kyrethron, the living planet, had sensed the collapse of its purest heir. Something ancient, something that had slumbered for eons at the world's core, had just awakened.
Quindarion, whose magical senses were the most refined, was the first to react to the imminent danger of the energy that was beginning to emanate from his friend's body.
"Stand back! Everyone, back right now!" he shouted with an urgency he rarely displayed.
But no one obeyed. The bond that tied them to Zyrion was stronger than the instinct for self-preservation. From the chest of the fallen youth, a light began to spread. It wasn't a warm light, nor the electric glow of lightning; it wasn't pure energy. It was something much denser and more unsettling. It was memory. Fragments of history, of past lives and possible futures, projected into the air like holograms of white fire.
Zyrion opened his eyes, but the agony of the mud and the cold of the forest had vanished. He found himself floating on a vast plain of absolute whiteness. There was no ground to tread, no sky to behold, only an infinite horizon of nothingness. He felt no pain, nor the weight of his wounds. The silence here was not oppressive, but expectant.
Out of nowhere, a whisper vibrated in his consciousness:
"You have opened the core that should not have been opened. You have forced the lock of destiny."
A figure began walking toward him from the whiteness. As it drew nearer, Zyrion felt a shiver of recognition. It was himself. But not the Zyrion scarred by war and weariness, but a younger reflection, with a pure gaze and skin unmarked. A Zyrion who had not yet known the weight of Kyrethron.
"Where am I?" Zyrion asked, or thought he asked, for his voice emitted not sound, but intention.
"You're in the space between," her reflection replied, stopping a few feet away. "Between the truth that consumes you and what you still refuse to accept for fear of breaking."
"Have I died? Is this the end of the road?"
The figure shook its head with solemn slowness.
"No. You're where it all begins. You're at the root."
Zyrion tried to take a step, but the void offered no resistance. His feet touched nothing, and yet he felt anchored.
"What is this place? Why does it feel so familiar and yet so hostile?"
"It is the matrix of the Fragments. The original wound of Kyrethron. The place where history was first altered to serve the interests of those who play at being gods," the reflection explained with infinite sadness.
Zyrion fell to his knees in that no-place, feeling the immensity of the information begin to crack his sanity.
"Who are you really? Are you my conscience or a trick of the Masked Man?"
The reflection smiled with a painful sweetness, and its form began to ripple like heat on asphalt. It transformed, grew, its features softened, and its hair became long and dark. And there, before him, was she. The memory that haunted him in every dream. His mother.
"Mother..." the name came out of her soul like a lament.
"Zyrion, my son... you still don't understand," she said, drawing closer to caress his face with a hand that felt like the afternoon sun. "The lightning you bear in your chest is not just a fragment of power. It is not a weapon of war. It is a key. It is a door. And behind it, He lurks."
"The man in the white mask? Is he the one behind it all?"
"He is not a man, Zyrion. He was not born, nor created by nature. He is an error in the equation of the world. He was sealed millennia ago in the core of the storm, but by awakening your blood the way you did... you have freed him from his chains."
Zyrion gritted his teeth, feeling an icy fury. "It wasn't my intention. I only wanted to protect everyone... I wanted to save the world."
"At this level of existence, intention is irrelevant," she declared, beginning to fade into white light. "Only the outcome matters. The balance has been broken. But you can still choose, Zyrion. There is always one last choice."
"Choose what? I have nothing left."
"You still have your soul. You must decide which part of it you are willing to burn to close the door you opened."
Meanwhile, in the forest clearing, the situation was desperate. Zyrion's body contorted violently, his bones creaking audibly under the pressure of the light trying to escape his pores. Rays of silvery-gray light pierced his skin as if it were old paper, illuminating his friends' faces with a ghostly glow.
Ryvak, the physically strongest, tried to hold him by the shoulders to prevent him from hurting himself, but had to withdraw his hands immediately, his palms burning.
"It's burning from the inside out! Its temperature is impossible!" Ryvak shouted, watching the grass around Zyrion char.
"I can't get close enough to heal him!" exclaimed Cilera, her hands outstretched, trying to project her healing magic. "The energy he's emitting repels any external interference. He's collapsing... his essence is dispersing into the environment."
Ysmera, who had remained in a tense calm, took a step forward. Her face was rigid, her eyes fixed on her companion's agony. Without hesitation, she knelt and placed her palm directly on Zyrion's forehead, ignoring the smoke that was beginning to rise from her own leather glove.
"Trust me, Zyrion! Just one second!" she roared in a voice that seemed to come from the depths of the earth.
An aura of icy blue emanated from Ysmera, enveloping Zyrion's body like a shroud of ice to contain the impending explosion. His lips moved with dizzying speed, pronouncing syllables in a dead, harsh, and powerful tongue: the forbidden language of the Children of the First Shard.
"Return... Zyrion... do not surrender. You are not a mere vessel for this cursed power. You are the decision. You are the end of this bloodline that has doomed Kyrethron. Awaken!"
On the white plain, Zyrion saw his mother turn into threads of light.
"I can't stay here, Mother. They need me. The world is bleeding," he said, trying to reach her one last time.
"No, you cannot stay. You must return to the pain," she replied, her voice now only an echo. "Because within you, Zyrion, not only resides the flame of Kyrethron. There is a secret hidden in the very fabric of your being that has the power to save everything or to turn the universe to ash."
"What's the secret? Tell me!"
She had almost disappeared, but before absolute silence returned, her last sentence was seared into Zyrion's mind:
"Your blood… your blood is not only human, Zyrion. You are the bridge between what was and what should never have been."
Zyrion suddenly opened his eyes to the real world.
The world's heartbeat abruptly ceased. Silence returned, but it was a different silence, one that preceded the storm. Her lungs filled with air with a sharp hiss, and her body, which a moment ago had been a pyre of destructive light, calmed. The others recoiled, frightened by the sudden change.
Zyrion stood up. Not with the agility of an athlete, but with the heaviness of someone carrying a mountain on his shoulders. He was not healthy; his wounds were still festering and his armor was in tatters, but he stood by sheer willpower.
When he looked up, everyone involuntarily took a step back. His eyes were no longer translucent gray, but a luminous, constant gray, like molten steel. There was a depth in them that was unbearable to bear. Everyone understood, without needing words, that the man who had fallen in the mud was not the same one who had just gotten up.
Zyrion had changed. His cells, his soul, his connection to magic... everything had been rewritten in that brief instant between worlds. But no one, not even the wise Quindarion, yet knew what kind of creature the heir of lightning had become.
The air remained thick, as if the very essence of Kyrethron had condensed in that forest clearing. The physical battle was over, but the war for reality was only just beginning to unfurl its wings. Zyrion's heartbeat, now muffled and heavy, dictated the rhythm of his friends' hearts.
Caelithra took a step closer, her hands still trembling.
"Zyrion? Is that you?" Her voice was a silken thread about to break.
He blinked, and for a moment, a shadow of the old warmth crossed his gaze before being replaced by that new and unsettling fixity.
"I'm not well, Caelithra," he admitted, his voice like the creaking of ancient stones. "I feel a fire burning inside my chest. A fire that doesn't consume flesh, but identity. I feel... voices that aren't mine."
Kyrahna approached, angrily wiping away her tears. "What was that place? What did you really see?"
Zyrion took a deep breath, and the ozone filled the air once more. "I saw the beginning of the mistake. I saw that the Fragments are not what we were taught in the academies. They are not blessings from the earth for men to protect the world. They are shackles. They are a cage designed to contain something that should never have awakened."
Taliena gripped the hilt of her sword, confused. "You say our power is a prison? How is that possible?"
"Someone, long ago, altered the melody of Kyrethron," Zyrion explained, looking at his own hands, which now emitted a faint silver glow. "They implanted a will into the fragments. A consciousness that seeks to devour its bearer in order to manifest itself in the physical world. And now, that will has marked me."
Kyrahna paled. "Is that thing trying to take control of you?"
Zyrion nodded with a seriousness that chilled everyone to the bone. "He's fighting for every inch of my mind. I don't know how much longer I can remain the Zyrion you know."
Caelithra, ignoring the danger, took his hand. This time she wasn't burned, but she felt a vibration run up her arm to her shoulder. "You're not alone. No matter what that darkness is, we'll fight it. We're a team, remember? To the very end."
Quindarion intervened, his face a mask of intellectual and tactical concern. "The Masked One... the man in the white mask. He didn't leave because he was defeated. He left because he has already accomplished his objective. He has activated the catalyst. He has awakened the core in Zyrion. Now he only has to wait for the fruit to ripen and fall."
"What can we do?" Taliena asked, determination shining in her eyes despite her fear.
"We must find a way to purify the connection," Quindarion suggested. "There are legends about the Temples of the Void, places where the energy of the fragments can be isolated and studied. But they are in forbidden lands, beyond the borders of the known."
Ysmera stepped forward, her icy gaze fixed on Zyrion. "There is an older magic. A path the Children of the First Shard concealed because it was too dangerous. A soul purge. It could expel that alien will, but the risk is absolute: if Zyrion's soul isn't strong enough, the purge will erase him as well, leaving an empty body."
Maerisse, who had been watching from the sidelines, nodded sadly. "It's the law of equivalent exchange. To save the world from what Zyrion could become, we're risking what Zyrion is now."
Zyrion looked at each of his companions. He saw fear in Cilera, unwavering loyalty in Velkran, desperate love in Caelithra, and cautious wisdom in Quindarion. He knew his life no longer belonged to him. He was the pivot around which the fate of millions revolved.
"If there is an opportunity, however small... I must take it," Zyrion declared with an unwavering resolve. "I will not allow my existence to be the vehicle for Kyrethron's destruction. If I must walk the edge of the abyss to find the truth, I will."
Caelithra hugged him tightly, burying her face in his broken chest. "You're the strongest man I know... and we won't let you walk alone in that darkness."
At that moment, a cold, unnatural wind, heavy with a silence that stung their ears, swept through the clearing once more. The shadows of the trees seemed to lengthen toward them, like black fingers trying to grasp them.
Kyrahna went on guard, her senses heightened to the maximum. "Do you feel that? The pressure is returning."
Zyrion gazed towards the horizon, where the sky seemed to be losing its color, turning the same gray as his eyes.
"The Masked One is not just an enemy," Zyrion whispered, deathly pale. "He is a guardian of Judgment Day. And his execution will not end until Kyrethron's blood debt is fully repaid."
The group fell into a deathly silence, processing the magnitude of what was to come. It was no longer a war for territory or fragments of power. It was a struggle for the right to exist, for the survival of the human soul against cosmic forces that saw them as mere pawns in an age-old game.
"So what's the plan?" Velkran asked, pounding his fist against his palm, eager to have something tangible to fight against.
Zyrion gazed at the distant mountains, where the secrets of the ancients were said to reside. "We will go North. We will seek the answers at the roots of the world. If the fragment is a door, I will find a way to close it from within... or die trying."
The earth's heartbeat continued, a muffled drum marking the beginning of a new era. They knew the path would be bloody and that many of them would not see the end, but as long as the light of Zyrion—that new, powerful gray light—continued to shine, a spark of hope remained for Kyrethron.
None of them were willing to let that spark die out in the darkness that loomed over the world.
The prophecy does not seek a hero.