Pain.
That was the first thing Kaen felt as he fought his way back to consciousness.
His chest burned with every breath, the air thick with the acrid scent of smoke and the sharp tang of rusted metal. His skin felt as though it was being pierced by a thousand tiny needles.
Slowly, he forced his eyes open.
The ruins around him were no longer still.
Cracks splintered across the earth beneath his feet, and ember-red symbols flickered briefly before fading—like fireflies caught in a fleeting moment. The air shimmered, still alive with the energy of the event that had just unfolded.
Turo and his friends were gone. Whether they had run, or if they had been swallowed by the chaos, Kaen couldn't say. It didn't matter. Cowards always fled when the world shifted without them.
Kaen's body felt different as he shakily stood up, almost like the very essence of him had been remade. Lighter, yet heavier. Something alive surged within him—a strange, unfamiliar power.
He pulled back his cloak and saw it.
The mark.
A crescent eclipse, chained by sigils broken and fractured, burned into his skin like a brand forged by the gods themselves. It was the kind of mark that didn't belong to anyone from Auraterra.
> "Shadowless no more…" he whispered to himself, the weight of those words sinking in.
Then the memories came.
But they weren't his.
Visions flashed across his mind—towers swallowed by storms, creatures born from dying stars, a child weeping over the body of a burning titan. The emotions hit him with force, raw and unrelenting. The pain felt too real—too familiar.
Suddenly, a sharp sound broke through his thoughts.
A clang. A metallic scrape.
Kaen spun around on instinct, and his hand shot out.
A surge of energy exploded from his palm.
The rock that had been hurtling towards him exploded mid-air with a deafening crack.
Silence.
From the shadows, a voice trembled.
"W-what… was that?"
Kaen's eyes narrowed as he looked down at his own hand, still crackling faintly with energy. It felt like power. Real power.
It wasn't just the mark.
It was something inside him. Something that he had never known existed.
Turo stumbled out from behind a ruined pillar, clutching his chain like it could shield him from the strange force he had just witnessed.
"You're a freak," Turo spat, his voice trembling. "That thing you touched—it cursed you!"
"No," Kaen replied quietly, his voice steady and calm. "It showed me who I really am."
He turned away, letting his cloak swirl behind him like a shadow. The mark on his back pulsed faintly, as if it were alive.
> Let them fear me. Just this once.
Kaen didn't crave revenge.
But there was something inside him—something that wanted them to remember.
Far above, unseen by Kaen, a pair of violet eyes blinked open in the sky, hidden behind a veil of dark clouds.
A voice whispered through the aether, carrying the weight of centuries.
> "The Fractured One has awakened. Notify the High Circle… and prepare the Sealhunters."
Beneath the surface of Auraterra, in a vault lost to time, an ancient relic stirred.
It hadn't pulsed in a thousand years.
But now… it burned with fire.
End of Chapter 2