Darkness.
Not the absence of light—
But something alive. Watching.
Kaen jolted awake, drenched in sweat. His fingers sparked crimson, and the mark on his back pulsed—like a second heart trying to escape.
He wasn't alone.
Lira sat nearby, sharpening her blade beside the fire. Vex snored softly, curled into a smug ball of fur.
"Nightmares?" she asked, not looking up.
Kaen nodded. "Something whispered my name. Over and over."
Lira's blade paused mid-stroke. "Then it's begun."
They were camped on the edge of the Hollow Verge—a ravine so deep, the stars above looked like scattered embers across black velvet.
Below, the Trial Gate waited.
> "Every Fracture-bearer must face it," Lira had said earlier. "It either kills you… or accepts you."
Kaen's hands trembled. "And if I fail?"
She met his gaze. "You don't fail. You vanish."
Trial Gate. Midnight.
The stone doors opened like a scream.
The air inside reeked of copper and ancient thunder. The walls shifted—alive, or pretending to be.
Kaen stepped inside. Alone.
Behind him, Lira murmured:
> "Don't trust what speaks in your mother's voice."
Inside—no floor.
Only mirrors.
Kaen walked on reflections: fear, guilt, rage. His every regret stared back at him.
Then—
The air cracked.
A shape rose from the mirror's surface.
It wore his face.
But its eyes... were hunger.
> "You think you're chosen?" it hissed. "You're just the flame that burns it all down."
It attacked.
Kaen moved on instinct. His Archeflare blade flared to life—unstable, but lethal. They clashed. Flame versus shadow. Memory versus steel.
"I'm not you!" Kaen roared.
> "Not yet," it sneered. "Wait till she dies."
Kaen struck deep.
The mirror shattered.
He fell—down, down—into the world beneath the world.
There it waited.
The Crowned Maw.
A horror of black flesh and silver bone. Its head split in two, teeth curled like shattered crowns. Spines ringed its throat, still wet with blood.
> "I smell the Fracture," it hissed. "And the boy who bleeds fire."
Kaen raised his blade. "Come get it."
It lunged.
The fight was chaos. The Maw moved like hatred given form—whispering as it struck:
> "Your mother begged for death."
> "Lira won't survive what's coming."
> "The seal inside you is breaking…"
Each word cut deeper than claws.
Pinned, breathless—
Then steel flashed.
Lira's blade drove through the Maw's throat.
> "You weren't supposed to interfere," Kaen gasped.
She wiped blood from her cheek. "You took too long. And you still owe me lunch."
The creature twitched.
Then dissolved into dust.
The cave shifted.
From the fractured ground, a relic rose—shaped like a chained heart.
Lira's voice softened. "The Trial accepts you."
Kaen reached out.
As his fingers touched the relic, a shockwave exploded outward—
And across Auraterra, every Warden, every Sealhunter, every ancient order felt it.
The Flame had awakened.
Far above, in the obsidian throne, the Lord of the Second Eclipse smiled.
> "Let the monsters rise. Let him break."
End of Chapter 5