The Chronicle of Ash refused to open for anyone—except Yeo.
When he placed his hand over the flame-scorched cover again, the runes reacted. Not with fire, but with memory. The room around him faded, replaced by an impossible field of stars and fractured timelines, as if he were suspended inside a cracked hourglass.
Then, a voice. Not from the book, but from within his mind.
"You are not the first. Nor the last. But perhaps… the only one who will choose."
Yeo awoke from the vision gasping, the book closed in front of him. Leiran stood nearby, hand on her sword. "You went pale. What happened?"
"I saw them," he muttered. "Versions of me. Dozens. Some burning, some ruling, some… broken." He looked at his hands. "What is this power trying to make me become?"
Before she could answer, a horn sounded—deep and echoing through the ruins of Eldewan.
The Remnants had arrived.
Dark-cloaked figures emerged from the ash-stained forest, their steps unnaturally synchronized. They wore ceremonial masks, each one different—bone, crystal, rusted metal. At their head walked the masked figure seen before. His voice carried with eerie calm:
"Return the Chronicle. It does not belong to this version of the world."
Yeo stepped forward, gripping the book tightly. "It belongs to no one now. What are you?"
The figure tilted his head. "We are what's left when choices are made. And when you make yours… we will be what you leave behind."
Without warning, they attacked. Not with weapons, but with distorted echoes of past battles—faint illusions of soldiers, beasts, and ancient kings. Time twisted. Ground cracked. And as Yeo defended against an echo of himself—one wearing black armor and eyes filled with malice—he understood something terrifying:
The Chronicle wasn't showing what could happen. It was calling those futures here.
And the longer he held it, the thinner the veil between timelines would become.