Chapter 58:
The sky had not changed for millennia. Yet now, for the first time since the sealing of the Old Gods, a second sun loomed on the horizon—its light not golden, but a dull, sickly ashen gray, bleeding tendrils of magic like falling embers.
They stood atop the shattered ridge, watching the horizon blaze in silence.
Nezutsu's heart beat wildly.
The scroll still fluttered in his hand.
"Little brother."
"He called me that," he muttered. "But I've never had a brother."
Serapheia folded her hands, her voice quiet.
"Not in this life."
Secrets from a Forgotten Epoch
Serapheia led them to a cavern hidden beneath a cliff overgrown with whisperroot vines. The walls pulsed faintly with lunar inscriptions—ancient writings encoded in the lost language of the Celestial Architects.
"Before the gods ruled this world," she said, "there were three architects—twins and a spark. The Thronebreaker, his twin brother, and the Flameborn Echo."
Kaelith tilted her head. "But there were only two mentioned in the Ashfall Archives."
Serapheia tapped the stone with her crystal eye.
"Because the third was erased. You, Nezutsu."
Eshryn stared. "What… do you mean?"
"You weren't just born into the Flame. You are a rebirth… of the spark they tried to destroy."
She walked deeper into the cave and revealed a cracked mural—three figures standing over a world forged of runes and song.
The middle one had no face.
The mural's name had been scratched away.
But below it… a single symbol remained: Elaruh.
Subplot: The Sword of Vanishing Blood
While the revelations settled like falling ash, Kaelith explored a side tunnel and discovered something eerie.
A sword embedded into a statue's heart. Not stone… but frozen blood.
"This isn't a weapon," she said, pulling it loose. "It's a memory."
The blade shimmered black-red, pulsing like a heartbeat.
"It belonged to one of the Thronebreaker's Ascendant Knights," Serapheia said, recognizing the hilt. "They were called Veinslayers. This one was used to kill gods who tried to rebel."
Kaelith turned it in her hand, then offered it to Nezutsu.
"You might need this."
"I don't even know what I am," he said quietly.
"Then learn fast. Because that second sun? It's not just light."
The Ash Sun's Descent
Suddenly, a tremor shook the earth.
The Ashen Sun was moving.
Descending.
Falling.
And inside it—a silhouette stood tall, arms spread, cloak woven from dying stars.
"He's coming early," Serapheia whispered. "He's folding the distance. Warping space."
From the clouds, shards of floating thrones began raining down, each one crashing into mountaintops and valleys like meteors. Every one of them carried residual godly mana.
Some cracked the ground open.
Some gave birth to wraiths of divine memory.
Some… opened ancient seals best left buried.
"We have to stop him," Nezutsu said.
"You're not ready," Kaelith warned.
"Then ready me."
Nezutsu's Choice
As the group fled the crumbling cave and moved toward the fleeing towns of Varinholme, Serapheia gave Nezutsu one final choice.
"You can hide, and the world will burn. Or… you can ignite. Fully. But it means tearing through the seal that suppresses your origin."
"What would that do?"
"You will no longer be Nezutsu… as they know you. You'll begin to remember."
"And if I don't want to?"
"Then you'll fight a god… as a mortal."
He looked down at his hands—still flickering with defiant fire. He remembered the battlefield of stars. The child screaming into the void. The world that answered.
"I'll take the flame."
He placed his hand on his chest.
Whispered the word: "Elaruh."
The Throne Cracks
In a realm above reality, in a throne chamber of impossible size, a single obsidian throne cracked.
The figure standing before it opened his hand.
A second throne floated toward him—Nezutsu's.
"Soon," the Thronebreaker whispered, "my flame will return to me."
"And when he does… he will have to choose which world dies."
[TO BE CONTINUED...]