The cliffs parted like cracked glass.
Beyond them lay the Cathedral of Echoes, the last remnant of the Synod's godwar strongholds. It stood defiant—slanted towers bound by chain-lightning, stained spires held together by prayer and stubborn will.
No hymns were sung here.
Only screams.
The walls breathed.
The stones pulsed.
Each step Kael took echoed as if someone else was walking beside him.
He entered without fear.
Not because he was invincible.
But because he remembered too much to be afraid.
---
Inside, the ceiling stretched into infinity.
Reflected versions of Kael stared back at him from mirrored arches—some older, some twisted, some broken.
> "This is where they stored your regrets," whispered a voice from the shadows.
Kael didn't turn.
> "Let them speak."
From the corner of the Cathedral, a figure emerged.
Clad in violet obsidian robes. Skin cracked with celestial frost. No eyes—only empty hollows lit by slow-turning galaxies.
Sheth'Atur.
Synod Sovereign of Forgotten Tongues.
> "You shouldn't have returned," he rasped.
> "Then why did you leave the door open?" Kael replied.
Sheth'Atur tilted his head.
> "Because part of you belongs to us. The part you sealed away."
> "You mean the part I no longer need."
> "Then prove it."
---
With a whisper in a tongue Kael had once erased from existence, Sheth'Atur raised his hand.
The echoes screamed.
From the mirrored arches, memories lunged forward—living phantoms of Kael's past.
Not illusions.
Truths.
A brother he abandoned.
A lover he sacrificed.
A comrade whose heart he crushed beneath duty.
Each memory struck not with blade, but blame.
Kael staggered.
Only slightly.
But even that… was enough to awaken the Cathedral itself.
---
The entire structure shivered.
Chains from the ceiling writhed like serpents. Runes began to glow on the walls.
And at its center, a throne of broken bones reassembled.
> "Take your seat," Sheth'Atur hissed. "You once ruled this realm. It remembers you still."
Kael did not flinch.
He reached into the hollow wind and grasped it.
Not with hands.
With authority.
The echoes snarled—but fell silent.
The phantoms dissolved—not defeated, but understood.
Kael stepped onto the throne—and crushed it beneath his heel.
> "I don't need to sit," he said.
> "I am the judgment now."
---
Sheth'Atur roared.
His body unraveled—becoming a storm of tongues, each speaking a different death.
Kael raised his hand.
The Primordial Brand pulsed once.
And the words stopped.
Every tongue silenced.
Every memory burned clean.
Sheth'Atur fell—not slain, but emptied.
> "You silenced me," the Sovereign whispered in awe.
> "No," Kael answered.
> "I let you hear what silence really means."
---
The Cathedral collapsed behind him.
Kael walked onward, toward the next gate of the Synod's domain.
Far above, six remaining Sovereigns watched.
One clenched his fist.
> "We cannot let him reach the Vault of Origin."
> "He's too close now."
But the masked one… merely turned his gaze west.
Toward a sealed realm that had not opened in over a million years.
> "Then wake it," he said.
> "Let the First Betrayer rise."