The Watcher dropped from the ceiling like a celestial guillotine.
Its body was neither flesh nor metal—just floating slabs inscribed with starlit runes, orbiting a hollow core that devoured light. Gravity bent around it. The air trembled.
"Seed of the End. You carry the Marked Shard.
This threshold is forbidden.
You will be unwritten."
The runes ignited.
And it attacked.
The First Clash
The Watcher moved like thought—instant, unpredictable. A beam of unmaking light lashed toward Cael, carving through stone like air. He dodged, barely. Ice shattered behind him.
Varuun slammed his staff into the ground. Essentia runes blazed outward, forming a shimmering barrier. The beam glanced off it, then dispersed.
"Void won't help you survive, boy!" the old man shouted. "Not yet!"
But Cael wasn't listening.
The Aetherheart Fragment pulsed in his chest like a second heartbeat.
He felt the symbols—the glyphs—etched into reality itself.
And he reached.
Second Void Spell: Nihil Vein
Instinctively, Cael drew a spiral in the air—a new glyph, unfamiliar but perfectly remembered.
Spell Formed: [Nihil Vein] – Tier 1 Void Construct
Manifest a rift-thread that unravels magical structures and weakens Essentia-based beings.
A line of pure nothingness tore through the air—thin, vibrating like a string of absence. It lashed out, grazing the Watcher's edge.
The runes on its surface dimmed. It staggered.
Varuun's eyes widened. "You're rewriting its flow…"
Cael collapsed to one knee, vision swimming. Casting that spell took something from him. A sliver of memory? A feeling?
The Void always took.
Varuun's Hidden Strength
Seizing the moment, Varuun stepped forward and released a blast of deep violet fire—not traditional flame, but Soulburn, a long-lost Essentia art.
"Back to the seal, you dead script!"
The flames forced the Watcher to recoil.
"NOW, CAEL!"
Cael stood, blood running from his nose. He drew another glyph with shaking fingers.
Tseron.
The freezing pulse hit the Watcher just as Varuun's ward sigils locked into place.
The creature's orbiting pieces froze, cracked, and—
Shattered.
The air went still. The runes dimmed. The temple fell silent again.
The Relic Revealed
Where the Watcher had hovered, only a small object remained—a crystalline ring, softly pulsing with runic light. It floated toward Cael like a magnet seeking its source.
He reached out and touched it.
[Relic Acquired: Loop of Unraveling]
Allows the bearer to perceive unstable Essentia structures and delay magical collapse by moments.
It latched to his hand, then disappeared beneath the skin—melding with his Essentia flow.
Cael shivered.
"I think," he said quietly, "the temple knows me now."
Varuun looked at him with something between awe and horror.
"I think it always did.
-
That night, by a small fire deep within the ruined sanctuary, Varuun stared into the dark.
"There's more than one shard," he muttered. "Seven seals. Seven keys."
Cael looked up. "You knew?"
"I guessed."
Varuun exhaled. "But if you're the first to awaken… then others may already be moving."
Cael looked at his hand, where the ring had vanished into his skin. The shard pulsed faintly.
A truth began to settle over him:
He hadn't just been brought here.
He'd been chosen.