Time shattered.
Not in a violent crash—but in a soft, deliberate unraveling.
The chamber vanished. So did the others.
Kael stood alone in a landscape of floating shards, each one a memory—not his, but familiar. They hovered in a starless void, drifting slowly in patterns that made his head ache to comprehend.
A voice pulsed through the emptiness. Not Whisper. Not the ruin. Something older.
"You were not supposed to return."
Kael exhaled slowly. "Yet here I am."
"Why claim the mind of what was buried?"
"Because this world plays by rules written in forgotten ink. And I don't lose at games I understand."
One shard drifted closer. It shimmered—then exploded outward in light.
Kael found himself standing in a burning library.
Stone cracked under molten glyphs. Shelves crumbled. Screams echoed beyond the walls.
But the worst part—the worst part was himself.
Not Kael as he was.
Kael as he once was. Or would become.
Wearing black armor threaded with shimmering symbols. Standing amidst the fire. Unmoving. Watching people burn with hollow eyes.
Kael stepped toward the figure.
The mirror-Kael turned.
"Still curious," it said. "Still small."
"I'm not you," Kael answered.
"Yet you opened the gate."
"I needed answers."
The double smiled. "Then you'll have to live with them."
The memory collapsed—like breaking a window with silence.
More shards came.
Another memory.
Another ruin.
Kael again—but different.
Weeping.
Holding someone.
A girl? Her face was fading.
"No one remembers her name," a whisper spoke through the memory.
"Not even you."
Kael clenched his fists. "This isn't real. None of it is."
"No," said the older voice. "It is more real than the body you wear."
Then the void cracked—and the real world returned like an explosion.
Kael gasped, stumbling back as the memory core detached from his skin.
Around him, the others stared—frozen mid-motion.
Then time resumed.
Tessia collapsed to one knee, blade raised.
Dren had a blade to a Runeblade scout's throat—still breathing, eyes wide with confusion.
Sera was already at Kael's side.
"What happened?"
Kael's voice was hoarse. "A memory. A warning. And something else…"
He turned.
The ruin was… different now.
The walls were still stone, but the air pulsed with a living rhythm. Light filtered from above in soft columns. The core's energy flowed through the entire ruin like blood through veins.
And carved into the floor beneath Kael's feet were six letters in an unknown script.
Kael could read them perfectly.
Veyron.
A second later—alarms sounded.
Not in the ruin.
In the skies above.
Aether-storms flared in jagged lines across the clouds. The skyships began to move—erratic, pulled by invisible forces.
Sera cursed. "Kael, what the hell did you do?"
He didn't answer right away.
He turned to the surviving Runeblade scouts. "You came for the ruin's power."
They nodded, nervous.
Kael's eyes flared with silver-blue light.
"You're too late."
He turned to his team. "We're leaving. Delta-9 is done."
"But the factions—" Dren started.
"They'll bury each other here," Kael cut in. "And the ruin will let them."
Zarith whispered, "Something's following us."
Kael nodded once. "It's not done with us. And we're not done with it."
Behind them, the ruin's core pulsed one last time.
Then it sealed—stone folding like an iris, becoming a dead wall once more.
Delta-9 had offered its truths.
Now the world would deal with the consequences.
Across Exarune…
—In Veinhold, Princess Elira stood before a broken mirror, whispering Kael's name.
—In Runeblade Academy, Raven opened his eyes to find all the mirrors in the Hall of Scrying fractured.
—In Aerathurn, the High Mage closed the Archive of Forbidden Threads for the first time in two centuries.
—In the sands, Zaphira smiled. "He touched it. He claimed it."
And far below even them, something ancient stirred beneath the crust of the world. Not angry. Not afraid.
Awake.
Kael and his team stepped into the dusk—Delta-9 collapsing behind them, sealed from the world once more.
But not for long.
[ END OF CHAPTER 15 ]