Chapter 4
The cave trembled.
Not from earthquake. Not from magic.
From intent.
Velgrim's face twisted as he turned toward the glowing mirror. "They found us faster than I feared."
Outside the sanctuary's veil, the forest was no longer a place of trees and wind — it had become a realm of glassy silence. Even the insects stopped their songs. The Veil Hunters moved like shadows split from a nightmare, their masked faces scanning, listening.
Inside, Nezutsu gripped the black shard, breath shallow. His heart pounded with twin pulses now — one his own, and the other... other.
"We have to fight?" he asked, voice trembling.
Velgrim shook his head. "We run. You're not ready to draw what's inside you. Not yet."
He touched the cavern wall. It peeled open like liquid stone, revealing a dark shaft spiraling downward.
"There's an escape route. A gate that leads beneath the Mana Veins — where magic flows wild but... blind."
"Will they follow us there?"
"No." Velgrim's eyes narrowed. "They can't. Magic below the Veins doesn't obey rules. It devours logic."
As they descended, the air turned thick, syrupy — buzzing with raw mana. Colors began to bleed unnaturally in the air. Blue turned gold. Shadows bent upwards. Time stretched thin.
Nezutsu could feel something in his chest reacting, almost reaching for the chaos.
"What is this place?"
"The Hollow Thread," Velgrim said. "The place where the world was sewn together. Where the first gods stitched the laws of magic."
"Why does it feel like it's... singing?"
Velgrim didn't answer. His hand was trembling.
Far above, the Veil Hunters entered the sanctuary.
The leader touched the cracked mirror. A soft red glow pulsed.
"He saw it. The Fractured Eye has shown him."
"Then the Echo has begun," a hunter whispered.
"We must inform the Obsidian Circle. If the Sigil of Silence awakens, it will unravel everything."
The leader turned toward the black raven now perched atop the broken relic.
"Track them. If the seal is broken completely before the Moon of Reaping, we execute the Ashless."
The raven cawed — but it echoed like a scream of shattering glass.
Below the earth, the tunnel opened into a chamber of floating stones. Gravity bent in places. Words from dead languages hovered midair. At the center stood a broken statue — a faceless figure with arms outstretched, holding nothing.
Velgrim approached it slowly.
"This is where the first mage sealed himself — to bind the Flame That Should Not Be Named."
"And what's that?" Nezutsu asked.
"A mistake. A fire born from pure will. Magic that writes its own rules. It was too dangerous. So, he bound it with his life, and broke himself into shards to keep the world safe."
"So why bring me here?"
Velgrim placed his hand on Nezutsu's chest.
"Because it's inside you."
Silence.
Nezutsu stepped back. "That's not possible. I'm ashless. I've always been nothing."
"No. You were sealed here. Your soul chosen to carry the final shard of the Forgotten Flame."
The moment he said it — the chamber reacted.
Flames burst upward, not red or orange, but a deep, aching violet. The kind of fire that burned thought instead of flesh. The kind that whispered secrets no one should know.
Nezutsu fell to his knees. The second heartbeat was roaring now.
The flames gathered behind him, forming the outline of a creature — not beast, not god, but something that looked half-born from a dream. It had eyes — endless and echoing — and a mouth that opened wide but never moved.
It stared at him.
"Speak the name," Velgrim said, voice barely audible.
"I don't know it!"
"You do. It's inside you. Buried. Like the flame."
The creature's mouth widened.
And from Nezutsu's lips came a word he had never learned:
"Elaruh."
The chamber exploded.
But not outward.
Inward — as though the world had inhaled him.
Nezutsu felt his body disintegrate, dissolve, and reform in an instant of silence. Not pain. Not death.
Transformation.
He hovered midair, flames spiraling around him. Not harming. Guarding.
And in his mind — clarity.
He saw pieces of himself, memories he'd never lived:
A battlefield in the sky.
A crying goddess placing her hand on a boy's chest.
A voice in the dark saying, "This is the last chance."
Velgrim watched with awe and terror.
"The seal is cracking. You've begun the Awakening. But this power is not yours to wield yet. You must resist it."
Nezutsu fell, gasping, the flames retreating into his skin.
"What... what happens now?"
Velgrim closed his eyes.
"Now… the gods will remember you."
[TO BE CONTINUED…]