1. A SHAKING GROUND
The land trembled.
Not from battle. Not from gods. But from something older.
Mira stood outside the ruins of Silphare's eastern vault. Emberlock had detected tremors — subtle, rhythmic, like a heartbeat under the soil.
"What is it?" Kaen asked.
"Something calling us," Mira said. "Or something warning us away."
With Cindervow reforged into a soulbrand on her palm, Mira's senses were changing. She could hear whispers in flame, feel memories in stone.
This vault wasn't just an armory.
It was a tomb.
🕳️ 2. THE HOLLOW DESCENT
Raven led a team of scouts into the crack that split the vault's floor.
They found stairs — smooth, unmarked, descending far deeper than any Flamebound map showed.
Mira, Kaen, Lyric, and Emberlock followed. Torches weren't needed. The walls glowed with buried fire — not lit, but remembering what fire once was.
They passed statues of forgotten gods, broken and weeping lava.
One of them whispered as Mira passed:
"You walk where Ashara would not."
"She feared this place," Mira murmured.
"And now you must decide."
💀 3. THE CHAMBER OF SOULS
At the bottom, they entered a vast chamber.
In the center stood a tree — petrified, blackened, growing from fire instead of soil. Embedded in its roots were skulls. Thousands.
And at its heart: a sarcophagus.
Kaen approached it, hand on sword.
"You think this is her tomb?"
"No," Mira said. "Ashara never came here."
She touched the sarcophagus.
It hissed — not with heat, but memory.
Suddenly, Mira's mind was pulled inward…
🌑 4. MEMORY OF THE FIRST WAR
She saw a world aflame.
Gods screaming.
Ashara fighting not Velron — but another.
A being with no name, only a mark: the sigil of the Soul-Eater.
This wasn't just a war for survival. It was a war of annihilation. And the tree?
It grew by absorbing fallen souls — god and mortal alike.
Ashara sealed the Soul-Eater here — beneath the flame — to keep the world safe.
And now…
"It's waking," Mira whispered.
👁️ 5. THE SOUL-EATER STIRS
The sarcophagus cracked.
From it rose a shadow, shaped like a man, eyes like twin pyres, and a voice like ash sliding over bone.
"Ashara failed. You wear her fire like a mask."
"I am not her," Mira said.
"Then burn as yourself… or die forgotten."
The Soul-Eater struck.
Its power wasn't fire or blade — it was devouring. Every swing pulled memories from its foes. Kaen staggered, bleeding from the ears. Raven collapsed, screaming names from her childhood.
Mira held the line.
"You want my soul?"
She unleashed her palm — the soulbrand erupted.
"Then choke on it!"
Cindervow flared, reborn again, not as a sword — but as a whip of flame, lashing around the Soul-Eater's form.
🔥 6. BURNING BACK THE DARK
Mira fought not to kill — but to seal.
She used her flame not as destruction, but as binding. Her fire wove around the tree, around the tomb, around the being that should not exist.
She spoke the same words Ashara once used — but added her own:
"I burn not in fear… but in memory."
The Soul-Eater roared.
Then, silence.
The chamber dimmed. The tree cracked. The soulbrand dimmed… but did not vanish.
Kaen caught Mira as she collapsed.
"It's sealed again," she whispered.
"But not forever."
🧩 7. THE REVELATION
Emberlock stood quietly beside the sarcophagus. Then he said:
"This wasn't the only one."
The others turned.
"What?"
"The Soul-Eater was only one of the First Cursed."
"How many are there?" Lyric asked, voice trembling.
"Thirteen."
Mira's eyes widened.
Velron… Azem… the Seraphim…
None of them were the endgame.
This was.