Silence.
Endless, weightless, eternal silence.
There was no light. No sound. No sky. No ground. Just an empty void — blacker than death itself — stretching forever in every direction.
Suvo floated through it, or perhaps he was part of it. He couldn't tell.
He had no body now. Only thought. Only memory.
At first, there was nothing. Then — faint echoes.
A warm hand gripping his. A voice calling his name. A sword raised to the heavens. A battlefield drenched in fire.
"Lela..."
A whisper escaped into the emptiness. No one answered.
His thoughts twisted in circles. His defeat. His failure. His last promise.
"Even in death, I will return..."
He didn't know where he was. He didn't know how he was still thinking. But deep inside, something burned.
A relic — no longer glowing — but still there, somewhere in his soul.
And with it, fragments began to return.
The Deep family, who gave a homeless child a home.
The blade, heavy in his young hands.
The temple, where gods once listened but now stood silent.
The kingdom, built from dust and blood.
And the fall, the endless fall...
He remembered everything — not all at once, but in broken flashes, like pieces of a shattered mirror trying to mend.
Then... something new.
A whisper.
Not from memory.
Not from himself.
Something older, deeper, reaching across time and space.
"You are no mortal."
"You were never meant to die."
"Remember who you are..."
The voice was calm yet thunderous — like a dying star singing its last hymn.
"You are more than king. You are..."
"STOP!" Suvo's voice ripped through the void, raw and pained.
His head pulsed, chaos exploding in his thoughts. For a moment, it felt like the entire void was inside his skull, swirling with memories he couldn't hold.
And just like that — the whispers vanished.
Silence returned.
He gained no memories. Only a feeling.
Someone... something... was calling him.
Trying to remind him of a past far more distant than his childhood, more ancient than the life he remembered.
He didn't know what it meant.
But the emptiness no longer felt so empty.
In this place where time had no meaning, Suvo felt something he hadn't felt since the day he died:
Hope.
And then —
A distant sound. A hum.
A pulse.
A call.
Something was pulling him. Somewhere.
And just before the void faded... he felt warmth again.
[End of Chapter 2]