The dungeon trembled, a primal shudder rising from depths unseen, as if an ancient heart had stirred and found the world wanting. A whisper, colder and deeper than the Dungeon's own malice, brushed Kai's mind—*The door opens…*—fading before he could seize it, leaving a chill that coiled around his bones.
Kai stood at the edge of annihilation, the cavern's ceiling veined with crimson light pulsing like a dying star. The Sentinel of the First Flame hovered before him, a warden of eternity forged from the cosmic spark of his soul-realm. Its white wings stretched wide, trailing embers, its glaive crackling with radiant power that hummed in harmony with Kai's heartbeat. Across the shattered mirror, the First Sin emerged, its form a monstrous thought given shape. Shrouded in twisting lips that breathed hidden transgressions, its crowns of night pulsed black light, each edge cutting burning symbols into walls of stone—symbols that bellowed in languages older than time before flaking to dust.
"This level is pliable," the First Sin recited, its presence a cacophony of conflicting harmonies clawing at reality. "You are pliable, Wyrm-Bonded. Fire is forgotten once it warms body."
Kai's runes flared, the Wyrm-Sigil on his forearm burning white-hot against the Sin's mental assault. His dragons—Flame, Ice, Storm, Earth, Void—churned within, their elemental pulses straining against the Dungeon's corruption, a reflection of the Depths sealed by the First Wyrm-Bonded. He glanced back at the spiraling staircase, where Master Venri's silhouette stood against the crater's rim, her stave's crystal tip flickering in the rising black mist. Her words prior to his fall rang out: "You bear Aeron's flame, Kai. Don't let me bury it as well, like his."
The memory of Aeron—whom the Sin called Thalen Kael, a name whispered in the Temple of Echoes as his father's—steeled Kai's resolve. Venri's plea, her voice cracking with grief for the man who fell to the Obsidian Claw, burned in his chest. He faced the First Sin, heart thundering. "You don't belong here," he growled, grounding himself in the dragons' harmony, forged in the Trial of the Howling Sky. "This world isn't yours."
"I am older than belonging," the Sin answered, its hand fluttering like a vanishing star, leaving behind tangles of disorder. "Older than your dragons, your gods. I am the first fear—the shadow cast by creation's light."
The Sentinel rushed, a speed beyond Kai's vision to follow, its glaive whirling in a burst of gold fire. The blade bit at the Sin's chest, ripping its cloak of mouths. The Sin laughed, a sound that fractured the air, its black blood hissing as it ate through stone, each drop birthing eyes that radiated a negative light. The gaze pulled at Kai's mind, threatening to unravel his thoughts, but he pressed his palm to the rune over his heart, its prismatic glow anchoring him.
The Sentinel parried a counterstrike—a tendril of raw chaos—but staggered, its divine flame flickering under the Sin's weight. Kai's muscles screamed, his body trembling as the Dungeon's pressure surged, the air thickening with the Depths' corruption. The faint whisper returned, colder: *The door opens wider…* The Sentinel couldn't win alone.
He called his dragons.
Flame, Ice, Storm, Earth, Void burst from his soul as comets, their shapes gleaming in the twisted light of the cavern. Flame's molten scales screamed defiance, burning with furnace heat. Ice's frost etched slashing patterns, shattering the air. Storm's winds bellowed like old wolves, rending the Sin's cloak. Earth's stone vibrated with unbreakable power, anchoring the chaos. Void's whispers cut through the Sin's deceptions, a darkness in shadows. The Sentinel's starlight eyes met Kai's, its voice resonating: "Together."
The bond ignited.
Kai became a conduit, channeling six cosmic forces. The weight was crushing—his bones ached, his vision blurred, but the dragons' harmony held him. Flame wrapped his fists in searing heat. Storm sharpened his speed, lightning crackling in his steps. Void whispered truths to guide his instincts. Ice focused his mind, a cold clarity against the Sin's assault. Earth solidified his stance, immovable as mountains. The Sentinel provided clarity, a sword freshly tempered from the spark of the First Flame. His runes burned, burning his skin, their prismatic light repelling the Sin's darkening glow.
The cavern became a battleground of raw energy. Ice shafts struck walls, exploding into crystal dust that sparkled like stars. Tempest winds assaulted the Sin's shape, shredding its mouths into screaming bits. Kai plunged through disintegrating reality, avoiding tendrils snapping like maws and teeth aflame with void. His glaive—crafted of flame and void—hewed shadows screaming and reforming, every blow sending shockwaves through the dragons' colors.
The First Sin was relentless, adapting with unnatural speed. Its mouths morphed into claws that slashed the air, claws into chains that lashed at Kai's legs, chains into sheer entropy that dissolved stone. It struck the Flame Dragon, splitting its form briefly; the dragon reformed with a roar, weaker but unyielding. The Void Dragon bellowed, its borders fraying as the Sin consumed it whole, spitting it out again, its whispers harsh and defiant. Kai stumbled, his nose bleeding, his soul-mark flickering wildly. The Dungeon walls creaked, the red veins fissuring as the Sin's might increased.
The whisper from the depths boiled up, a great rumbling now: *The door is open…* The First Sin's hundred eyes fixed upon Kai, feeling him stumble. "Aeron, whom you also call Thalen Kael, passed here," it breathed, its voice a knife turned within Kai's heart. "He attempted to bind me within this same Dungeon. I seared through his spine, and he pleaded for you, his unborn son, as he died."
Anger overtook Kai.
He shouted, a raw noise that shook the cavern, cracking the stone underfoot. His runes reshaped, burning with a fury that illuminated the Dungeon like a star. The Sentinel exploded, its energy merging into his chest like liquid steel, its white wings unfolding down his back, leaving behind embers that incinerated the Sin's darkness. His glaive doubled into dual blades, both of which burned with the dragons' hues—red, blue, white, brown, black, and a brilliant gold from the Sentinel. The dragons surrounded him, no longer distinct but one with him, their bodies merging into a brilliant vortex that throbbed with his heart.
He was not calling forth. He was becoming.
Kai struck at the Sin, blades cutting through reality itself. The dungeon could not hold their pace—walls fell, the ceiling cracked, the sky above ripped open, and a cold, second sun rose in Vel'shara's sky. The Sentinel's bellow shook through him, its wings blotting out the crimson light as they pounded their combined strength into the Sin's heart. The Sin screamed, its shape disintegrating into threads of screaming shadow, each thread consumed by the Depths' void. Its laughter remained, a distant murmur of coming back: *Not the end…*
The world turned white.
—
Skalara, Council Tower
The ancient storm city staggered. Lightning spires writhed, their wards shimmering as if smitten by an invisible hand. The sea beneath churned, waves defying gravity, crashing against floating platforms. In the Council Tower, Grandmaster Tolen clutched the balcony rail, his knuckles white, his robes whipping in the unnatural wind. "A summoner rewrote reality," he said, voice low with awe and terror.
Arch-Seer Lyla, white as stormlight fading to nothing, nodded, her gaze locked on the horizon. "The dungeons ring. Nemyra says a rift—it did not create itself. It *responded*. Something awakens beyond the Depths."
A low-ranking warden rushed in, her cloak burned, panting. "Vel'shara's sky split apart! A second sun emerges, cold as death, searing the mist away. Scouts report the Dungeon's collapsing, and the cosmic stone inside glows like a heart!"
Tolen's eyes tightened, the staff in his hand glowing dimly. "Kai Kael is responsible for this. He has opened something older than the Depths. Locate him. Now."
Lyla's voice shook. "The wards of the spires are collapsing. If the Dungeons are responding, the Obsidian Claw is already in motion."
—
Vel'shara Dungeon
Kai drifted in the silence of the aftermath, his body burned, bones broken, but his soul beating stronger than before. The First Sin was lost—for now, its motes dispersed to the Depths, its resonance a promise of return. The Sentinel's radiance remained along his spine, its wings a soft glow, its energy now within him. His twin blades had disintegrated, but their heaviness still lingered in his hands, a remembrance of transcendence.
He looked up through the shattered ceiling, where the real world's sky burned with a second sun, its cold light casting Vel'shara in an eerie glow that burned away the black mist. Master Venri's silhouette appeared at the crater's edge, her stave raised, her face etched with shock and fear as she shouted his name, her voice drowned by the sun's hum.
The dragons were still, their bodies coiled inside him—not in rest, but in watchfulness. They were waiting, their senses heightened to a new presence. The whisper from below was back, now a voice—deeper than the Sin, older than the Sentinel, echoing across the stars: "The child has opened the door…"
Kai gasped, his breath caught. The sky split once more, a crack larger than the first, violet light pouring through. Something fell—not an animal, not yet, but a presence large enough to warp the air, its energy a reflection of his own. Its connection wasn't his, but it felt like his—a celestial force connected to another mind, a foe or something sinister, forged from the same original fire.
He wasn't the only one bound.
No longer.
Kai held the Wyrm-Sigil, its heartbeat grounding him against the growing fear. Aren's laughter, Aeron's determination, and the prophecy's threat—"When harmony breaks, the Depths awaken"—spurred his determination. Whatever lay ahead, he'd meet it—not as a student, not as Aeron's son, but as the Wyrm-Bonded, Storm-Born, tempered in fire and turmoil.
Far above, Master Venri's voice broke through, urgent: "Kai! Get out now!" The second sun's hum grew louder, the horizon fracturing with violet light as the mist burned away, revealing a world on the brink.
The clash had only begun.