Location: Edge of the Spiral Rift — Beyond the Abyssal Crown
The battle was over.
But the war had just begun.
Adexander sat alone on the edge of a shattered spire, high above the ruined domain. The wind here didn't howl—it wept. Softly. Like it remembered the blood spilled on these stones.
Behind him, the others gave him space. Not out of fear. Out of reverence.
Out of confusion.
Kael, Kaien, Velessia, Raik… even the newly-revealed Drevan, Adexander's own brother—now half-consumed by void magic—had vanished after the clash.
And Adexander?
He hadn't said a word since unleashing the Crimson Requiem.
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> [System Notice: Soul Stabilizing… Estimated Time: 16 Hours.]
> [New Trait Acquired: "Wounded Monarch" — Your soul remembers a kingdom that never existed.]
---
Velessia approached quietly.
"Are you… still you?"
Adexander didn't answer at first.
His eyes tracked a single feather drifting down from the void above.
Adexander (softly):
"I buried him here. The man I was before."
She blinked. "Who?"
Adexander:
"The one who wanted peace."
A long silence.
Then Kaien called out from behind a ruined pillar, balancing a cracked bottle of blackroot wine. "Okay, I'm giving it three minutes before we either fight another god… or you finally tell us what's really going on."
Raik joined him, limping but grinning. "I vote we get answers. I almost died three times. That earns me a speech."
Adexander stood slowly.
He turned.
> "I wasn't reborn," he said, voice low but heavy.
"I was recalled."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "By who?"
The ground trembled.
From deep below, a voice echoed upward like an old memory made flesh.
"By me."
A second figure emerged from the shadows—a man clad in black ceremonial armor etched in crimson thorns.
Eyes like coal. Voice like thunder softened by sorrow.
Dervan.
Alive.
Changed.
He stepped forward, every footstep cracking the air.
Dervan:
"I called him back because I was the one who destroyed him. In another life. On another throne."
Flashback Fragment Unlocked: "The Day the King Fell"
Blood on a crown.
A sword piercing between ribs.
A brother's voice: "Forgive me."
Velessia whispered:
"You… were the one?"
Dervan (nods):
"I betrayed the Crimson King. Because he asked me to. Because he knew what he'd become."
Adexander's eyes burned.
But he didn't move.
He didn't kill him.
Not yet.
Adexander:
"Then why bring me back?"
Dervan:
"Because this time… you're the only one who can stop what's coming. Not as a king.
As something older."
The wind carried no words after that.
Only silence.
Heavy. Unspoken.
Sacred.