Some cities fall. Others are simply forgotten by time… or hide from it.
Days after sealing the First Grithar Gate, Kael dreams of a city floating above shattered stars—Aeriont, the Skybound Kingdom. A land that should not exist. A kingdom erased in the Chrono-Purge, when the gods rewrote history to cover their betrayal.
And yet, it calls to him.
From the map left behind by a dead seer, Kael locates its rumored edge—over the Drowned Strata, where even dragons refuse to fly.
The Ashborne prepare for a journey beyond logic itself. They carry reality anchors, temporal seals, and hope.
They are not ready.
To reach Aeriont, Kael and his closest companions pass through a Time-Veil, a shimmering wound in the sky where clocks spin backward and memories become physical.
As they step through:
Lia sees her dead brother alive and calling her name.
Ihlon forgets his swordsmanship for a moment, his mind reset to a fearful child.
Kael sees a version of himself that never ignited—a farmer's life, peaceful, dull, and tempting.
They press on.
Reality screams.
They arrive at a city suspended by memory itself—Aeriont floats on the breath of an eternal oath.
And time has stopped inside it.
Aeriont is not dead.
Its buildings glow with soft light.
Its people move in slow motion—unaging, unaware.
They are trapped in a Temporal Loop anchored by the Heart of Eternis, a crystal that pulses once every century.
Kael enters the palace and finds King Vorlien Thal, seated on a throne of living time-stone.
The King is awake.
And weeping.
"I remember you, Kael Vaelorian," he says. "I've remembered you for ten thousand years."
Kael replies, shaken, "How?"
"Because you were meant to kill me… and save me."
King Vorlien reveals that Kael's bloodline—the Vaelorians—were not merely royal.
They were Chrono-Wardens, chosen by the Prime Flame to defend reality's structure itself.
Kael's ancestor, Iskari Vaelorian, defied the gods and tried to seal the Grithar Gates forever.
The gods punished him by unmaking his name from history and fragmenting his soul into his descendants.
Kael is the final fragment.
And only he can decide:
Reclaim the full power of the Chrono-Warden line.
Or burn the legacy and forge something new.
Kael chooses both.
He takes the oath, not to time, not to flame—but to freedom.
To save Aeriont, Kael must shatter the Heart of Eternis, releasing the kingdom from its temporal cage—but risking its complete dissolution.
He hesitates.
Lia asks, "Are you choosing history over the people?"
Kael answers: "I'm choosing to give them the future."
With a whisper of flame and memory, Kael drives his godblade into the Heart.
The city pulses—
Time resumes.
People fall to their knees, aging decades in seconds, gasping at the return of air, of now.
And yet… they live.
The King thanks Kael with his final breath.
Then turns to ash.
As Aeriont slowly crumbles, its people board floating skiffs gifted by Kael's magic.
Kael holds what remains of the Heart of Eternis—now a crown, glowing with fractured light.
He doesn't wear it.
He keeps it for someone worthy—when the world is ready to choose truth over legacy.
As they fly away, Kael turns to Lia.
"We just saved a kingdom that never lived. What's next?"
Lia points toward the horizon.
"The one that refuses to die."
Their next target:
Akris, the Empire of Chains.
Where gods once walked… and still might.