The Dawnspire Mountains loomed ahead like titanic bones piercing the heavens. Their peaks scraped the clouds, veiled in eternal snow, hiding secrets as old as the stars. Within their shadow, the village of Kaelmoor slept beneath a sapphire sky—unaware that the world had just shifted beneath their feet.
Zeirion walked the dirt path with deliberate stillness. Each footfall drew faint echoes from the land, as if the soil itself remembered him. He passed a shrine once built to honor his name, now weathered, cracked, and renamed to a local forest spirit. A faded statue still stood, its features worn, its nameplate buried.
Even obscured by time, it bowed at his presence.
A child ran past, chasing a red leaf that danced on the wind. She laughed, barefoot and wild, her eyes bright with wonder. Zeirion's gaze followed her—softening for the briefest second.
He envied such simplicity.
A merchant wagon clattered by, its driver grumbling at stubborn axles and lazy donkeys. He glanced at Zeirion in passing and scoffed, mistaking the cloaked figure for a wandering hermit.
"Damn vagrants… always in the way."
Zeirion paused.
One glance. The wheel repaired itself. The donkey stood straighter.
The driver blinked, confused.
He moved on.
At the edge of the village stood a tavern, its worn sign reading The Hollow Tankard. Inside, warmth and noise filled the air—laughter, music, clinking mugs, and the smell of roasted meats and spiced wine.
Zeirion entered.
The room stilled.
Not because they recognized him—but because something ancient had walked in. Something that didn't belong to the mortal cadence of their laughter.
He sat at a shadowed corner, observing.
A barmaid approached hesitantly. "W-what'll it be, stranger?"
He spoke for the first time in ten thousand years.
"Water. Cold."
His voice was soft. Measured. Yet it carried the weight of forgotten aeons.
She nodded and fled.
A group of younger cultivators sat nearby, boasting loudly about their exploits.
"I defeated a Copper-Scaled Hydra with a single blow!" one declared.
"Hah! That was a lizard with skin disease," his companion laughed.
"I swear it had two heads!"
Zeirion's gaze turned toward them.
A flicker—an image of a real Hydra, one whose roar split dimensions, flitted through their minds. The youths paled.
They fell silent.
The tavern door opened again.
An old man entered—robes faded, beard long, eyes sharp with forgotten wisdom. He froze upon seeing Zeirion.
He knew.
The man dropped to one knee. Trembled.
"My Lord… the world did not deserve your silence."
Zeirion rose.
"Nor does it deserve my wrath."
He walked past the kneeling man, leaving only silence in his wake.
As he stepped back into the night, storm clouds began to gather far to the east—near the Sky-Piercing Sect. They had summoned a weapon.
They would soon wish they hadn't.