THE CORE OF THE SEALED MEMORIES AND THE FLAMES THAT DO NOT BELONG TO THIS WORLD (Part 2)
The silence outside the Core was dense. Not a word, not a breath. Everyone stood attentive before the stone structure, as if every passing second were an eternity suspended in air. Only the distant murmur of the wind weaving through the underground corridors broke the stillness.
Velkran shifted, arms crossed."This isn't normal. Too much time has passed."
Caelithra crouched, touching the obsidian floor."The energy is moving. But not outward… it's going inward."
"As if something… or someone were absorbing the force of the Core itself," Maerisse murmured, her eyes fixed on the closed chamber.
Taliena couldn't hide her anxiety. She stepped forward, her lips barely moving."Zyrion… what are you seeing in there?"
Ysmera, who until then had remained silent, spoke in a low voice:"He's seeing what no other bearer should ever witness. What even the ancestors of Kyrethron failed to understand."
Everyone turned toward her.
Zyrion, deep within the Core, gasped. Not from physical exhaustion, but from the overwhelming weight of the truth revealed to him. The white flame danced around him, touching his memories, rewriting his blood.
He remembered Calessia's eyes, the figure of Umbraek in his vision, and the fall of Kyrethron… but now everything shared a common root: the hidden fragment within him.It was not a blessing. It was a choice.And that choice could no longer be avoided.
The flame drifted back. It stopped floating, as if bowing before him.
Zyrion lifted his gaze."Is this… everything you wanted to show me?"
A voice, soft and clear, answered from within the flame:
"This is only the beginning, bearer of the flame that does not belong to this world. You cannot turn back now. You are the herald of the final flame. And your decisions will decide whether the world burns… or is reborn."
The walls of the chamber cracked in a subtle burst of energy. There was no sound. Only light.The exterior door opened with an ancient groan, releasing a wave of heat so intense that the bearers stepped back at once.
"Zyrion!" Taliena shouted, running toward the threshold, but Ezhalra grabbed her arm and stopped her.
"No. Wait. You mustn't touch him yet."
And then, Zyrion emerged. Slowly. Step by step.
His eyes were normal… but for an instant, just before crossing the threshold, they glowed pure white.No one saw it.No one… except Ysmera.
The white-haired girl with violet eyes stared at him.
"It has begun," she whispered.
Zyrion stopped before them all. He didn't speak. He didn't smile. His gaze was steady, but not cold. Instead… weighted.
"Are you alright?" Caelithra asked, stepping forward.
"I'm alive," he replied in a dry voice. "And that… is enough for now."
Kyrahna frowned."What did you see in there?"
"Truths. Visions. And fire. A fire that doesn't belong to me… but now lives inside me."
Valric watched him closely."And what does that mean for us?"
Zyrion didn't answer immediately. He lowered his gaze for a second. His lips curved just slightly. Then he spoke:
"It means the world isn't ready for what's coming. But it won't ask us whether we want to face it."
Maerisse stepped forward."Zyrion… there's something you need to know."
"What?"
"The reason Ysmera and I knew your name… wasn't a coincidence. It was revealed to us."
"By whom?"
"By a voice in our dreams. A figure wrapped in white light. It told us that when the balance broke for a second time, a nameless bearer would appear… and that this bearer would carry the fragment even the creators of the crystal had forgotten."
Zyrion stared at her.
"A prophecy?"
"More than that. A warning. And… a sign."
Ysmera lifted her hand. A white rune glowed on her palm.
"This appeared when you were born. I was only a year old. But since then, your name has appeared in my dreams every night."
Zyrion said nothing. The air grew even heavier.But then Ryvak lifted his head abruptly.
"Did you hear that?"
A faint tremor… then stronger. The walls vibrated. And from the end of the corridor, a dense, dark breeze surged forth. A presence.
Ezhalra paled.
"It can't be… they've awakened."
Velkran unsheathed his weapon."Who?"
Ezhalra closed her eyes in sorrow.
"The ones who guarded the black fire. The ones sealed beneath Darakthar when the city fell millennia ago. The false heirs of the lost fragment."
A figure emerged from the mist. A young man clad in black armor veined with red. His eyes glowed like living embers.
"Bearer… of the flame that does not belong to us," he said in a cavernous voice, "you have opened the wrong door."
Zyrion stepped forward, and his voice echoed through the walls.
"Then close the damn door… if you can."
At his side, all the bearers aligned themselves. Caelithra twirled her spear. Taliena drew her daggers. Velkran and Quindarion activated their rings.
Nivhira, Cilera, Maerisse and Ysmera positioned themselves behind Ezhalra, forming an arcane circle of protection. Valric and Ryvak took defensive stances. Kyrahna raised her shield.
The battle for Darakthar… was about to begin.
And the unknown fragment… at long last, burned awake.
The corridor groaned with a deep rumble, as if the very foundations of Darakthar protested what was about to unfold. The dark mist swirled violently, revealing more figures wrapped in shadows of black fire. Five in total.
The first, the one who had spoken, bore a face half burned and half sculpted like living obsidian. The second was a woman with gray hair and eyes glowing like red-hot coals. The other three had dissonant presences, as if their bodies were not entirely theirs, but shaped by a force no one was ever meant to touch.
Zyrion narrowed his eyes."They're not simple enemies… They're something ancient."
Ysmera nodded with a knot in her throat."They are the original Zykrath Nolthem. Those who tried to merge with the core of the eternal fire, centuries before Darakthar was sealed."
"And why are they here?" Kyrahna asked, raising her shield, now lit with sacred runes.
Ezhalra lowered her gaze."Because when the core reacts to a new bearer of the hidden fragment, those who failed long ago attempt to reclaim what was never theirs. They died… and yet… they never left."
"Like…" Cilera whispered, "…persistent echoes of the past."
Zyrion stepped forward, his voice firm, contained, sharp as a sword tempered in centuries of silence.
"I didn't come here to take what belongs to you. But I'm not giving it up either.If you rose to warn me — speak.If you rose to fight — then we'll finish what you couldn't close centuries ago."
The leader of the black-fire specters smiled. His teeth looked like molten stone.
"You think you're the chosen one… but you're just another attempt. Another mistake of the crystal. You'll burn like the rest."
Taliena stepped in front of Zyrion, her eyes blazing."I'm not letting you touch him."
He glanced at her, and for a second, he allowed himself to feel it: the weight of that loyalty. Not born from destiny… but from choice.
Valric and Ryvak spread to the flanks, forming a perimeter.
"They're not simple foes… they're tied to the fire itself," Valric murmured."Striking them might be like lighting a fuse over a reservoir of burning souls."
Maerisse replied softly:"Then we burn them from the inside.Sever their connection to the core… don't destroy their bodies, but what keeps them bound."
Velkran didn't wait. He stepped forward and grinned at the main specter.
"I'm not good with explanations. I prefer showing what I learned on the cliffs of Dran-Myrr."
He activated his ring, and his body erupted in blinding speed. Xalorian, one of the specters, intercepted him. They clashed in a burst of burning sparks.
"Velkran!" Quindarion shouted, immediately surrounded by a chain of lightning.
"Loryan…" he muttered, recognizing one of the fallen ancient bearers.
"We fought before the fall of Kyrethron," Loryan replied, his voice an echo of thunder, "and this time… I finish what I left incomplete."
Meanwhile, one of the female specters, tall and ethereal, advanced toward Zyrion with her hand outstretched.
"Give me the fragment. I was chosen centuries before. Your soul is an open crack… and through it, I can drag it out."
Zyrion didn't move."You can't touch what you don't understand."
"Oh?" she smiled. "Then let me show you how it feels."
But before her fingers reached him, a figure stepped in her way.Ysmera, arm extended, the rune on her palm shining like a sealed star.
"You're not touching him. Not now. Not while I breathe."
The specter stopped, startled."You? A blood-invoker?"
Ysmera didn't answer. She spoke instead in an ancient tongue. One Zyrion didn't understand. A tongue that made the air tremble.
Symbols forgotten began to ignite on the walls. Cilera and Maerisse joined the chant, forming a protective seal around the bearer.
Zyrion felt something stir inside him. Not pain… but memory. As if the fragment awoke not from fear, but from centuries-old fury.
Battles erupted on every front.
Velkran dodged Xalorian's blazing strikes, unleashing attacks too fast to track."I always thought fire was faster!" he mocked.
Xalorian roared."Fire doesn't need speed… only direction."
Loryan and Quindarion fought among crackling lightning, the ancient thunder-bearer against the heir of teleportation.
"How do you do it?" Loryan asked mid-battle. "How do you jump through places without understanding the flow of aether?"
"Because I don't understand it," Quindarion answered, spinning through the air before disappearing and reappearing behind him. "I feel it. I live it."
Caelithra and Kyrahna held the central line. Ysmera, Cilera, and Maerisse maintained the seal while Ryvak fought one of the specters hand-to-hand, blocking each strike with movements forged in the deserts of Trennar.
Zyrion felt the hidden fragment's power building inside his chest. A white glow began to rise in his eyes. Not fully… but enough for the specter before him to stagger back.
"You… you're awakening it."
Taliena approached."Zyrion… can you control it?"
"No.But I can choose."
The glow intensified.
Zyrion stepped forward. And when he spoke, his voice was no longer entirely human.
"Hidden fragment… do you hear me?"
Silence.
Then… a response from within.
"Yes, Zyrion. I hear you. Are you ready?"
He closed his eyes.
"No.But I'll do it anyway."
And then… the ground trembled.
A wave of white energy exploded, throwing the specters back. The walls opened beyond the Core, revealing a passage that had never existed before. Ancient runes floated in the air. Names. Dates. Lost histories.
And at the center…a door of living obsidian.Sealed with white fire.
Ysmera whispered:
"The true core…"
Zyrion clenched his teeth.
"No.The beginning of everything."
And the door… began to open.
TO BE CONTINUED…