The Ashborn fortress stood quiet as a grave.
Aedric had returned with the mark of Choice, but something followed him.
Something wrong.
The fire felt it first.
The air dimmed.
The embers turned black.
And every torch in the stronghold died.
---
🌑 Its Arrival
It didn't walk.
It unfolded.
A crack appeared in the stone wall — not a door, but an absence.
Through it stepped a figure clad in rags of silence.
No face.
No sound.
No shadow.
Only a presence that made the mind recoil — like trying to remember a name that was never born.
---
Aedric stood at the center of the training yard.
Lyara rushed toward him.
But forgot why.
Mid-run, her steps faltered. Her eyes went vacant.
She blinked.
> "Who… are you?"
---
The creature raised one hand.
Reality around it peeled like wet parchment.
---
⚠️ Memory Begins to Collapse
Ashborn began collapsing.
Not dying.
Disappearing.
One by one, their bodies turned to vapor — and even the ground forgot where they'd stood.
Their names vanished from lips.
Their stories from history.
---
Vorka staggered forward, clutching her temple.
"My… grandson…"
"What was his name? What was his name!?"
---
🔥 Aedric Fights the Void
Vyrmath ignited.
But even its fire flickered near the Silence.
Aedric lunged.
The blade struck — passed through.
No scream.
No wound.
Because the Silence was not there.
It was a hole in narrative.
A rejection of meaning.
---
Aedric roared.
"You erase them, but you can't erase me!"
The Silence turned its head.
And Aedric felt it — his name slipping.
His memories clouding.
The moment he first held Vyrmath…
Gone.
The moment he promised to protect Lyara…
Gone.
The moment his mother sang to him…
Burning.
---
🩸 Lyara Acts
She stumbled forward.
Tears in her eyes.
She clutched the Eye of Fate, bleeding now.
And screamed:
> "I remember him!"
> "His name is Aedric Valtoris!"
> "His flame saved me!"
The Eye flared — blinding.
The Silence recoiled.
Aedric gasped — and his name etched itself into the ground in fire.
AEDRIC.
---
⚔️ The Anchor Blade
Aedric dropped to one knee.
Vyrmath, flickering, spoke in his mind for the first time:
> "If you are to survive this… bind yourself."
> "Not to fire. Not to gods. But to story."
He raised the blade.
And carved his name into his own skin.
🔥 Aedric Valtoris.
It burned.
It bled.
But it held.
And the Silence screamed — a sound like reality tearing.
---
💥 The Final Strike
The Ashborn vanished.
The sky tore open.
Only Aedric and the Silence remained — a war between fire and forgetting.
He whispered:
> "I choose to be."
He plunged Vyrmath into the creature's heart.
The blade cracked again — but held.
And the Silence…
Ended.
---
🌤️ Aftermath
The light returned.
The fortress rebuilt itself — piece by piece, as if time remembered.
Lyara rushed to him.
He was shaking.
But alive.
She held his hand.
> "You burned through nothingness…"
> "And we remembered."
---
🔚 The World Shifts
In the Celestial Bastion, the gods stood in silence.
The god of Order dropped his scroll.
The Masked One whispered:
> "He is writing himself outside our design."
> "We must act… or burn."
---