chapter 2

Chapter 3: The Eclipse Gate

Act I: The Voidbrand's Curse

Kael's fingers trembled as he traced the serpentine scar over his heart. The Voidbrand pulsed like a second heartbeat, its dark veins spiderwebbing across his chest. Across the campfire, Lyra sharpened her sword, her eyes flicking to him every few seconds. Suspicion had replaced the wary trust they'd built.

"You're staring," he said.

She drove her blade into the dirt. "That thing is spreading. Another inch closer to your throat, and I'll cut it out myself."

"You'd miss me too much."

"Try me."

Elara emerged from the tent, her hands glowing faintly green. "The villagers are stable. For now." She hesitated, her gaze lingering on Kael's scar. "Let me try again. Maybe if I—"

"No." Kael pulled his shirt closed. "Last time you touched it, you collapsed."

"Because it's Void energy," Elara snapped, her usual calm cracking. "The same energy that killed my brother. I won't let it take you too."

A gust of wind hissed through the campsite, carrying the scent of burnt sugar and iron. Seraphina materialized from the shadows, her crimson hair smoldering. "Touching," she drawled. "But we've got bigger problems. Malakar's cultists are gathering at the Eclipse Gate. Tonight."

Lyra stood, sword in hand. "How do you know?"

Seraphina tossed a crumpled missive into the fire. The flames devoured it, etching words into the smoke: "The Key is ready. The Gate opens at moonfall."

"Found this on a courier," she said. "Turns out, cultists gossip."

Kael rose, the Voidbrand searing his ribs. "Then we stop them."

"We?" Seraphina arched a brow. "Half-dead hero, a healer with a martyr complex, and a swordswoman who hates me. What a team."

Lyra grabbed Seraphina's collar. "You're here because we don't trust you alone with him."

"Enough!" Elara's voice echoed with unnatural force, her Core flaring. The ground beneath them shuddered. "Arguing won't save anyone. We need a plan."

Act II: The Ritual Site

The Eclipse Gate loomed in the valley below—a colossal ring of obsidian and stolen Cores, its surface etched with runes that writhed like living things. Cultists chanted in guttural unison, their voices merging into a drone that clawed at Kael's skull.

Lyra crouched beside him on the ridge. "Three dozen cultists. Four Voidspawn guardians. And him."

At the Gate's center stood Malakar, his mask of shifting shadows reflecting the fractured moonlight. In his hands, he cradled a pulsing orb—a Primal Shard, identical to the one that had cursed Kael.

Seraphina stiffened. "He's starting the ritual."

"Then we end it." Kael channeled aura into his palms, but the Voidbrand retaliated, black tendrils snaking up his arms. He stifled a cry.

Elara gripped his wrist. "Don't! The more aura you use, the faster it spreads."

"You have a better idea?"

"Yes." Seraphina stepped forward, flames licking her fingertips. "Distract the cultists. I'll sabotage the Gate."

Lyra snorted. "And let you run straight to Malakar?"

"You think I want this?" Seraphina's voice cracked. "I sold my soul to that monster for power, and all I got was this." She yanked down her collar, revealing a jagged burn over her Core—a brand matching Kael's. "He's using us. Both of us."

Silence fell.

Kael met her gaze. "Why help now?"

"Because you're the only one who doesn't look at me like I'm broken."

Lyra opened her mouth to retort, but Elara cut in. "We'll split up. Lyra and I take the Voidspawn. Kael and Seraphina target Malakar."

"And if we die?" Lyra said.

Elara smiled faintly. "Then we die together."

Act III: The Battle of the Gate

Chaos erupted.

Lyra lunged at the nearest Voidspawn, her sword carving through its corrupted hide. Elara wove barriers of light, deflecting acid barbs while chanting under her breath. The Voidbrand's poison gnawed at Kael's focus, but Seraphina's flames kept the cultists at bay as they fought toward the Gate.

Malakar turned, his mask splitting into a grin. "Kael! You've come to witness the New Dawn!"

"I've come to end you!" Kael hurled a blade of condensed sunlight.

Malakar flicked it aside. "Still stubborn. Still weak." He raised the Shard. The Gate shuddered, a vortex of black and gold ripping open above it.

Kael's legs buckled as the Voidbrand surged, his vision doubling. He saw Earth's corpse again, the vortex he'd died to seal. "You're the Key," Malakar had said. "Your death began this. Your life will end it."

Seraphina screamed. A cultist's dagger jutted from her shoulder, her flames guttering. "Kael… the Shard… destroy it!"

He crawled forward, every inch agony. The Gate's pull intensified, threatening to shred his soul.

"Join me!" Malakar roared. "We'll remake the worlds! No more pain!"

For a heartbeat, Kael hesitated.

Then Elara's voice cut through the storm. "Kael!"

She stood at the Gate's edge, her hands pressed to the obsidian. Black veins climbed her arms, her heterochromatic eyes blazing. "I can… hold it! Destroy the Shard!"

Lyra tackled a Voidspawn barreling toward Elara. "Do it, Kael!"

He lunged, seizing the Shard from Malakar's grip. The Voidbrand screamed, the Shard's power fusing with his corruption.

"You'll doom us all!" Malakar howled.

Kael smiled. "Then we'll go together."

He channeled every shred of aura into the Shard—and shattered it.

Act IV: The Fallout

Light.

Then darkness.

Kael awoke to the smell of ash and blood. The Gate was gone, reduced to smoldering rubble. Lyra knelt beside him, her armor cracked, her sword broken.

"Elara…?" Kael croaked.

"Alive." Lyra nodded to where Elara slept, her Void-scarred arms bandaged. "She held the Gate long enough. Whatever she did… it wasn't human."

Seraphina limped over, her wound hastily cauterized. "Malakar?"

"Gone," Lyra said. "But not dead."

Kael touched his chest. The Voidbrand had retreated, dormant but not defeated.

Seraphina smirked. "Guess you're stuck with us, hero."

Lyra helped him stand. "We're not done. There are other Gates. More Shards."

"And we'll break them all," Kael said.

As dawn broke, the four stood silhouetted against the ruins—a fractured hero, a rogue healer, a scarred warrior, and a fire-witch with nothing left to burn.

Somewhere in the shadows, Malakar watched. And laughed. 

Act I: The Aftermath

The air tasted of ash and regret.

Kael leaned against the splintered remains of the Eclipse Gate, his Voidbrand a dull ache beneath his tunic. Lyra paced nearby, her boots crunching on shattered obsidian, while Elara knelt in the dirt, her bandaged hands trembling as she sifted through debris. Seraphina was nowhere to be seen.

"She ran," Lyra said, answering Kael's unspoken question. "Again."

Elara held up a shard of the Primal Shard, its surface still faintly glowing. "This isn't inert. Malakar must have other anchors sustaining the ritual."

Kael's jaw tightened. The battle had cost them too much. The Eclipse Gate was destroyed, but Malakar's laughter still echoed in his skull—a taunt, not a defeat.

A rustle in the undergrowth. Seraphina emerged, her crimson hair matted with blood and dirt. In her arms, she cradled a small, cloth-wrapped bundle.

"Don't," Lyra warned, sword half-drawn.

Seraphina ignored her, dropping the bundle at Kael's feet. The cloth fell away, revealing a crystalline orb—a Core—cracked and leaking black ichor.

"Found this in the woods," she said. "It's one of Malakar's."

Elara recoiled. "That's not a Core. It's a Voidseed. If it hatches—"

"It already did," Seraphina interrupted. "And whatever crawled out is heading for the Sky Spire."

Lyra cursed. The Sky Spire—Aetheria's nexus of ley lines. If Malakar corrupted it, the entire world's aura would turn to poison.

Kael stood, the Voidbrand flaring. "Then we move. Now."

Act II: The Sky Spire

The Sky Spire was a needle of living crystal piercing the clouds, its surface thrumming with raw aura. At its base sprawled a city of scholars and artificers, now eerily silent.

"They're gone," Elara whispered, staring at empty streets. "Not dead. Taken."

Lyra kicked open a workshop door. Inside, half-finished Cores littered tables, their glow snuffed out. "Malakar's harvesting them. For what?"

Seraphina traced a claw-like groove in the wall. "To build something worse than the Gate."

A scream echoed above them.

The group scaled the Spire's exterior, aura-enhanced leaps carrying them toward the sound. At the summit, they found a nightmare: hundreds of villagers suspended in cocoons of black silk, their Cores pulsing like grotesque hearts. Malakar stood at the center, his mask discarded to reveal a face Kael recognized—his own, scarred and aged.

"You're late," Malakar said. "But just in time to witness perfection."

He raised his hands. The cocoons split open, their occupants morphing into Voidspawn-human hybrids—soldiers with glowing red Cores and serrated claws.

Lyra snarled. "You're disgusting."

"I'm inevitable."

Act III: The Choice

The fight was a blur.

Lyra carved through hybrids, her sword a silver streak. Elara wove barriers of light, but her Void-tainted arms faltered. Seraphina's flames grew wilder, untamed, as if her Core teetered on collapse.

Kael dueled Malakar atop the Spire's peak, their clashes sending shockwaves through the crystal.

"You still don't understand," Malakar hissed, parrying Kael's aura blade. "We're the same. You crave power to protect. I crave it to remake. Two sides of a dying coin."

Kael's Voidbrand seared, threatening to consume him. "I'm nothing like you!"

"Liar." Malakar slammed a palm into Kael's chest. "You've tasted the Void. You want this."

Visions flooded Kael's mind: a world where Lyra never doubted him, where Elara's hands stayed pure, where Seraphina's fire didn't burn. A world where he was enough.

"Kael!" Elara's voice pierced the haze. She stood at the Spire's edge, her heterochromatic eyes desperate. "The ley lines—they're merging! You have to sever them!"

Malakar laughed. "Choose, hero. Save them… or become more."

Act IV: The Fracture

Kael roared, channeling every shred of aura—gold and black—into a single strike. The Spire shuddered, ley lines snapping like severed harp strings.

Malakar's form dissolved into smoke. "This isn't over."

The hybrids collapsed, their Cores crumbling. The villagers awoke, weeping, as the Spire's light faded.

Lyra caught Kael as he fell, his Voidbrand now a lattice of cracks. "You idiot. You could've died."

"Still… might," he rasped.

Seraphina knelt beside them, her flames reduced to embers. "Not today."

Elara pressed her hands to his chest, her Void-black eye leaking shadows. "I can't heal this. Not alone."

Lyra hesitated, then placed her hand over Elara's. "You're not alone."

Seraphina added her palm, then glared at Kael. "Don't you dare make this sappy."

Light erupted—gold, green, crimson—threading through the Voidbrand's cracks. The pain receded, but the scar remained. A reminder.