Echoes of the Forsaken

The training grounds of the Broken Fortress were unlike anything Kael had seen. Instead of pristine arenas or structured magic halls like in the capital, this place was cobbled together from broken stone, scorched steel, and the will of those discarded by the System. The sky above was gray with stormclouds, casting the courtyard in a constant twilight. Sparks flew from a shattered forge in the corner, where a grumbling dwarf pounded at a strange contraption.

"Again," barked the dwarf, voice like gravel sliding down steel.

Kael winced, raising his arms to block the incoming bolt of energy. The device Torv had built a crude arm cannon powered by unstable mana cores whirred to life and fired another blast. Kael dove, rolling behind a broken pillar, panting.

"You're still relying on instincts gifted by the System," Torv growled, stepping into view. His beard was bound in iron rings, each one etched with runes. "Stop thinking like a chosen. You're not one of them anymore."

"I never was," Kael muttered.

Torv gave him a sideways glance, then tossed him a cracked mana crystal. "Then prove it."

Kael gritted his teeth, feeling the surge of old frustration rise again. He'd barely slept since arriving. The people here were kind but wary. They greeted him, but their eyes watched him too closely. Whispers followed him down corridors. Another one with power. What if he turns on us too?

Ruu was the only one who didn't treat him like a threat.

The beastkin healer a fox eared woman with eyes like amber fire stood in the shade of an old tree, watching silently. When Kael finished dodging Torv's relentless assault, she stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"You're holding back," she said gently.

Kael flinched. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

"You will have to," Ruu said softly. "Not everyone cast out by the System deserves your mercy. Some were rejected because they broke it."

That night, Kael sat alone near the edge of the fortress walls. From there, the wilderness stretched out uncharted and dangerous, but free. He could leave. Disappear. Start over.

But something kept him here.

The whisper.

It had started yesterday soft echoes in his dreams. A voice, ancient and broken, calling his name. Not the name given to him at the orphanage. But something older.

Kael of the First Null.

He didn't know what it meant, but every time he touched the strange glyph on his arm the one that appeared the day the Forsaken System awakened he felt it pulse, almost like a heartbeat. A memory trying to surface.

Driven by instinct, he returned to the ruins beneath the fortress, the place he'd wandered through the day before. Most of the others stayed away, claiming the tunnels were cursed or unstable. But Kael wasn't afraid. Not anymore.

Torch in hand, he walked through the stone corridor, deeper this time. Past the broken statues of forgotten gods. Past the wall where a mural had been half scrubbed away only fragments remained: a figure cloaked in shadow, standing atop the bodies of what looked like gods.

Finally, he reached a chamber sealed by a heavy iron door. Strangely, it opened at his touch.

Inside was a circular room, walls lined with dead crystal. In the center stood a pedestal and on it, a single object: a mask. Black and silver, with veins of pulsing red light.

As Kael approached, the whispers grew louder.

Heir of the First Null. Bearer of the Rejection.

His hand trembled as he reached for the mask. The moment his fingers brushed it, visions slammed into his mind.

A battlefield covered in blood. Titans clashing above the skies. A man without a face walking through a storm of dying stars. A council of gods screaming as one of their own fell, consumed by a black system that devoured even divinity.

A voice deep, resonant spoke from the void:

They feared the Null because we could not be bound. So they made the System. Not to uplift but to control.

You are the last spark. The final deviation. Rise, Kael. Rise, or all shall fall.

Kael gasped, collapsing to his knees. The mask had vanished but the glyph on his arm was glowing violently, expanding across his chest in veins of red.

He didn't understand everything. But he understood enough.

The System wasn't broken.

It was a cage.

He staggered back into the main hall sometime past midnight. The others were gathered Lysia had summoned an emergency meeting. When she saw Kael, her expression darkened.

"You felt it too?" she asked.

He nodded.

"I didn't summon you. The crystal alerted me. Your… system." She motioned to his arm.

"What happened?"

Lysia's face was grim. "The Empire has sent scouts. They're tracking new mana anomalies. The kind your glyph gives off."

Murmurs filled the room.

"They're coming here?" someone asked.

"No," she replied. "Not yet. But they will. And when they do, they won't just come with swords and fire. They'll bring the Heralds."

Kael froze. "You mean like the one I saw in Black Hollow?"

Lysia hesitated. "Yes. But worse. And… there's more. That Herald you faced. We ran a trace from the remains of your energy clash. There was a resonance."

"What kind of resonance?"

She looked him in the eye.

"A blood match."

Kael's heart stopped. "That's not possible."

"It is," Ruu said quietly, stepping forward. "Because you weren't the only Forsaken child."

Kael shook his head. "No. I would remember "

"You were split. Taken to different orphanages," Lysia said. "Hidden from each other. It was the only way to keep you safe from the gods."

Kael staggered back, mind reeling.

His brother… had become a Herald?

Had embraced the very system that rejected them?

And now he was hunting Kael.

The room fell into silence.

Kael's fists clenched. For the first time, he felt no fear. Only clarity.

"They want war," he said. "Then we give them one."

Torv snorted. "With what army, lad? You and your shiny tattoo?"

"No," Kael said slowly. "Not just me. There are others like me. Like you. Out there, hiding. Waiting."

He looked at them all the broken, the shunned, the exiled.

"What if we stopped hiding?"