"What is buried does not die… it turns into an echo."
---
The air was heavier than before.
It was as if the dead spirits that had just left had created a void—one now filled with an invisible fear.
Shao sat alone at the edge of a cliff overlooking a city half-buried, half in flames.
Exhausted, a deep wound gaped in his chest—uncurable. But the strangest thing wasn't in his body… it was within.
He could hear a voice—a voice that belonged to none of the Nine Realms.
> "You've gone beyond what was destined… and now, you've been inscribed with what cannot be erased."
Hym rose slowly from the wreckage, limping yet still fighting with his damaged body from the entity's battle.
"Do you hear it?" he asked, eyes locked with Shao's.
Shao didn't answer… but nodded.
"That's not an external voice… it's inside every chosen bloodline. It's been activated."
He stepped closer and added:
"The true core within you has begun to awaken."
Shao gasped—he hadn't known he carried another core.
But in his chest, where the wound lay, pulsed a blue light—pure, unlike any power that had appeared before.
"This… isn't from the curse. It's from before the curse…" he whispered.
Ester appeared behind them, holding an ancient scroll she had retrieved from the bloodline's temple.
"I found it… the forbidden prophecy."
She opened it before them and read:
> "The bearer of reversed blood shall come,
The one not worshipped, but cursed,
Who kills the god—not to seize the throne, but to shatter the seat…
And from his hands, the Core of Rejection shall rise."
Everyone fell silent.
Shao, on the verge of losing his identity, began to understand…
He was never the chosen hero.
He was something else.
Something born to reject all that is sacred—and all that is corrupt.
---
⚔️ In another scene…
In an isolated dimension, Loki appeared.
He watched through a black mirror, a crooked smile on his lips.
"The transformation has finally begun… good."
Then he turned to the shadow behind him and asked:
"Did you gather the remaining fragments of the divine core?"
The shadow answered:
"All of them… except the final one, which now rests within Shao."
Loki smiled like someone who'd crafted a plan centuries ago and said:
> "Then… it's time I visit the son of rejection myself."