Orion Vael

Michael stared at the two spectral forms of his ancestor, his mind a whirlwind of empires, betrayals, and a war that had cracked the very sky.

The man he knew only as Orion Vael, a disembodied voice of immense calm that had gifted him a new life, was suddenly a figure of flesh and legend.

A man who had faced down armies and stared into the abyss of his family's ruin.

And apparently, that was just the beginning of the story.

"He returned for me," the first Elira whispered.

"He tore open the fabric of reality itself and pulled my fading essence into a pocket dimension he created on the fly.

A sanctuary carved from the very heart of chaos."

"Sanctuary?" The second Elira, the one with an eternal fire smoldering in her spectral eyes, let out a sharp, mirthless scoff.

"He dragged what was left of me into the Umbral Font.

The very wellspring of our power. Pure, undiluted Devil Lo.

For any other being, it would have been a death sentence.

For me, with that human curse eating my soul, it was like being drowned in a sea of acid that was also the only water that could keep me alive. It was agony."

Michael swallowed, the cold stone of the cenotaph floor feeling suddenly more real beneath him.

"So… he saved you, but put you in a place that was actively killing you?"

"He had no choice," the first Elira said softly.

"The Umbral Font was the only place dense enough with our energy to keep my soul from dissolving into dust.

But the seal… the Umbral Seal was a masterpiece of human cruelty. It fed on my own power to destroy me.

He needed a weapon. Something that could cut not just flesh, but curses. Something that could sever fate."

"He knew there was only one thing in existence that could destroy a seal of that magnitude," the fiery Elira continued, her gaze falling on Veyrith, who stood like a statue of shadow by the entrance.

The black sword at his hip seemed to drink the very light from the air.

"Your sword, Veyrith. Or rather, the sword you are merely the current keeper of. Silence."

She shook her head, a gesture of profound, ten-thousand-year-old wonder and fury.

"But to wield it, one must be of Ashborne blood.

Or… or make a sacrifice so profound the blade itself is forced to obey.

That arrogant, stubborn, brilliant fool… he had cultivated a Second Primordial Spirit."

Michael's brow furrowed. "A what?"

"Imagine your soul," the first Elira explained patiently.

"Now imagine spending centuries cultivating a perfect, flawless duplicate of that soul.

A second life, a reservoir of pure spiritual energy, a path to immortality that few in the Six Realms even dream of.

It was his greatest secret. His ultimate fallback. His masterpiece."

"And he destroyed it," the second Elira snarled, her form flickering with remembered rage.

"He stood before me, in that swirling darkness, and he tore his own second soul apart.

Fed its screaming essence, centuries of his life and effort, to that damned sword just to force it to obey him. Just to make it his for a little while."

Michael's breath caught in his throat.

the thought of such a thing so monstrous it was almost incomprehensible.

To destroy a part of yourself. Not just an arm or a leg, but a fundamental piece of your existence.

"He did… he did that for you?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

"He did," the first Elira confirmed.

"For three years, he stood vigil in that endless dark.

For three years, he wielded Silence, its alien power roaring in his human hands, and he slowly, painfully, chipped away at the curse.

Each strike was like an earthquake in my soul.

But it was too little, too late. The damage was done. My soul was collapsing."

The two spirits gestured in unison to the empty, soul-cultivating chair that sat between them, a gaping wound in the fabric of the room.

"I was fading. He used another of his priceless treasures, a Soul Fixation Pearl, a relic from a forgotten age, to catch the last three fragments of my spirit before I vanished completely.

He saved me from oblivion, but I was still just… pieces. A shattered echo in a bottle."

"But I was still dying," the second Elira cut in.

"A ghost in a jar. He needed something to house my fragments, something to nourish them.

And so, the idiot went on a quest.

For six hundred years, Orion Vael journeyed across the realms. He fought gods and monsters, delved into forgotten ruins that had not seen light since the dawn of creation, all searching for a cure."

Her voice softened, the anger giving way to a grudging awe.

"His power grew. His fame spread. He was no longer Trot Daemon, the human genius.

He ascended to the Heaven Realm itself and they gave him a new name, a title whispered in fear and respect across the planes: the Dreamless Heavenly Lord."

Michael's mind flashed back to the voice that had greeted him in this realm, so calm and immense.

A Lord of Heaven. And it had all been for her.

"The Soul Cultivation Tree…" he breathed, connecting the dots.

"Precisely," the first Elira affirmed, a faint, sad smile gracing her spectral lips.

"In the Heaven Realm, he found a sliver of it, a branch from the mythical tree that could nurture souls. It wasn't enough.

He risked his life, battling ancient, slumbering entities in the lower realms to gather more fragments.

He eventually collected just enough to build these three chairs."

She looked around the cenotaph, her gaze sweeping over the swirling, star-dusted energies of the Sanctum beyond.

"Before he left on his final quest, he built this place.

This prison. This sanctuary. He built it for me.

The Starfall Sanctum. The Grotto-Sprite you know as Elder Morn… that grumbling, ancient creature is the spirit of Orion's own life-bonded Virtual Sacred Tree.

Orion poured his own life force into it, warped its very nature and infused it with Devil Lo so I could exist here comfortably.

He stocked the Hall of Echoes with treasures and weapons he'd collected over the centuries, all for the successor he hoped would one day find this place and, perhaps, succeed where he had not."

The weight of it all finally crashed down on Michael. The glowing grass, the floating isles, the grumpy tree spirit, the tower of trials, the armory of sleeping weapons, it wasn't just a magical training ground.

It was a monument. A ten-thousand-year-old love letter written in sacrifice and sorrow.

He had been stomping around in a sanctuary built from a broken heart.

"His final quest?" Michael asked, the words feeling heavy on his tongue. "Where did he go?"

A deep, profound sadness emanated from both spirits, so potent it chilled the air.

"My body was gone," the first Elira whispered.

"My soul, a fragile echo clinging to these chairs. The only place in all the Six Realms rumored to hold the power to restore a physical form from a mere remnant of a soul… is a place of ghosts and forgotten things.

A place from which few ever return."

"The Sunset Kingdom," the second Elira finished.

"He left for the Ghost Realm nearly ten thousand years ago. He promised he would return."

She paused.

"I have not heard from him since."

The silence that fell in the cenotaph was absolute, deeper than any darkness.

It was a silence filled with the faint, tragic echo of a love story written in cosmic sacrifice, a story that had been waiting ten millennia for someone, anyone, to hear it.