The battlefield still smoldered. The taint of the Drekh’s dark sorcery clung to the charred earth like a sickness. Twisted bodies littered the hillside where the ambush had sprung from shadow and death. The screams had faded. The fighting had ended. But the silence that remained was worse.

Serenya knelt beside Torwyn, her hands pressed desperately to his chest, a soft violet light flickering from her palms. Her magic was nearly gone, siphoned through frantic spells and trembling resolve. Blood soaked the grass beneath him, and his eyes had dulled to half-lidded glass.

“S-Stay with me, Torwyn,” she whispered, her voice frayed, cracking. “Please. Just a little longer…”

But he was already slipping.

Nearby, Kaelen stood, rigid, staring into the ruined sky. His armor bore the cracks and soot of battle, the Aegis blade strapped across his back, its hilt streaked with ash. Smoke curled in the distance where Sylara’s body lay, lifeless, mouth open in the silence of her final words never spoken.

Kaelen’s knuckles tightened.

Then— light.

Not from the sun, but from something higher. Purified. Absolute.

In a pulse of radiance, Aurelios appeared—shimmering robes of woven starlight billowing in windless air, golden eyes fixed upon Kaelen with the calm certainty of a god who need not speak to be obeyed.

But he did speak.

“You have come far, Kaelen. Through fire, shadow, betrayal. You have passed many trials, but not all. Now… comes the final.”

Kaelen turned to face him fully, jaw clenched, eyes hollow from loss and fire.

Serenya looked up from Torwyn, her breath hitching at the sight of the being. She didn’t speak—not yet—but something deep within her soul twisted.

Aurelios stepped forward, voice resonating with divine finality. “To fulfill the Path of the Aegis, to wield its true potential… you must surrender your humanity. All emotion. All will. All doubt. And all you cherish.”

Kaelen froze. His hand reached back, slowly unsheathing the Aegis blade with a whisper of steel. He stared into its mirror-like sheen, the blade reflecting not just his face—but every burden, every failure, every fleeting moment of joy.

Serenya’s voice broke the silence. “No…”

He looked toward her.

She had fallen still beside Torwyn, whose chest barely rose. Her lips trembled as she stood, tears already glistening. “Kaelen… you don’t have to do this. We…We’ll find another way. We always do.”

His eyes met hers—and memories flooded in.

Their journey together through the lands.

The laughter shared at the Greenstone Hearth.

The night in the Aetherspire, tangled in each other’s arms where their love first started, now seemed galaxies away.

Serenya stepped forward. “You’re stronger than this. You’re more than the blade. More than his damn path!”

Kaelen’s gaze dropped to Torwyn, bleeding out beside Sylara’s cold form. Vorgar’s face came unbidden—a grin, a joke, then blood and silence. Elira’s betrayal, the moment he saw her on the obsidian cliffs beside Xal’Zyron, not bound by chains—but smiling.

He hadn’t been enough. Not then. Not now.

Serenya could see it. The choice settling in his eyes like stone.

“No. Please…” Her voice cracked to a whisper. “Don’t leave me like this.”

She ran to him, crossing the bloodied ground. “Kaelen!”

Her hands gripped his arm as she fell to her knees before him. “I love you! I love you. You’re all I have left. Please, don’t—don’t do this. Don’t become something I can’t reach.”

He looked down at her. Her tears. Her hands. Her heart breaking in real time.

Then—he turned his eyes to Aurelios.

A silent nod.

The world ignited in a corona of light, blinding and absolute.

When it faded… he remained.

Still Kaelen. The same face. The same stance. But… different.

The very air seemed to bend around him, as if sensing the shift. The Aegis blade pulsed softly in his hand, now almost a part of him. The light no longer reflected him—it was him.

Serenya stared.

“Kaelen… is that still you?”

He glanced at her only once.

His eyes, once warm and uncertain, were now cold. Void of turmoil. Void of love.

He sheathed the blade with unshakable grace. Not a man anymore, not fully. Something higher. Something colder. Something complete.

He turned and walked past her—past Torwyn, past Sylara’s remains, past everything he once fought for.

Serenya collapsed, tears pouring down her cheeks. The weight of it—the solitude, the finality—crushed the breath from her.

She was alone now.

Surrounded by the dead.

And Kaelen, once her anchor, her love… was something else entirely.

And as the wind picked up, whispering across the battlefield, it carried with it the tremble of a world forever changed. A new power had risen.

And it bore Kaelen’s name.