"They say the world ended once.
But if no one remembers… did it really happen?"
The stars were weeping.
Above the shattered world of Arkenhold, the sky stretched wide and broken, a wounded canvas torn open by unseen hands. Silver light poured through the cracks—not warm, but cold and ancient. It bled from the heavens like truth long buried.
The earth groaned beneath a man's boots.
He stood at the heart of what was once a divine citadel, surrounded by the ruins of gods and kings. Ash drifted in the air like snowfall, silent and suffocating. Around him, twisted remnants of celestial monuments jutted from the ground like shattered bones.
His cloak swayed in the breathless wind, torn and blackened from countless battles.
One eye glowed silver, ancient and knowing. The other—scarred, blinded by a wound deeper than flesh—remained shut, as though even light dared not touch it.
At his feet, a relic pulsed faintly. Black and silver. Forged from forgotten stone. It vibrated with a heartbeat that wasn't its own.
The man stared at it, unmoving. Watching. Remembering.
"You're not supposed to be here."
The voice was soft but firm, cutting through the ruin like a blade of still water.
He didn't look back.
"And yet… here I stand."
She stepped closer, her boots leaving shallow prints in the ash. Her armor shimmered faintly, dulled by fire and time. Her hair—once golden—was streaked with soot. Her face was tired.
"Do you even know what you're about to do?"
He knelt slowly, one hand brushing the relic's surface. Runes flared to life—twisting, bleeding, whispering. The ancient language of the Boundless Thread.
"I'm remembering."
She stopped a few paces behind him. Her hands curled into fists.
"They erased everything. Even you."
"I know."
"They buried your name, your legacy, your pain. You'll be forgotten again."
He smiled bitterly.
"Then I'll carve truth into the bones of the world."
The relic shuddered, reacting to his intent.
Above, the sky moaned—stretching wider, splitting further. A single eye, massive and formless, opened in the tear. It didn't blink. It didn't move.
It simply watched.
"You're calling the Veil," she whispered.
"I'm tearing it open."
"You'll destroy everything."
"No," he murmured. "I'll give it a second chance."
A silence settled between them. Heavy. Raw.
She stepped beside him, finally looking into his face. He hadn't aged. Not truly. Time had touched him, wounded him—but it couldn't hold him.
Her voice broke.
"You're doing this… for him?"
His silver eye dimmed.
"He's the last echo of what was lost. The only one still tethered."
"He won't remember you."
"I don't need him to."
She turned from him, blinking away the burn in her throat.
"Then why…?"
"Because he deserves the choice I never had."
Thunder cracked across the heavens. The relic surged. The ground trembled.
The sky cried out as hundreds of shapes slithered through the rift—wings of void, eyes of flame, mouths that sang in silence. Witnesses. Forgotten gods. Unmade truths.
They watched. And waited.
"You'll be hunted," she said.
"I've always been."
"They'll call you a traitor."
"I've been worse."
"You'll be alone."
He looked at her then. Not as a myth. Not as a symbol.
Just a man.
Tired. Resigned.
"I already am."
The relic burned in his hand, fusing to his skin. Light poured from his spine, tracing through his veins. His body became a vessel—runes etched across his chest, down his arms, into his throat.
The Veil screamed.
And through it, something whispered his name.
He looked up into the broken sky and spoke—not to her, not to the gods, but to something that hadn't yet awakened.
"Walk the Veil.
Remember who you are."
And then, he was gone.
The rift collapsed.
The world shattered.
And all memory of the man—his voice, his choice, his name—was erased.
Centuries Later
Rain pattered softly on a thatched roof.
In a quiet village, tucked deep in a valley untouched by war, a boy sat upright in bed, gasping for breath.
His body was cold.
His heart raced.
He looked down at his chest, half-expecting to see glowing runes carved into his skin.
But there was nothing.
Just the echo of a dream that didn't feel like a dream.
He whispered to the dark.
"What… was that?"
There had been a man.
A woman.
A war that never made it into any history book.
And something else—a name.
His own?
On his chest a mark pulsing faintly
His fingers brushed the mark. Smooth, warm, and pulsing faintly beneath the skin.
A glyph.
The moment he touched it, a voice echoed through his mind.
Remember.
He stumbled out of bed, dizzy.
Outside, thunder rumbled softly across the hills.
And far in the distance—beyond forests, beyond mountains—the sky shimmered for just a moment.
A crack of light.
A blink in the Veil.
Then nothing.
He looked to the sky.
And though he didn't know why,
tears rolled down his cheeks.
Somewhere far beneath the earth, a relic pulsed in rhythm with his heart.
In an ancient tomb forgotten by time, the runes lit up once more.
And the Boundless Thread—cut, buried, and denied—twitched like something waking from a long, cold sleep.
The world had forgotten.
But the Veilwalker had not.