The name echoed through his mind like a curse written in fire.

**Thalor.**

Not just a name—but a title.

A wound in history.

Leon stood at the edge of a circular stone platform nestled deep in the Whispering Forest, where the trees themselves hummed with ancient echoes. Mira walked beside him, silent but watchful.

The platform was covered in runes.

Faint. Weathered.

But one symbol pulsed faintly as Leon stepped closer—three lines intersecting a spiral of broken stars.

“That’s the mark,” Mira said.

Leon stared at it.

He didn’t need to ask.

He had seen it before—in his dream, carved above a sky temple that bled ash.

“The God-Killer’s Seal,” she confirmed. “It wasn’t a legend.”

Leon knelt beside it, pressing his hand against the stone.

Cold.

But not dead.

The moment his skin touched the center of the sigil, a surge of soul force rushed upward like a tidal wave—flooding his consciousness.

The forest vanished.

—

He stood in a throne room of shadows.

Pillars of obsidian lined the hall, and at its end sat a man cloaked in chains of light. His face was hidden, but his voice cut through Leon’s soul like glass.

“You were meant to sleep,” the figure hissed. “You were erased from the order.”

Leon said nothing.

“You carry fire not forged in any world. And yet you still burn.”

Leon stepped forward.

“Who are you?”

The chains rattled. “I am the Warden of the Forgotten Flame. You… are its Betrayer.”

Leon clenched his fists. “I don’t remember betraying anyone.”

“You will,” the Warden said. “And when you do… your flame will consume more than just your enemies.”

The vision shattered.

—

Leon collapsed to his knees, breathing hard.

The seal beneath him pulsed once.

Then went dark again.

Mira knelt beside him. “What did you see?”

“Not a memory,” he said. “A warning.”

He looked at his hands.

“They know I’ve awakened.”

“Who?” Mira asked.

Leon stood slowly.

“The ones who locked me away. The ones who erased my name. If Thalor was real, and I carried that name, then they didn’t just try to kill me.”

“They tried to erase your existence,” she finished.

Leon nodded.

“They failed.”

—

That night, they made camp in the ruins.

Mira prepared a tea brewed from spirit bark and silence moss—used to steady the soul after vision ruptures. Leon stared into the fire, silent.

“You’re different,” she said.

“I’m remembering.”

“That can be dangerous.”

Leon didn’t answer immediately.

Then: “I think I was more than just a cultivator in my past life. I think I was a key.”

“To what?” she asked.

“To something they sealed,” Leon replied. “Something even gods feared.”

He paused.

“Something still inside me.”

—

Later, long after Mira had dozed off beneath her cloak, Leon sat alone beneath the stars. The pendant around his neck no longer pulsed, but the ring from the ancestral chamber did.

Soft.

Like a heartbeat.

He touched it.

The world tilted.

And a voice spoke—not from within—but **through** him.

**“First seal... breached.”**

He gasped.

**“Two remain.”**

Then silence.

But something had changed.

Far off, in a world that bled light and fire, a pair of eyes snapped open.

Golden. Inhuman.

“The God-Killer breathes,” the figure whispered.

“Prepare the Inquisitors.”

—