A Song in the Depths of Darkness:

In the morning’s gloom, where voices sleep,
A cry of loss echoes through eternal time.
Like lightning flashes — memories of betrayal,
And the love that vanished burns behind.

His eyes are like night — starless, cold,
Yet in his heart still glows the shadow of a spring.
The one who held all truth and kept silent to the end —
The one who created and broke — without a face…

The depths of the Nexus trembled. The air thickened, as if filled with the dust of time. Tarion stood rooted in place, his eyes fixed on the projection of Kael’Teron, still smoldering in red-blue light above the altar. But something had changed. This time there was no threat, no challenge — only silence. From the darkness, light began to seep out, and with it — images.

Suddenly, everything around the heroes shifts.

The walls of the Nexus dissolve, and now they stand in a twisted space: the sky torn like burned paper, the ground beneath their feet pulsing with ancient magic. Before them — a tower rises, wrapped in spirals of light and shadow. Once, it had been the center.

“This…” Laina whispered. “This isn’t an illusion. It’s a memory.”

The darkness did not let them in immediately. It coiled around them, dense and sticky, like smoke after a temple’s ruin. But then space opened — and the vision swallowed them whole.

…A stone hall, curved in a half-circle, resembling the ancient Council of the Guardians. Only six figures stood near a hemispherical altar, beneath an arch where once the stars of Resonance were lit. Among them — Kael’Teron, younger, unscarred, not yet broken in spirit. And yet — already changed.

Kael’Teron:
“You all feel the fractures. You know the balance is breaking. And still, you remain silent — as if time will heal itself. But it doesn’t. It only rots.”

Oren Beyden:
“You sow fear again, Kael. The world isn’t perfect, but the magic is alive. It cannot be broken just because you fear pain.”

Kael turned to him. Even then, his gaze shone with fractures of the soul — too deep for hope to mend.

Kael’Teron:
“The pain is not mine. It’s around us. In every life we failed to protect. You saw the burned villages. You saw the children consumed by disrupted essence. And then you chose silence.”

Another Guardian:
“You want to erase emotion? That goes against the very nature of magic!”

Kael’Teron (sharply):
“Nature? Our magic has become poison. It distorts minds, breeds hatred. It can no longer be entrusted to people. It must be stopped.”

From the side, like a shadow, stepped a tall woman. Her hair reached her waist, and silver bracelets shimmered faintly on her wrists. This was Meivaria — one of the spirit-guardians of Resonance. But not like the others.

Meivaria:
“And you found a way. Resonance is not only connection. It’s… a door. It can be turned into a nexus of control. Balance need not be chaos. It must be a choice.”

Oren Beyden:
“You agree with him, Meivaria? You, who guarded the fire of dawn?”

Meivaria (quietly):
“My duty is to protect the future. Not die for the past.”

Silence. The world itself trembled, as though the air could no longer contain the contradiction.

Kael’Teron:
“You blame me, but you already made your choice when you turned away. I only… went further. I will create what halts the end. Even if the cost is my life.”

He pulled something from his chest — a crystal, dense with mana, pulsing like a heart. Resonance — not yet a form, but an idea. His creation.

Kael’Teron:
“This is not magic. This is a tool of purification. You don’t understand it because you fear losing yourselves. But I have already lost everything. And I won’t lose others again.”

Then came the first rupture. The ground shook, and something bright in the center of the hall cracked — as if the very essence of trust shattered.

The Guardians cried out, Meivaria vanished into mist, and Kael flared with light that seared the eyes.

Oren Beyden (shouting):
“You’ll doom everything we’ve built!”

Kael’Teron (whispering):
“You doomed it… with your fear.”

Tarion gasped, surfacing from the vision. His hands trembled. He knelt, and beside him Laina — silent, pale. Her eyes brimmed with tears and fury. Even Gret stood frozen.

Gret (in a whisper):
“He… he created Resonance?..”

The young mage felt his whole being turn upside down. Light and shadow, truth and deception — all blurred.

Laina (barely audible):
“But if he created it… then he could control it… from the very beginning…”

…Silence lingered, like the echo after a bell’s toll. Then — Lian’s voice broke it.

Lian (sighing, uneasy):
“This… this can’t be. If he created Resonance… then… our entire path, everything we believed in… was part of his plan?”

His voice trembled. He stood slightly apart, but looked directly at Oren’s son — with the gaze of someone who already knows the answer, but pretends to ask like everyone else.

Gret (bursting):
“Then why did you stay silent?!”

Lian (quickly, almost painfully):
“Because I couldn’t believe it myself! What we saw — it can’t be true… It can’t…”

The girl looked at him silently, but doubt had already crept into her gaze. He had reacted too smoothly, too perfectly — as if rehearsed.

Only Tarion seemed not to notice. His thoughts still spun with his father’s memories, with the betrayed spirits’ words, with the betrayal of Resonance itself.

They had no time to reflect — the walls of the Nexus began to unravel again.

The scene shifts.

The tower is destroyed. The dead Guardians lie among the rubble, and Kael’Teron stands alone. His face is changed: emotionless, filled only with boundless knowledge — and deep exhaustion.

And at that moment… Lian appears in the foreground of the vision.

Not young. Not different. In his familiar robes. He holds a scroll, offering it to the creator of Resonance.

Follower:
“You know what must be done. This path… will complete the cycle.”

And it all fades.

Silence. The air in the Nexus turns cold, filled only with the pounding of hearts. The main hero slowly turns to Lian, but he is already composed — calm, as always.

Tarion (his voice dull):
“What was that? You were there. Why?”

The member of the Order of Stillness doesn’t answer immediately. His gaze — stern, but not hostile.

Lian:
“It was only a vision. A piece of the past. I… I can’t explain.”

Laina:
“You’re hiding something.”

Lian (pauses):
“And if I am… it’s because this is your path, not mine. I am only guiding you to where you must go.”

His voice is calm. Too calm. And the shaman senses it — what they’ve been through was no coincidence.

They are being led. Someone is choosing the pain points, the breaking points. And that someone… knows what they’re doing.

At the far end of the chamber, as the visions fade, new doors open. Deeper. Darker.

At the threshold lies a fragment of an amulet — one resembling the one Tarion’s father once wore.

Young Beyden (thinking as he lifts it):
“Is this… his?”

And at that moment, all doors behind them vanish. Only one remains — forward.