Arc II: Veins of Mourndusk
> The pulse of a soul doesn't fade—it fractures, bends, reshapes the void it once filled.
[Flashback — The Color Change]
Before the Hollow Shrine. Before the breathless walk through stone tunnels.
There was that moment—
A world wrapped in static, suspended mid-collapse.
Vrakon stood alone in the shrine's remains, the dead night wind whispering ash around his boots. The air stank of scorched bone and something deeper—like a memory trying to surface.
In that moment, it happened.
His Pulse Core flared without warning.
The green-blue hue that had first awakened in him—flickering like young fire—shuddered, cracked, and bled into black.
Not dull or dead black.
Living obsidian.
It spiraled outward from his chest, tendrils of molten silver weaving through the dark as if the stars themselves had been dragged into his soul. Symbols etched in light flickered behind his eyes. Not written in language—etched in instinct.
Then silence.
His body dropped to a knee, not from pain—but from overwhelming presence.
A voice like thunder across a shattered sky whispered within:
"This is not your first form."
—Then the vision broke.
---
[Present — Continuation from Chapter 20]
"—You shouldn't have done that," Vrakon muttered under his breath, voice still hoarse.
Yarri turned, stepping closer. "You alright? You… looked like your bones were trying to scream."
"I'm fine."
Nemea folded her arms, glaring at Asha. "You didn't warn us sealing him would look like a storm going off in a corpse forge."
Asha didn't answer immediately. Her hand hovered near her satchel.The same shimmer… from the shrine at Redhollow. The one buried in collapse, sealed for two decades. But this was no time for truth.
Instead, she clicked a glass shard from her belt and tossed it at Vrakon.
He caught it.
> A small, sharp-edged crystal — not glowing, but faintly pulsing.
Pulse-Tether Crystal.
> "I'm trusting you enough to reconnect with Nemea and Yarri," Asha said flatly. "But I'm also anchoring you to people who might stop you if your Pulse spirals."
Vrakon gritted his jaw, examining the shard. Its dull shimmer reflected the silver in his veins.
---
[Brief Prelude: Why the Hollow Shrine?]
Later, beneath the red twilight of Varkai's rotting sky, the trio walked behind Asha toward the crag-lined hills east of Solvhar.
Yarri glanced back. "So. Hollow Shrine. What are we expecting?"
Asha answered without turning. "Corrupted Pulse-Eater remains. Dead rituals. Maybe memory scars."
"And you know this how, exactly?" Nemea challenged.
Asha's tone was level. "Because I was part of the Bonefall mission. Seven years ago. We mapped a nearby Nest and found the shrine half-buried. It wasn't active then. It is now."
Vrakon's gaze narrowed. "And you waited until now to say that?"
"It wasn't relevant," Asha said simply. "Not until your Core changed colors and started bleeding echoes."
She glanced at the jagged ridge ahead.
"Hollow Shrine is one of the last places left in this region that predates the Shatter. Something in it sings to broken Pulse lines. Including yours."
---
[Scene: Arriving at the Hollow Shrine]
They climbed down through a torn chasm wrapped in pale fog and dead roots. The shrine rose from the wound like an exposed ribcage, shattered bones of stone and sigil-streaked spires jutting at odd angles.
The entrance was a blackened arch, pulsing faintly — as if something within recognized Vrakon's arrival.
The ground itself hummed when he stepped forward.
Silver and black light flared across his Core beneath his shirt, uncalled but uncontained.
Yarri tensed. "There it is again…"
Asha placed a hand on her weapon, but didn't draw.
"No aggression," she said quietly. "It's responding."
Inside, walls once carved with sacred prayers were now burned and cracked. Charred sigils glowed dimly, and in places, the air shimmered as if fractured memories still hovered.
Asha kneeled near a broken altar.
"This place was once used by early Fracta-Wielders who tried to harness Pulse echoes from fallen beasts. That crystal you carry? It was built for shrines like this."
Vrakon stared at the fractured walls.
A sharp image surged through his mind—
Children kneeling before the altar, whispering names. Then the altar dripping with ichor, and screams buried beneath silence.
He stumbled.
Asha caught his shoulder.
"This place will test your soul," she warned. "Not your strength."
The wind howled through the Hollow Shrine. Not just wind. Whispers.
Vrakon walked deeper into the dark.
And behind him, the silver spiral across his back began to glow again.