The world didn't feel the same anymore.
Jason stood at the edge of the battlefield where silence had returned, save for the rhythmic pulse of the Gate behind him. His wings—newly formed and burning with ethereal energy—had faded, but their echo lingered under his skin like phantom fire. The Hollowborn that once swarmed with blind violence had either retreated or watched him from afar, uncertain, curious, almost reverent.
Jason wasn't just a warrior anymore. He was a fulcrum.
Vaelra stood beside him, her form stabilizing, more human now than ethereal.
"We must move quickly," she said. "The other Seals are weakening. Bloodstorm Vale will be next."
Jason narrowed his eyes. "What's waiting for us there?"
"Something ancient," she answered. "Something even the Gate fears."
---
They traveled through the Vale of Whispering Ash, a stretch of land once covered in forests but now cursed with red wind and sky. With every step, Jason could feel his bond with the Gate deepening. The earth whispered to him. Time stuttered at his presence.
At their side were Elias, Nyra, and Kael. Though weary, each of them had changed since the awakening of the Gate. Elias now carried a broken fragment of the Watcher Staff, humming with memory. Nyra's spirit blades shimmered brighter with each mile. Kael, though still skeptical, had stopped mocking fate—he had seen too much to disbelieve.
The closer they came to the Bloodstorm Vale, the more the skies bled. The clouds overhead churned with red lightning, and rivers ran crimson—not with blood, but with memory: impressions of the past flickering in liquid form.
"It's alive," Nyra whispered, staring into the current.
Jason stepped beside her. In the river, a vision unfolded: the fall of a city, the slaughter of a thousand, a great Anchor's hand reaching to close the seal—but failing.
"Is that…?" Jason asked.
Vaelra nodded grimly. "The last time the Vale opened… it swallowed everything."
---
They reached the heart of the Vale at dusk.
The ground was cracked obsidian and glass. Towering above them stood a monolith of chained iron, known as the Pillar of Mourning—a Seal site constructed by the Anchors to suppress the Second Pulse of the Gate. Around its base, the Hollowborn stirred, trapped in a half-slumber.
"They're not attacking," Kael said.
"They remember," Elias muttered. "This place broke them."
Jason stepped forward. The glyphs on his body flared in response to the pillar. His veins burned with memory.
Suddenly, the Seal fractured.
The ground split open.
A vortex of crimson and black lightning erupted from beneath the pillar, and from within, a monstrous figure emerged—ten feet tall, clad in rusted Anchor armor fused with Hollowborn corruption. Its helmet bore the mark of the second Anchor: Theryn, the Guardian of Storms.
But this was no longer Theryn. It was a hybrid of memory and rage—a Remnant.
"Jason Elric Deynar!" it roared. "Bearer of all lines! Defiler of Seals!"
Jason summoned the new glyph-blades at his sides. "You were once an Anchor. You guarded this Gate. What happened to you?"
The Remnant's voice boomed like thunder. "Betrayal. Silence. Decay. I became what the Anchors refused to face."
They clashed.
---
The battle shook the Vale.
Jason darted between bursts of red lightning, wings flickering as he deflected a devastating blow with his runic blades. Elias and Nyra circled from the sides, weaving spells and blade-dances to weaken the Remnant's armor.
Vaelra stood still. Watching.
"Why aren't you helping?" Kael snapped.
"She mustn't interfere," Elias said. "The Forge binds her memories. If she acts now, she'll unravel."
Jason understood. This was his test.
As the Remnant raised a massive hammer forged from corrupted Gate essence, Jason leapt high, wings flaring wide. He wasn't trying to overpower it—he was trying to resonate with it.
He opened his mind. He let the glyphs on his body sync with the energy of the Remnant. And then—
He remembered.
---
Jason was not in the Vale anymore.
He was inside Theryn's memory.
He stood on a battlefield of the ancient world, before the Gate fractured. Theryn, alive and whole, stood beside other Anchors—Vaelra among them. The Anchors argued about the Hollowborn. Theryn had voted to destroy them.
"I will not risk the Gate's fall," Theryn had said then. "Even if it means destroying what remembers us."
Jason turned to the memory. "You weren't always a monster."
Theryn looked at him. "And yet I became one."
Jason's voice broke. "Then help me break the cycle."
The memory shattered.
---
Back in the real world, the Remnant hesitated. Its massive hammer trembled. Jason, breathing hard, dropped his blade.
"Fight me if you must," he said. "But your war ended long ago."
Silence.
Then, the Remnant let the hammer fall—not in violence, but surrender. It dropped to one knee.
Jason walked forward. "Let go."
With a final pulse of energy, the Remnant dissolved into light, scattering across the Vale. The Hollowborn cried out—not in rage, but in mourning.
The Seal was broken.
But not by force.
By understanding.
---
Later that night, they sat around a fire as the storm calmed overhead. The Gate's hum still echoed, but it was deeper now, more melodic.
Vaelra sat across from Jason. "You resonated with a Remnant. That's never happened before."
Jason looked into the fire. "I saw his pain. His doubt. He wasn't evil. Just... forgotten."
Elias nodded. "The Gate is testing you. Not as a warrior, but as a memory-bearer. A restorer."
Jason clenched his fist. "Then I'll restore it all. The lost Anchors. The Hollowborn. The Gate's truth."
"But first," Kael said, rising to his feet, "we survive the next Seal."
Vaelra looked to the horizon.
"The next Seal lies beyond the Shattered Coast. And it guards the truth about your father."
Jason's eyes widened.
"Then we leave at dawn."