Chapter 2654: Story 2655: The Fifth Awakening

The abyss swallowed everything.

Kael fell through darkness, unable to see Lena, Azael, Elias, or the mysterious fifth child. Fragments of the vanished city passed like burning stars.

Something suddenly caught his arm. Lena pulled him close, her silver eyes shining.

A golden light appeared below them. Elias glowed, golden veins spreading across his skin.

Azael descended beside him.

Then the fifth child appeared, standing in the air, waiting, with silent, terrible certainty.

Behind him, darkness twisted into enormous wings.

Kael stared.

“Who are you?”

The child looked at him sadly.

“I told you. I had a name.”

“Remember it.”

“I cannot.”

A voice echoed through the abyss.

“You were never meant to remember.”

The darkness behind the child moved, forming a gigantic, empty-eyed face with an impossibly wide mouth.

Seraphine shouted from far below, “Do not listen!”

Kael looked down. Seraphine was falling with Isabella and Mara.

“Kael!” she shouted. “That thing feeds on names!”

The fifth child suddenly screamed.

Black markings spread across his face.

Azael rushed forward.

“Get away from him!”

The child raised one hand.

A wall of darkness exploded outward.

Azael was thrown backward.

Kael caught him.

“What happened?”

Azael coughed. “It recognized me.”

“What does that mean?”

Azael looked toward the child.

“It remembers the first division.”

The fifth child turned toward him.

“You were divided from me.”

Azael froze.

“What?”

“You and I were not two.”

Silence followed.

“We were one.”

Kael’s heart stopped. “Something wanted one soul to become two weapons.”

Kael suddenly felt his ancient mark burning.

The symbol of Azrael appeared across his palm.

Azael’s blood symbol appeared beside it.

Then both symbols connected.

A third mark appeared.

It looked like a closed eye.

The fifth child whispered.

“That is the seal.”

Kael stared.

“What seal?”

“The seal that kept the first soul asleep.”

The abyss trembled.

Something enormous moved beneath them.

The face of darkness opened its mouth.

Inside was another world.

A crimson kingdom.

Thousands of black towers stood beneath a blood-red sky.

At the center stood a throne.

And someone was sitting upon it.

A terrible presence filled Kael.

The stranger stood.

He wore ancient armor.

His face was hidden beneath a crown of black bone.

His eyes were unmistakable.

They were silver.

Like Lena’s.

Like the fifth child’s.

He raised one hand.

Every tower in the crimson kingdom bowed.

Then he spoke.

“Children of the First Soul.”

Kael tightened his grip on his blade.

“Who are you?”

The stranger smiled.

“I am the one who remembers your beginning.”

The fifth child suddenly trembled.

“No.”

He looked directly at him.

“You should not have awakened.”

Black cracks spread across the abyss.

The stranger’s smile widened.

“Because now the First Soul can become whole again.”

Kael looked at Azael.

Azael looked back.

Neither brother spoke.

But both understood.

The darkness had not been hunting the fifth child.

It had been hunting all of them.

And somewhere beneath the crimson kingdom, a heartbeat answered their blood.