Chapter 2656: Story 2657: The Door of the First Soul

Silence returned.

Then Kael opened his eyes.

But something had changed deep inside him.

He was standing inside a world without a sky. Black ground stretched beneath his boots. Lena, Elias, Azael, and the fifth child stood nearby.

Kael looked at his palm.

The Azrael mark had changed.

“What happened?” Lena whispered.

Azael stared into the darkness.

“We were pulled here.”

Elias turned toward the fifth child.

“You brought us here.”

The child shook his head.

“No. Something followed us.”

A deep sound moved through the darkness.

Boom.

Kael raised his sword.

“Everyone stay together.”

A shadow appeared in the distance.

Two enormous arms rose from the horizon. A head followed.

There was no face.

Only a single crimson eye.

Azael froze.

“I know that thing.”

“It was there when they divided us.”

The fifth child stepped forward.

“It was there before we were divided.”

The creature opened its mouth.

Every mind heard the same voice.

AZRAEL.

Kael’s sword shook.

YOU OPENED THE DOOR.

Kael stepped forward.

“I am not your door.”

The crimson eye widened.

YOU WERE BORN AS ONE.

Azael’s mark burned.

Lena cried out as a red symbol appeared across her palm. Elias dropped to one knee as golden light spread across the ground.

The fifth child touched his chest.

A second heartbeat answered.

Boom.

Boom.

Kael felt something moving inside his blood.

Not power.

Memory.

He saw five cradles.

Behind the fifth cradle stood a sixth figure.

Tall.

Faceless.

Then another memory appeared.

The King Before Kings was kneeling.

The shadow mother was screaming.

Azael was crying.

Lena and Elias were infants.

Kael was standing outside the chamber.

Older.

Watching.

Kael staggered backward.

“That wasn’t my birth.”

The fifth child looked at him.

“No.”

“It was your first memory.”

“You remember it?”

“I remember everything now.”

Azael stepped closer.

“What are we?”

“We are not heirs.”

The darkness behind them began opening.

“We are pieces.”

“Pieces of what?”

The fifth child whispered,

“The First Soul.”

The faceless creature moved closer.

Its crimson eye filled the horizon.

THIS TIME, I WILL NOT LET YOU DIVIDE.

The fifth child smiled.

“You are too late.”

He extended his hand.

“Our souls are already remembering each other.”

One by one, their marks connected.

Red.

Gold.

Black.

Silver.

And Azrael’s half-open eye.

The darkness screamed.

A massive crack tore across the world.

From inside it came a heartbeat greater than all the others.

Boom.

Kael stared into the opening.

Something was waking.

Something that had waited before the first kingdom, before the first king, before the first shadow.

Then a voice whispered from inside the crack.

“Brother.”

Kael froze.

It was not Azael.

It was not the fifth child.

It was another voice.

One they had never heard before.

The fifth child turned pale.

“That is the sixth piece.”

And the darkness smiled.