No thunder cracked when Jonas returned.
The heavens parted silently, like breath held too long by the world itself.
And from that silence, a figure descended—wreathed in flame, ash, and ancestral light—his body branded not by magic, but by memory reborn. The Hollowbrand on his chest glowed like a second moon, no longer a curse but a command.
The boy Oshael once knew was gone.
And in his place stood the first heir of remembrance.
Beneath him, the war paused.
Elena, bloodied and breathless, froze at the Sanctum's edge. Her blade fell from her trembling hand.
Elric's arm hung broken at his side. Yet when he looked up and saw Jonas floating in the blinding column of silver fire, even his pain fled.
Elias gasped from where he knelt inside a fading ward. "By the roots of the Deep Moon... he returned."
But Jonas didn't speak.
Not yet.
He landed.
And the earth rippled outward in rings of moonlight that tore through stone and metal. Every mark, rune, and ancient crest across the city ignited at once—as if Oshael itself remembered who it once served.
Jonas stood at the heart of a broken kingdom.
Alive. Changed.
But far from safe.
The Whisperrot—still half-shifted, snarling, bleeding from their own ancestral madness—hesitated. They snarled in confusion. One by one, they began to lower their heads.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
They didn't see a rival.
They saw a mirror.
A wolf whose curse had bloomed into a crown of truth.
And then the sky tore open.
But this time, not from the Gate.
From beyond it.
The Hollow King emerged—now fully unmasked, no longer cloaked in mystery, but in memory made monstrous. His body was part wolf, part ruin, stitched with the regrets of kings and the lies of councils past.
And with him came the Hollowbound—wraith-wolves twisted by betrayal, each bearing sigils from lost dynasties.
But behind them…
Something else stirred.
A colossal shadow loomed at the horizon, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Elena took a step back. "What is that?"
Elias whispered, "It's the beast from the Black River legends. The one that swallows kingdoms. I thought it was just a myth."
Elric unsheathed his blades. "It's not a myth anymore."
Jonas raised his eyes. His voice was calm, yet layered with a thunder deeper than sound.
> "You came to finish what your kind started."
The Hollow King descended from his floating dais, eyes burning with sorrow rather than hate.
> "No. I came to remind the world that truth always comes with a price."
Jonas clenched his fists, and the Hollowbrand on his chest flared, forming a sigil that drew all the light in the sky downward. Runes etched into his arms pulsed, and from them poured silver fire—not hot, but cleansing.
He turned to the Whisperrot still trapped in battle rage.
"Your pain is real," he called. "But it is not all you are."
Dozens of their eyes flashed.
"Remember who you were before they named you monsters."
He knelt.
And the earth responded.
A deep howl rose from beneath Oshael—not from wolves, but from the bones of the land itself. Old kings. Hidden tribes. Banished truths. They awakened in the voice of one boy who refused to forget.
The Whisperrot began to shift—their monstrous forms dissolving, replaced by new ones: gleaming, regal, adorned in ancestral armor summoned from moon-imbued earth.
The First Pack was reborn.
Then the sky changed again.
New banners appeared along the distant mountains.
Golden.
Emerald.
Blood-red.
And from their camps marched soldiers, sorcerers, and wolves of other forgotten kingdoms—once allies of Oshael, now long hidden in exile.
Some came to stand with Jonas.
Others… had come to test him.
The Pact Shattered
Elias stumbled as a pulse hit the ground. "Something's rising. From beneath the old Gate."
And then came the Pactbeast.
It wasn't alive.
It wasn't dead.
It was an idea given flesh—a creature born from every promise broken to keep the Hollow Gate sealed. Covered in chains forged from elder bones, it crawled out of the stone like a mountain with a face, howling names that made even the Hollowbound tremble.
Jonas turned to his friends.
"Elric, protect the Sanctum. Elena, hold the western wall. Elias, get the wards around the Whisperrot reinforced."
"What about you?" Elena asked.
Jonas stepped toward the beast.
"I'm going to remind it who it serves."
The Hollow King attacked first—not with blades, but with remembrance.
He cast a memory so powerful it warped the sky: an illusion of Oshael falling, of Elena dead, of Jonas alone on a throne of ash.
Jonas staggered.
But then—he laughed.
"You think I fear what might be?" he said. "I walked through what already was."
He punched the ground.
The runes beneath the city flared alive.
From them rose the Wolf Priests of the Ancients, memories given form by Jonas's refusal to forget.
They took to the battlefield—old chants echoing, old laws roaring back to life.
Jonas leapt into the air, his fire surging behind him.
The Hollow King met him midair.
Their fists collided.
And the sky shattered.
Elena turned as a new army broke from the northern pass—led by a masked general mounted atop a white direwolf.
Elric cursed. "Who the hell are they?"
Elias's face went pale. "That's the banner of Ol'Nareen. One of the kingdoms that helped build the Gate."
Elena narrowed her eyes. "And now?"
"We'll soon find out," Jonas said, landing beside her, bleeding from the mouth, a gash across his cheek.
"But they're not our biggest problem."
He turned.
The Pactbeast had fully emerged now—its chains breaking. Its voice wasn't a growl.
It was a demand.
> "WHO DARES REMEMBER ME?"
Jonas's brand exploded with light.
He stepped forward, voice calm.
> "The one born from your silence."
And then the creature charged.
As everything collapsed into chaos, the moons began to align.
Not in beauty.
In warning.
An eclipse was coming.
One that hadn't happened in over 3,000 years.
And every kingdom that still breathed felt it—
A ripple in the blood.
A call to war.
And the voice that followed was clear.
"Let the kingdoms remember."