The Echo of a False Hero

Ah.

This dream again.

The peaceful respite, watching his father forge away for hours. Seeing himself in the reflection of the window.

As a young boy, Elias had wild, golden-blonde hair that always seemed unruly, no matter how much his father ruffled it. His eyes were a striking green, vivid and restless, like sunlight filtering through dense forest leaves. They held a quiet intensity, the kind that made people pause.

He needed... to focus on his father...

He needed to remember the features of him.

Elias remembered his father as a towering figure, not just in stature but in presence. His sharp, gray eyes always seemed to see right through him, calculating, assessing, yet never unkind. He wasn't the type to laugh often, but when he did, it was low and brief, like he wasn't used to the sound. His dark hair had already begun to gray at the edges, and his face was always set in that same firm, unreadable expression. He rarely spoke more than needed, but when he did, his words carried weight, and Elias had hung onto them as a child, desperate to understand him. Yet, in the quiet moments, when the world seemed still, Elias could recall the steady warmth of a hand on his shoulder, a rare but firm gesture that told him, more than words ever could, that he wasn't alone.

Focus... focus...

Elias looked out of the window as the sky began to darken. The face of his father turned into horror as he ran out of the door and told Elias something.

Focus! Focus!

His father reached out his hand, before taking one final look at his son.

"Zhukov."

A green sword, that seemed blunt, descended from the heavens—its blade aglow with an unnatural green aura. His father caught it, the sword's edge forming with a flash of divine light as the runes carved along its length activated. A slash so simple, yet so destructive, cleaved the sky in two, cutting through the darkness that had begun to swallow the sun. Elias looked around, seeing the people scatter, their bodies moving in frenzied, terrified motion, but it felt like they weren't going anywhere, frozen in place as if trapped in a nightmare.

Elias tried to move, but his feet were heavy, as if the world had ceased to be real. He was witnessing something that shouldn't be witnessed. Something beyond human comprehension.

And then he saw it.

The sky—no, the very air itself—began to split open.

Something descended, a writhing mass that defied the laws of nature. It wasn't a creature. Not a beast, nor a god, nor anything he could comprehend. It was hunger incarnate, a being that devoured the very fabric of existence.

It swallowed the sky. Not darkened it—not consumed it in shadow—but devoured it. The stars flickered out as if snuffed by an invisible hand. What had been a blue sky was now a deep, empty void, and as Elias watched, his heart pounding in his chest, he realized: the creature didn't just consume the light—it devoured the very concept of light itself.

The being was unfixed. One moment, it seemed like a mass of twisting, fractal tendrils, each curling around in impossible ways, a shape that could never be fully seen. In the next, its form resolved into something that resembled a man, a grotesque, mockery of the human form. Its limbs stretched too far, bent in ways that shouldn't have been possible. It was as though the very act of seeing it was enough to tear apart the fabric of reason.

And then, at the center, there was something that could only be described as an eye—but even that word felt wrong. It was a presence, a gaze that looked deeper than anything human. It saw Elias, not his body or his mind—but him.

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The world began to collapse. Elias was paralyzed, unable to move, unable to scream. It was as if he had become a part of the scene—no longer an observer, but a witness to something he should never have seen. The creatures' gaze reached toward him, and in an instant, he felt something in him snap.

He was not meant to witness this. No one was.

In an instant, a force struck him, sending him flying backward, crashing through the trees. The wind didn't seem to touch him as he was thrust through the air. Instead, an invisible energy surrounded him, protecting him from the worst of the impact—but it was not enough. He felt his body torn and lacerated by the force. His mind was hazy, his thoughts spinning, struggling to hold onto anything as the world around him twisted.

What... what was that thing?

He tried to look up, but all he saw was that thing, consuming everything in its path.

And then—

Silence.

Suddenly, Elias snapped back to reality, gasping for air as he woke in his bed. His body trembled, the vivid dream still clinging to him like a heavy fog. He reached up to his face, feeling the blood streaming down from his nose and ears. His sigil flared with white light, its power surging through him. Slowly, the bleeding began to stop, but the weight of the vision remained, heavy and suffocating in his chest.

What... What is that? What is it?

He clutched his head, feeling the remnants of the vision gnawing at the edges of his mind. It was as though he had seen something he wasn't supposed to, something too vast, too terrible to understand. Was it a god? A monster?

No. It wasn't any of that.

Elias rose from the bed and walked to the window, his mind still spinning from what he had seen. The first rays of sunlight were beginning to break through the night sky, the dark hours fading away. But the memory of the creature that consumed the sky, the reality—lingered, threatening to tear through him once more.

"I know you're there."

The voice was low, almost a whisper, as if speaking to the shadows themselves. Elias didn't need to look to know that the veiled woman was watching. She had always been there, like a silent observer, appearing whenever he needed something, always just outside his vision. She was a constant presence in his life, though she was never truly present.

She stepped out from the shadows, her eyes flicking to the blood on the bed and then to Elias.

"Have you regained more of your memories?" she asked, her voice steady, though Elias could sense a hint of something—concern, perhaps?

"I'm close," Elias muttered, still trying to shake off the feeling of dread that clung to him. "But... I've hit a roadblock."

The veiled woman remained silent for a moment, before speaking again. "I felt an energy corresponding to the Void here." She looked at him, as if waiting for an answer.

Elias closed his eyes, letting out a long, controlled breath. "I need to figure this out. I need to understand what happened. And... I need to know why my father..."

He paused, the memories of his father flashing before him again.

"Why he left me... and why he fought that thing."

The veiled woman stared at him, her eyes hidden beneath her veil. Finally, she spoke.

"The sigil you bear—" she started, her tone more solemn now, "it protects you from the mental corruption of the Void, from its influence. But that sigil is a copy, a mere replica. It's not true. Even true heroes have fallen to the Void's corruption. We know of Theseus the Hollow King and Achilles the Shattered. They were heroes, and even they could not escape it."

Elias stood in silence, absorbing her words. The weight of them settled on him like a stone in his chest. He could feel the temptation, the corruption of the Void tugging at the edges of his thoughts, but he wouldn't give in.

"I will prove it to you," Elias said, his voice steady. "I will kill a Void creature and take its shard. And I will show you that I am strong enough to control it."

The veiled woman remained silent for a long while, before finally nodding.

"I will speak to Kaela," she said softly, before fading into the shadows, leaving Elias alone with his thoughts and the lingering terror of the thing that had devoured the sky.