Chapter 12 - Ancient Awakening

The stone door shuddered open.

Cold, ancient air poured out, replaced by something new. It carried a metallic sting, like old blood. The creature stepped forward, and she felt the resonance in its chest—the echo of a bond, vibrating like a distant chime. A tuning fork. It woke her from stasis.

Who breaks the silence of this tomb?

Another creature lingered behind, a trembling hand pressed to the door.

The chamber remained unlit, but the walls began to shimmer faintly with veins of pale light—like starlight filtered through deep water. At the center, suspended like a puppet of shadow, she stirred. Her form was vague—not unlike theirs, but fluid, veiled in strands of darkness, like hair adrift in a timeless current.

She had folded herself into ever smaller dimensions, until even memory became a thread frayed beyond recognition. Her physical form barely persisted. Her mind, even less.

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The old magic pulsed once more.

She unfolded.

The whisper of her expansion stirred the stagnant air like the fragile beat of ancient insect wings.

I do not want this world. I seek the hearth of my memory.

I yearn for the warmth she gifted the stars.

Give me that… so I may reclaim myself.

Guardian. Mother. Nukara.

Home was not nostalgia. It was unfinished business.

Her kind—once a proud constellation, once unbound—had been shattered. Enslaved. Consumed by the Shadow with Teeth. The Devourer. The Chainweaver, some whispered. Others refused it even a name.

She fled not for the paltry comfort of survival—but to gather the embers of power.

The tear she ripped through worlds spat her into this cold, silent system—a void where no song echoed. The light… it extinguished.

She waited. And waited. But Kullo did not come.

Until now.

There was a presence here—a mana that sang in the tongue of the old world. That spark could rekindle the gate.

Back to finish what was started.

The thought of home was not a journey backward. It was a desperate leap forward.

Back to the lands where her people once walked beneath vibrant skies. Back to the place where her tormentor might still cast its shadow.

She didn’t know if any of her kin remained. But if the Devourer did…

She would show it that wounded prey bite back.