AK : RISING MYTHIC

The day was calm, but the wind had teeth.

Arslan walked in silence along the stone path that curved toward the Mythic Base, his long black cloak trailing behind him, stirred only slightly by the breeze. The sun was dull behind clouds. Every step he took seemed muffled, like the world itself was holding its breath.

Just beyond the cliff edge to his left, a deep drop opened into endless mist—where lightning sometimes cracked the clouds, revealing glimpses of something immense and ancient: the Bound Threshold.

It stood not as a gate of iron or wood, but a gaping tear in the veil of reality. Black stone arcs rose unnaturally high, wrapped in runes and silence. No soldiers guarded it. No light touched it. It was the wound of the world.

Arslan had passed this way many times since becoming Mythic-ranked, but today…

Something was different.

He stopped.

It was faint—so faint he might have dismissed it as the wind.

But the sound came again.

Not wind. Not birds. Not earth.

A whisper.

> "I can answer your questions… my beloved."

Arslan's breath caught.

He spun, scanning the mist around him.

Nothing.

Yet the words had not come from behind. They had come from ahead—from the Threshold.

His heartbeat quickened.

> "If you want to know me… come here," the voice said, clearer now. Deep, smooth, and strangely intimate.

> "You've felt me before. In your dream. I invited you. And you… accepted."

Arslan took an involuntary step back.

> My dream…

The one he had buried. The one he had never told anyone about.

A place of endless mirrors. A figure half in shadow. Flames dancing without heat. Chains that fell from the sky like rain. A voice promising answers. A voice that felt like it belonged to a part of himself he had never met.

He had woken with his chest tight, breath stolen, and an ache in his bones as if something ancient had touched him.

Now, here… the voice was real.

> "I have all the answers you wish to ask," it said again, slow, gentle. "About the book. The Vault. The Prototype. Even about yourself."

Arslan's hands curled into fists at his sides.

His voice was low but firm.

"Who are you?" he said aloud, standing at the edge of the path, just within sight of the Threshold's shifting mist.

The voice didn't answer directly.

> "Once you enter… you'll find me."

> "Come in. No one will see you. No one will stop you. They never notice until it's too late."

A wind stirred from the Threshold's direction, curling around Arslan's boots like fingers.

He stared at the black arch of the gate. Even from this distance, the air around it seemed thinner, as though it drank sound and breath.

> Why now? he thought. Why me?

And then he remembered the meeting.

His question—the one no one wanted to hear.

> Why place the stones on the Vault, and not seal the Threshold where Kar'Thæl hides?

They had laughed. Called it foolish.

Only Julious and King Farhan had remained silent.

But now…

Now, this voice… was offering him answers.

The wind grew colder.

> "You've always known the others lie," the whisper said. "Not with words, but with silence. They don't want to ask what they fear to understand."

Arslan's breath fogged as he stepped slowly toward the outer edge of the path—where the stone bent toward a bridge leading to the Threshold Gate.

Just then, a sharp crack of thunder rolled above him. A storm gathering?

Or something else?

He blinked—his reflection flickering in a pool of still water beside the road.

In the reflection, he saw something impossible.

His eyes weren't their usual dark brown.

They were burning red.

He stepped back from the water, heart racing.

Then the whisper returned, warmer, softer, almost kind:

> "You are not mine yet. But you will be. You carry the ache I planted long ago."

> "The silence in you… it belongs to me."

Arslan's breath was uneven. The dark energy that occasionally flickered around him—it flared now, not with rage, but with confusion. Recognition.

He took another slow step toward the Gate.

"Are you Kar'Thæl?" he asked.

There was no answer—only the faint sound of chains tightening behind the veil.

And then the voice, once more:

> "Come in, Arslan. I do not hide from you. I wait."

> "I have always waited."

He stopped at the edge of the bridge.

Beyond it, the Gate. The whispering fog. The unknown.

His instincts screamed to turn back.

But his curiosity, the pain in his soul, and the silent questions no one had answered—they pulled him forward.

> "Just a step," the voice tempted. "One step closer… and the truth begins."

And then—

Footsteps.

Real ones.

A figure approached from behind. A familiar voice called out: "Arslan!"

He turned sharply. It was Yuna, another Mythic-ranked Knight.

She looked at him curiously. "You alright? You're standing too close to the Threshold …"

Arslan's heartbeat steadied. The mist quieted. The whisper faded.

ARSLAN said softly "Yes, I am... I was just washing face from water .... "

But he felt it, still—burning faintly in his chest.

That voice.

That promise.

That name he wasn't yet ready to say.