Archmage Reborn: the path of shadows

The wheat swayed gently in the breeze, its golden heads catching the light like ripples on water. From a distance, it looked peaceful — almost beautiful.

But Kael knew better.

He sat under a dying oak tree on the far edge of the field, knees drawn up, watching the village go about its slow, exhausted routine. Men hunched beneath the morning sun, swinging dull scythes through brittle stalks. Women shuffled between rows, baskets slung across tired hips, their cloth linings threadbare and stained. Children darted between furrows, barefoot and coughing, chasing after rats like it was a game.

This was Emfalf — a place the Empire had forgotten, and the gods had long since abandoned.

To Kael, it was more than just poor.

It felt… wrong.

It wasn't the mud huts or the cracked roads that unsettled him. It wasn't even the hunger in every face. It was the silence. The kind of silence that crept into your bones. No birds. No crickets. Not even the soft hum of bees.

Even the wind sounded… hollow.

"This land used to hum with magic," Kael murmured to himself. "Now it barely breathes."

He reached down and pressed two fingers into the soil. His eyes slid closed. He wasn't casting a spell. He didn't have the strength for that. This was something quieter. Older. He was listening.

There — deep below the surface — a flicker.

Faint.

Sick.

Rotten.

The leyline beneath Elmsfall wasn't dead, but it was poisoned. Something had bled into it, slow and steady, staining the magic that once gave this place life.

"Something's festering down there," he muttered. "And the land's starting to notice."

Footsteps crunched behind him.

He didn't need to turn to know who it was.

"Boy," came the gravel-rough voice. "Your da's lookin' for you."

Kael opened his eyes.

Goran. The village watchman. What was left of him, anyway. One arm gone at the elbow. One eye milky and useless. His gait uneven from an old war wound no one asked about anymore.

The man sniffed and spat into the grass beside him. "Not playin' with the others? Bit strange, sittin' here talkin' to dirt."

Kael didn't look at him. "The dirt has more to say."

Goran narrowed his good eye. "Careful with that tongue, lad. Say too many strange things, and the priest'll call it a hex."

Hexed.

The word landed heavy, like a rock dropped in still water.

Kael stood, brushing soil from his pants.

"Better cursed than blind," he said, already walking away.

He left Goran standing in the wheat, mouth half-open.

The forest edge loomed ahead — a ragged line of ironwood trees, thick with shadow even in daylight. Kael's feet found the hidden trail easily. He'd walked it in dreams long before his body remembered.

Not far in, tucked beneath the twisted roots of an old tree, was a hollow in the earth — narrow, choked with vines, easy to miss unless you knew what you were looking for.

He ducked inside.

The air changed instantly. Damp. Heavy. The scent of rot curled around his nose. This wasn't a burrow. This was a cave— old, and not natural.

Kael raised one hand. Fire answered.

A tiny flame sparked into life above his palm. Dim, unstable. No formal casting, no incantation. Just will.

The core's too weak, he thought. But the muscle remembers.

He moved deeper.

The walls were streaked with black moss. The air got colder with every step. Strange markings curled across the stone — ancient, broken, barely visible. But Kael saw them.

Old script. Pre-Empyreal. Lost even before I fell…

So what the hell is it doing here?

Then he saw it.

At the heart of the cave stood a stone obelisk, jagged and crooked, slick with something dark and viscous. Faded symbols ran its length — some carved, some burned in. Whatever it had once been, it was wrong now.

The magic radiating from it was warped.

Twisted.

This wasn't a leyline spring. This was a plug. A tether.

Something beneath was chained here — and the obelisk wasn't draining the land.

It was infecting it.

Kael's chest tightened.

"This isn't wild magic," he whispered. "It's something summoned. Bound."

Then the cave shuddered — just slightly.

A cold breath slid across his skin.

Not wind.

Something else.

Kael's flame sputtered.

And then—

A voice. Not spoken. Not heard.

Felt.

You are not of this time…

Kael's jaw clenched. He straightened.

The flame flared in his hand, brighter now.

"No," he said aloud. "I'm what you feared in the last."

His eyes burned with quiet fury.

"And I'm not here to die twice."