Chapter 36—Prophecy Reforged

The grove held its breath.

Ancient stones rose half-buried around them, moss clinging to their faces, as if the earth itself had tried to swallow them but failed. The air here felt thicker than in the forest beyond—dense, watchful. Even the shadows pooled strangely, as though something unseen sat at the edge of their circle, listening.

Shelen stood in the center, her hands folded loosely before her. She did not look winded, though Raiden knew she must have held that border against horrors alone for years. Her calmness was not weariness—it was conviction.

“You have questions,” she said softly. Her eyes swept the group, lingering on each face, but resting longest on Raiden. “You deserve answers. And you must hear the truth, for the world stirs again with old ruin.”

Liana crossed her arms, shoulders tense, though her voice carried no mockery this time. “Then speak. Because nothing we fought back there belongs in this age.”

Shelen inclined her head. “No. They do not. They belong to an age long buried.”

Her gaze turned toward the stones, as if seeing through them into some deeper past. When she spoke again, her words rolled like tide over sand—measured, inevitable.

“Once, Shanjinn was not ruled by men. It was alive with creatures whose souls were made of mana itself. Anima. They thrived in rivers, in mountains, in fire and storm and wood. They were the first children of this world, and they shaped it as they pleased. Kingdoms of beasts, fortresses of living stone, skies ruled by wings the size of cities.”

Randall muttered low. “Sounds like a nightmare.”

Shelen’s gaze flicked to him, serene but piercing. “To men, perhaps. To themselves, it was life. But fear breeds war. When men first built their cities, they saw Anima as monsters. And so began a conflict that spanned centuries. Steel and spell against claw and storm.”

Her voice darkened.

“It was in those wars that ten sovereigns of Anima rose—the Emperors, each embodying an element of the world itself. They bore names that still echo faintly: Icaros, fire. Triton, water. Gebb, earth. Vulcan, metal. Kirin, thunder. Skadi, ice. Thanatos, shadow. Kuzunoha, light. Sonyja, wood. And…”

Her tone caught, just slightly, as though the air itself weighed on the last word.

“…Aquila, wind.”

The name slipped from Raiden’s lips before he knew he’d spoken.
“Aquila.”

The others glanced at him in surprise. His own throat tightened. Why had it come so easily? Why did it feel like a name he had spoken countless times before?

Shelen’s eyes softened. “So. You remember more than you know.”

Raiden opened his mouth to protest, but no words came. A tremor ran through his hand where it gripped his sword.

Shelen turned back to the tale.

“Anima and men bled the world white. Their wars scoured plains, drowned valleys, burned forests to ash. And in that endless slaughter, something else was born. Not a beast. Not a god. Something nameless, fed by death itself. The Corruption.”

The word hung in the grove like a stain.

“It was not life, not spirit, not flesh. It was all of them and neither. It touched Anima, and they turned mad, feral, devouring. It touched men, and they rose again as husks with power beyond their kin. Neither steel nor storm could strike it true. For men are bound to the physical, Anima to the ethereal. The Corruption walked between.”

Ophelin’s face had gone pale, though she tried to mask it. She had felt its touch earlier, when shadow hissed up Randall’s arrow. She clenched her mace tighter.

Shelen’s eyes darkened.

“In the world’s blackest hour, six were summoned. Not of Shanjinn, but from beyond. Otherworlders. They were strangers, but they could bridge what men and Anima could not. They carried the pact: the physical realm would belong to men, the ethereal to Anima. And standing between, the chosen champions of both—mediators, bearers of both power and burden.”

She paused, and her voice softened.

“Four heroes of Shanjinn joined them. Together they were Ten. The Legendaire.”

Even Liana looked spellbound now, lips pressed tight as though afraid to break the spell.

“They cleansed the Corruption where it spread. They drove it back. But not all of it was destroyed. Some Anima fell too deep into the dark. They were bound instead—sealed, buried, their vessels chained where their powers weakened. One of these was Lodor, the Great Animus of the Mountain.”

At his name, the grove seemed to groan faintly, as though the trees themselves remembered.

“He could sculpt mountains, raise peaks with a breath. Even the Legendaire of Metal could not slay him. They bound him here, under this forest, where stone is brittle and roots run deep. The Academy was raised not as temple of learning, but as bulwark against his prison.”

The silence that followed was heavy as stone.

It was Randall who broke it, his voice low. “Then the quiet. The vanishing beasts. It’s him.”

Shelen nodded once.

“Lodor stirs. A shadow of what he was, yet enough to break the world if left unchallenged.”

Her gaze fell to Raiden again.

“There is a blade. A Regalium, forged by Aquila of Wind, its name long lost. A blade that severs not flesh, but the divine thread itself. It alone can cut the corruption from an Animus’ core. And it will answer only to one fated to bear it.”

Her words pressed like a tide against him. Raiden’s chest tightened. “You mean—”

“Yes,” Shelen said simply. “You. The storm-child. The prophecy was twisted by fear. Not Calamity-bringer. Herald of the Storm. Not to drown the world, but to shield it.”

Her words settled into the grove, into Raiden’s heart, heavy and unmovable.

For a moment, no one spoke. Then Tadari shifted uneasily. “If that’s true, then why not come with us? We’ll need you.”

Shelen’s smile was faint, sad. “My place is here. At the border. If I leave, the flood will pour unchecked. I can hold them—but not forever. You must strike at the heart while I hold the line.”

Her eyes met Raiden’s again. Steady. Certain.

“Your path is set. You will find the blade. And with it, either salvation… or the end of all things.”

The group left the grove in silence, her words echoing in every step.

Raiden walked last, his hand brushing unconsciously at the hilt of his sword. But in his mind, it was not his blade he felt—it was another. Curved. Slender. Single-edged. A name hovering just out of reach.

The syllables ached at the edge of memory, though he did not yet know them.

Not yet.