The stadium slowly emptied. The murmur of the crowd gradually faded as people streamed toward the exits, but something still vibrated in the air that no one could put into words. Aurelion's appearance had shaken everyone — even those who didn't fully understand what they had seen.
Orion stood at the edge of the stands, watching the last spectators disappear into the labyrinth of exits. Beside him, Kael was silent, the shock still written on his face.
"Do you feel it?" Orion asked quietly.
"Feel what?"
"This… tension. Like the air itself is moving differently."
Kael didn't answer right away. Then he nodded.
"Yeah. Like something's begun."
Orion clenched his jaw. For weeks he had felt something approaching, but now, after Aurelion had revealed himself, every doubt had dissolved.
"The war of the Heirs has truly begun," he said quietly, more to himself than to Kael.
That was when they noticed Reizen was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Reizen?" Kael asked, looking around.
Orion shook his head.
"I don't know. He was here a moment ago."
But Reizen was already far away.
The ancient ruin lay hidden among the mountains, a place no one had set foot in for centuries. The stones were cracked, the walls covered in moss and forgetting — yet as Reizen stepped inside, he felt as though the place were alive.
He hadn't come for Aurelion.
He had come for something older.
He walked slowly down the corridor, his footsteps echoing dully in the darkness. When he reached the center of the chamber, he stopped and looked up at the cracked archways stretching into the heights.
"The time has come," he whispered.
The words had barely left his mouth when black energy began to flow from the depths of the ruin. At first it crept along the floor like faint smoke, then thickened, like a living thing waking from a long sleep.
Reizen drew Shadow Tempest from his pocket — the dark, metallic spinning top, its surface etched with fine grooves like some ancient script. The top suddenly began spinning on its own in his palm, faster and faster, until it seemed to hover, as if the laws of gravity no longer applied to it.
On the walls, a symbol slowly took shape — the same eight-pointed sigil that had been seen earlier at the stadium.
Then a deep, old voice spoke, as if the stone itself were speaking:
"You've finally returned…"
Reizen's lips curved into a smile.
"Not yet."
The voice fell silent for a moment, as if weighing its response.
"But soon."
"Yes," Reizen replied softly. "Soon."
He said nothing more. He closed his hand around the still-spinning Shadow Tempest and walked out with slow, confident steps, leaving behind the still-pulsing dark energy that now marked the place forever.
Meanwhile, Orion and Kael returned to the training gym. The silence between them was strangely heavy, but both knew that training would help distract their thoughts — at least for a while.
"All right, let's try again," Orion said, stepping back, his own launcher in hand.
Kael nodded and set Iron Blaze on the launch rail. Familiar warm light ran across the top's surface, as it always did before launching.
But something was different this time.
When Kael pulled the ripcord, Iron Blaze shot out with far more force than he expected. At the moment of impact, the energy suddenly surged — the top activated one of its special attacks on its own, before Kael could even give it direction.
"Whoa!" Kael shouted, stumbling backward, as Iron Blaze sparked and flew out of the training arena, landing well past the target.
Orion darted over immediately and caught the still-trembling top.
"Are you okay?"
Kael nodded, breathing hard, fear still glinting in his eyes.
"No… I didn't do that. I mean, I launched it, but I didn't mean to control it like that."
Orion studied Iron Blaze's surface carefully; it was still glowing faintly.
"Iron Blaze…" he said slowly. "Its power keeps growing. It's like it needs you less and less to make decisions."
"What does that mean?" Kael asked, his voice mixing fear with excitement.
Orion stood and looked into the distance.
"It means it's not just Aurelion and Reizen who've stirred. Everything connected to the Heirs… is awakening. Even our tops."
At the same moment, in different parts of the world, others felt the same wave.
Virex sat among the ruins of an abandoned temple, his own top lying motionless in the dust beside him. When the energy reached him, the top suddenly trembled on its own, as if waking up. Virex opened his eyes and slowly rose, his gaze fixed on the distant horizon.
"It's beginning," he said quietly, to no one.
Far away, in a rain-soaked city, Ren stopped in the middle of the street, feeling his own top grow hot in his pocket. He looked up into the clouds.
"Reizen… what did you do?"
Zerath stood on a mountain peak, where the wind cut through with biting cold. The top in his hand began to glow faintly. When the wave of energy reached him, he smiled faintly.
"Finally," he whispered. "Now I'll have something to do too."
Deep in the night, Reizen stood on a rocky plateau, the moonlight bathing the whole landscape in silver. Shadow Tempest rested in his palm, while black lightning crackled around him — not threateningly, but as if merely waiting for Reizen to give the command.
He slowly looked up at the sky, at the moon, which lit his face with an almost ghostly light.
"Aurelion…" he said quietly, and yet his voice filled the silence.
He paused for a moment, as if trying to find the exact words.
"You want to save the world."
The lightning crackled louder around him, as if responding to his words. Shadow Tempest then began spinning on its own in his palm, faster and faster, until its outline blurred almost entirely.
"And I'm going to recreate it."
His smile this time was not friendly. There was something dark in it, something old, something that had been waiting for this moment for a very long time.
The moonlight glinted off the spinning surface of Shadow Tempest as Reizen raised his palm high — as if issuing a challenge to fate itself.
The chapter ended there, but somewhere deep in the world, something kept echoing on: an old power that, now awakened, would never sleep again.