The ruin was silent. Not the silence of emptiness. Not the silence of waiting.

  But the silence of something buried.

  Something that should not be remembered.

  Darius felt it in his bones. This pce was not real. And yet, it stood before them—its pilrs cracked with age, its walls covered in carvings too faded to read. Ais ran her fingers along the stone. The coldness of it made her shiver. "This temple," she murmured, "it wasn't here before." Darius exhaled sharply. "No." He knew what had been here before.

  Solmaria.

  The capital. The empire. The shining beacon of Celestara. Now, rewritten into a forgotten ruin. He turned to the Guardian. "What's inside?" The hooded figure stood still, unmoving. Then, finally— "A fragment of what should not remain."

  Ais's breath hitched.

  Darius felt his heart tighten.

  Something had survived the erasure. And now, they had come to find it.

  The Guardian led them through the temple's shattered entrance.

  The air inside was stale, heavy, thick with the weight of something ancient.

  Darius' boots echoed against the stone as they moved deeper into the darkness. Faded murals stretched across the walls—scenes of battles, of gods, of cities that no longer existed. Darius recognized them. Solmaria's war banners. The High Pantheon's symbols. A history that had been erased. But the most unsettling part was the damage.

  The murals weren't crumbling from time.

  They had been intentionally defaced.

  As if someone—or something—had erased them before the Thanatarchy ever arrived.

  Ais narrowed her eyes. "Someone tried to destroy these long before the world was rewritten."

  Darius nodded. But why? And who?

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  They reached the inner chamber.

  The Guardian stopped.

  Before them stood a massive, circur doorway—sealed with intricate carvings of names. Hundreds. Thousands. Some in nguages Darius did not recognize. Some not in any nguage at all. And at the center, one name had been partially erased.

  Alden.

  Darius' breath stilled. The whispers had led him here. Alden had been erased from existence. And yet—his name remained here. Somehow, this temple had preserved it. Ais stepped forward, voice low. "What does this mean?" The Guardian did not move.

  Then, in a quiet, knowing voice, it answered:

  "This pce remembers what the world does not."

  Darius exhaled slowly.

  Then this was why the Thanatarchy had failed.

  Somewhere within this temple—a memory remained.

  A memory strong enough that even the erasure could not fully remove it.

  And that meant—Darius had a chance to fight back.

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  Ais pressed her palm against the door.

  Immediately, the carvings shuddered.

  A deep, grinding sound rumbled through the temple—stone shifting, resisting, pushing against the rewritten world. The Guardian's voice was steady. "What you seek is inside." Darius lifted his sword. "Then let's end this mystery." The Guardian's eyes darkened.

  "No," it whispered.

  "This is only the beginning."

  The door groaned open. And what y beyond was not what any of them expected.