Story Title :- idle guy
Chapter 23: The Eyes That See Time
The world held its breath as the chained giant opened its eyes.
They weren’t eyes in the normal sense—no pupils, no irises, just swirling galaxies of blue fire and silver mist. Kael felt them pierce straight through his soul, as if peeling back layers of time itself. His grip on the Riftblade slackened.
Lira pulled him behind a fallen tower fragment just as the sleeper stirred fully. Massive chains snapped one by one, not from brute force but from resonance, as if the sleeper was singing a frequency that reality itself couldn’t withstand.
“It’s awakening too fast!” Lira yelled. “We triggered this!”
“No,” Kael said, standing again. “We were always part of this.”
Nyros had retreated to the spire, rallying his forces for what looked like an evacuation. That alone made Kael more afraid than anything else.
If the Black Banner was running, what in all the hells had they actually woken up?
Whispers of the Forgotten
The sleeper didn’t attack. It simply rose—partially—from its prison. The plaza crumbled under its presence. Magic bent in wild arcs, and Kael’s Riftblade shattered into blue dust, no longer able to maintain its form.
Then it spoke.
Not in words, but thoughts—images, memories, feelings. Visions of a time long before Thaleon existed. Before the Old Gods. Before humans.
Kael saw endless plains of crystal and shadow, titanic beings shaping planets as easily as children shaped clay. Among them, one stood apart—the sleeper, whose name was once Velthren.
It had disobeyed.
Not out of rebellion, but mercy.
It refused to burn the world.
So the others chained it inside the core of the first world, and over countless eons, cities rose and fell around it, never knowing it slept beneath.
Until now.
Nyros’s Last Bargain
Kael and Lira pursued Nyros through the collapsing city, ducking between combat drones and possessed warriors. Blood painted the walls. Spells ricocheted off crumbling archways.
They reached the spire summit where Nyros stood in front of a translocation gate—a shimmering vortex of crimson light.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Kael said.
Nyros turned. “I already have. What you see is a shell. My mind… is already inside the Nexus.”
“What did you awaken?” Lira demanded.
“A god,” Nyros said. “Or what remains of one. You think our world is the only layer? The Rift isn’t just a crack in reality—it’s a keyhole.”
Kael felt the Riftheart burn in his chest.
“You knew I’d come here.”
“Yes,” Nyros replied. “You carry the seed of the Rift—the last fragment of Velthren’s mercy. The only thing that can either bind him again… or free him completely.”
Kael’s hands tightened. “So why not kill me?”
“Because I need you to choose,” Nyros said, stepping into the gate. “The world deserves truth, Kael. Even if it burns.”
The gate closed.
The Dreamforge
With Nyros gone, the city crumbled in chaos. The sleeper didn’t attack but wandered through the ruins, as if looking for something long lost.
Kael and Lira regrouped underground, in what looked like a forgotten lab carved into ancient stone. It was there they found it:
The Dreamforge.
An engine older than language, suspended in gravity-defying rings and threads of golden starlight. Lira stared in awe.
“This was… used to shape entire realities.”
Kael approached the control panel, placing his hand on a pulsing sphere. His mind was immediately thrown into another realm—a realm of silence, where time folded in on itself.
There, he saw her.
His mother.
But not as he remembered her—not as the quiet woman who was killed when he was a child. This version wore armor etched with glyphs and bore a sword made of dreamlight.
“You’re not real,” Kael said.
She smiled sadly. “I am… and I’m not. I left this echo here, in case you ever found the Forge.”
Kael fell to his knees. “Why didn’t you tell me what I was?”
“Because you weren’t ready. The Riftheart inside you is a piece of Velthren’s soul. You were never meant to be a weapon. You were meant to be a witness.”
“To what?”
“The end.”
Fragments of the Future
Kael returned from the vision trembling.
Lira steadied him. “What did you see?”
“Everything,” Kael whispered. “The war that’s coming… isn’t between kingdoms. It’s between truth and fear.”
“Cryptic much?”
He shook his head. “Nyros wants to free Velthren fully—believes the old gods were the tyrants. But something’s not right. Velthren is… broken. If he rises, he might not choose mercy again.”
“So what do we do?”
Kael looked up at the Dreamforge.
“We reforge the past.”
End of Chapter 23
