"Ha ha ha…"
A man laughed wickedly. He was driven by one thing—stealing the energy stones from the demon realm.
A triangle symbol was drawn using human blood. A ritual dagger was placed in the center. Right next to it was a human sacrifice, tied up and unmoving. Five people stood in a circle around it.
"Finally," one of them muttered.
"And the world will be ours," said the man leading the ritual.
The dagger they had taken from the ruins of a cursed temple looked like it was alive—pulsing faintly with energy.
The ritual began.
The leader tapped the dagger three times. The ground shook. The blood symbol on the floor lit up, and a glowing purple crack opened in the air—a dimensional portal.
Two of them pulled strange metal tubes from their backpacks and set them on the edge of the rift—a suction gate.
"Get the lock ready!" the leader shouted.
"The dagger only opens it once!"
The portal fully opened, and the air got heavier, like pressure was building.
On the other side of the portal was the energy stone vault.
No living creature guarded it. Just a protective spell, only breakable by drawing a triangle using human blood.
Massive stones floated inside the giant room, each one pulsing with a dark aura that felt suffocating. They looked like beating hearts in the shadows.
"Hurry! Before the demons notice!" one of them yelled, raising a tool to strike one of the large stones.
Someone swung.
A low thud echoed. The stone flickered—then exploded.
Panic broke out inside the vault. One stone set off another. And another. A chain reaction.
Screams. Burned bodies. Chaos.
The power from the stones being pulled into the portal was overwhelming—unstoppable. More stones followed, getting sucked through the rift and scattering uncontrollably.
—
In the human world, under a quiet midnight sky, the clouds suddenly shook. Purple lightning lit up above skyscrapers. Energy stones rained down randomly, disappearing into hidden corners of the world.
An ancient alarm began to ring.
The fortress surrounding the vault trembled. A dark, ancient being woke from its slumber.
Zareth opened his eyes.
In the endless dark, he knew instantly: humans had used the dagger. They'd entered the demon realm. And they were after one thing—the energy stones.
"Looks like a hundred of them… scattered into the human world," he muttered.
Purple smoke wrapped around his body, cloaked in black.
"They really think they can take those stones without paying the price?"
He formed a summoning symbol with his hand. A portal opened behind him.
"They will pay. In blood."
All of this would become a door.
Zareth's voice echoed through the dimensional void:
"I will find those stones. And I'll bring them back. Human blood will be the key to opening the portals."
Then darkness.
Two red eyes lit up from within the void.