The first sound was not thunder.
It was breathing.
Slow, heavy, deliberate — like the exhale of a god waking after too many centuries. The air trembled as though remembering an ancient pulse. Above the mountains, the auroras twisted into veins of black light, pulsing in rhythm with the Chain of Aeterion's last echo. Every living thing felt it — insects fell silent, trees bowed, oceans clenched.
Sid's heart stuttered.
For one suspended moment, the beat inside his chest was no longer his own.
And then the world cracked.
He was pulled inward — not through space, but through memory.
The ground vanished beneath him, replaced by a sky that had no color, no direction. He fell through a landscape made of glass and shadow, reflections of every face he'd ever known sliding past him like rain. Alfred's laughter. Peter's bright grin. Lucien's calm eyes. And beneath them, something older, darker — eyes that burned without flame.
"You came back," said a voice, ancient and intimate all at once.
Sid landed hard, knees striking cold stone. When he looked up, he wasn't in the world anymore. He was standing inside something vast — a cathedral built from bone and black crystal, floating in the hollow between heartbeats. The air smelled of iron and rain, and every surface pulsed faintly, as if alive.
At the far end of that impossible hall stood Ravh'Zereth.
It did not have a face, not at first — only a vast form woven from smoke, flame, and memory. Its edges bled into the air, shape shifting between beast, man, and storm. When it finally spoke, the sound was a low vibration that pressed against Sid's skull, not words but meaning.
"I am you."
The words weren't accusation. They were fact.
Sid stumbled backward, his hand clutching his chest. "No. You're what's inside me. What I've been fighting."
"Fighting?" The demon's tone almost resembled amusement. "You call it fighting when a river resists its source?"
The hall changed around them. The black crystal reflected scenes — not from the demon's memory, but Sid's.
His childhood home, burning.
Drelith collapsing.
Elira's hand reaching for him, vanishing into flame.
Every failure, every guilt made real again.
"These are not my lies," Ravh'Zereth murmured. "They are your truths. You built them from pain, and called them cages."
Sid clenched his fists. "You think showing me that will make me surrender?"
"Surrender?" The demon tilted what might have been its head. "You misunderstand. I do not need to take you. I already am you. Every refusal you make cuts your world apart. Every breath you defy me costs lives you swore to protect."
Sid froze. "What do you mean?"
The cathedral quivered, and the glass walls turned transparent — revealing the world outside. He saw it like a god might: oceans trembling, villages splitting, mountains weeping black smoke. Wherever his will resisted, storms tore through creation, hollow winds howling across continents. For each heartbeat he spent refusing, something outside broke.
"You fight the inevitable," Ravh'Zereth said gently. "And the world bleeds for your pride."
Sid's voice cracked. "That's not inevitable. That's punishment."
"Words," said the demon. "Everything you call morality was born from fear. But I was here before fear. Before the gods cut me into silence. I was the pulse of creation — the hunger that made light move."
The floor fractured beneath Sid's boots. He staggered, sweat dripping down his temple. He could feel the truth behind those words — the daemon's power thrumming through his veins like wildfire trapped in flesh. And yet, beneath it all, a whisper of something human refused to vanish.
He remembered Peter laughing as they'd shared stolen bread in a burned-out inn. Alfred standing in front of him, sword shaking but eyes fierce. Nox's steady voice saying, "Decide it yourself before they decide for you."
Those memories were nails hammered into his sense of self. They held him together as the daemon's gravity tried to tear him apart.
"I am not you," Sid said hoarsely. "You're just what they feared. What I inherited. But I still get to choose what that means."
Ravh'Zereth's voice deepened, a growl that vibrated through reality.
"Then choose. Burn them, or let them burn you. There is no third path."
The glass cracked again — not just here, but across creation.
In the mortal world, thunderheads of black fire spread like infection. Rivers turned to ink, and sky fissures leaked light that had weight. People fell to their knees in cities far away, feeling their souls pulled toward a center they could not name.
And Sid — screaming — stood his ground.
The cathedral shattered.
The world inverted.
Light became sound. Sound became pain.
He fell again — through layers of himself, through memories too bright to look at. And then, silence.
When Sid opened his eyes, he was lying on scorched earth. The real world. Maybe.
The sky was no longer blue or red, but torn — a page half-burned, half-bleeding starlight. Rivers crawled like veins of tar through broken valleys. His breath came shallow and ragged, but still human.
Nox was kneeling beside him, shaking him by the shoulder. "Sid—! Talk to me!"
Sid turned his head weakly. "It's… awake."
Nox's eyes flicked upward. In the distance, a mountain moved. No — not a mountain. Something inside it.
Something that had been dreaming for too long.
Ravh'Zereth's roar tore through the clouds — not sound but gravity, folding the air, bending the light.
Sid pushed himself up, every bone screaming. "It's not done. It's just starting."
The ground split open, a fissure glowing with black light, and from its depth rose the first tendril of the demon's true form — vast, patient, alive.
Nox gave a serious nod, though they both knew it wouldn't matter.
"Then we start, too," he said.
Sid looked at him — and for the first time since this began, he didn't feel alone.
Above them, the sky convulsed. The gods stirred. The Chain's heartbeat echoed faintly through the ruined horizon.
Ravh'Zereth had begun to be born.