When the dust settles, I stand at the heart of ruin.
Smoke boils up from my skin.
The air itself bends around me—heavy, trembling—as if the world fears what it has just birthed.
My breath seeps out in a dark mist, thick and cold.
Every inhale tastes of ash and iron.
Every heartbeat thrums like thunder beneath my ribs.
And then I feel it.
Power.
Raw. Infinite. Addictive.
It coils through my veins like molten lightning, thrumming in rhythm with the pulse of the void.
I sense every living thing within reach—the trembling roots beneath the earth, the faint flutter of hearts miles away, the slow decay of the dying.
All of it… answering to me.
The pain is gone.
The weakness—gone.
Only silence.
And in that silence, something whispers.
"More."
The fortress lies silent—its heart devoured.
And Kael Thorne stands reborn, shrouded in shadows that whisper with the voices of the dead.
The world shifts now.
Not alive. Not dead.
Something in between.
The ruins of the chamber lie around me—still smoldering, still bleeding faint trails of black smoke that dance toward the broken ceiling.
Every flicker of that smoke feels connected to me.
Every grain of dust trembles when I breathe.
I raise my hand.
The darkness obeys instantly—spiraling around my wrist, weaving like liquid silk.
Each motion sends a ripple of warmth through my chest.
It's intoxicating.
The ground hums beneath my feet, as if the world itself holds its breath.
And with each heartbeat, I grow stronger.
Noctharion's voice murmurs faintly in the back of my mind:
"Do you feel it, Kael? The truth of power is not in having it… but in surrendering to it."
I exhale, and the shadows twist outward, rippling across the stone floor like a tide.
The sheer ease of it—how natural it feels—terrifies me.
Yet I cannot stop.
Every breath fills me with more.
More strength.
More hunger.
More clarity.
The fear, the guilt, the grief—they all blur into something else.
Something that feels like freedom.
I close my eyes.
The darkness inside me pulses once—like a second heartbeat.
Then I sense it.
Far away.
Beyond the shattered gate.
A surge of energy—wild, ancient, alive.
Dozens of mana signatures.
Monsters.
Each one glowing faintly in the void—beating hearts ready for the taking.
A low chuckle escapes my lips before I realize it.
The sound does not feel human.
"I can feel them…" I whisper.
"So much life…"
The darkness stirs at my feet, impatient.
Eager.
They sense my desire—my hunger—like wolves scenting blood.
My eyes snap open.
Crimson light floods my vision.
The chamber is silent now.
The screams are gone.
The chaos, the clashing of blades, the roars of monsters—
all are swallowed by the black.
Only one person remains.
Mia.
Her lifeless body lies where the shadows spare her, half-embraced by the void.
I stare at her face.
Pale. Still. Empty.
I wait for something—pain, guilt, anger.
But there's… nothing.
No tears come.
No heartbeat stirs.
It's as if something inside me dies with her, and the rest just forgets to fall.
I force a step back.
The darkness recoils slightly, like a living thing waiting for command.
I pivot and walk out.
The fortress gate lies ahead—half-collapsed, glowing faintly with the embers of destruction.
Beyond it, the forest breathes.
The ground cracks beneath me.
My blood thrums.
The darkness inside me stirs, whispering in unison—hundreds of voices.
Each heartbeat now feels like lightning.
Each breath like fire.
And beneath it all, that single thought repeats:
More.
I walk into the storm of shadows outside, the taste of blood still on my tongue.
The forest shudders in response.
Every heartbeat calls to me.
Every scream will feed me.
Every monster is mine.
And as I step beyond the ruins, into the endless dark—
the world itself seems to kneel.
The air outside still trembles with life and death.
Screams.
Steel.
The sound of monsters tearing through flesh.
The fortress grounds are chaos embodied.
Human soldiers clash with beasts spilling from the treeline—fangs, claws, glowing eyes.
The stench of blood chokes the air, thick enough to taste.
It hits me like wine.
Hot.
Sweet.
Addictive.
The blood. The screams. The heat of battle.
It all blends into one intoxicating rhythm, like the pulse of a great heart calling to mine.
I can feel it—every drop of blood spilled, every flicker of dying mana.
It burns inside me.
It wants out.
The darkness stirs around my feet, rippling through the ground like liquid shadow.
The air bends; the world goes still.
Even the monsters hesitate, their claws sinking into the soil as they glance toward me.
They don't see me.
They sense me.
And they're afraid.
To them, this place doesn't exist anymore.
It's erased—cut out of the world.
Because I stand at its center.
Because something far worse than them stands here.
For a moment, I almost pity them.
Then the hunger rises again.
The darkness curls upward, whispering, trembling with need.
I can feel their yearning through my veins—urging, begging to devour.
Not just the monsters.
Everything.
Alive or dead.
"Stop…" I whisper to myself.
But the word means nothing.
The hunger doesn't understand language.
It only understands want.
Then, it hits me.
Two powers.
Far away.
Deep within the forest.
The moment my senses touch them, the darkness at my feet shudders violently, recoiling and trembling like it recognizes something ancient.
Even it… fears.
The pressure hits me like a storm.
Raw, vast, divine.
So strong my breath catches in my throat.
It makes my body tremble—not from fear, but from craving.
That energy…
It calls to me.
It sings.
The rational part of me screams to run.
To turn away.
But the hunger drowns it out, sweet and relentless.
My fingers twitch.
My chest tightens.
And then—
I move.
The darkness surges under my feet, lifting me like a living tide.
Each stride becomes faster, heavier, louder.
The wind howls in my ears as I run—no, glide—across the blood-soaked ground.
The forest looms ahead, trembling with light and shadow.
The power thrums louder now, shaking through the trees.
Every nerve in my body burns.
Every vein feels alive, swollen with molten black fire.
I should stop.
But I can't.
The hunger is everything.
The darkness screams for more.
And I—
I run faster.
Toward the forest.
Toward that impossible power.
Toward the next devouring.
The air thrums as I take a step forward.
The forest bends around me as I move.
Each step splits the earth beneath my boots, shadows spilling outward in ripples.
The trees sway though there's no wind, their roots visibly withdrawing as if afraid to touch me.
I sense the fortress calling—faint, broken, alive only through the screams echoing within its walls.
The scent of blood thickens.
Monsters roam the shattered path ahead—misshapen beasts of fur and bone, their bodies warped by mana corruption.
Their eyes burn crimson as they turn toward me, growling low.
B-rank at best.
Pitiful.
They leap.
The first one reaches me in a blur of claws.
I don't move.
The darkness reacts before I do—splitting from my feet like liquid glass, slicing through the air.
A wet sound follows—the creature's body freezes midair, then falls apart, its blood evaporating before it touches the ground.
The shadow drinks it whole.
The others hesitate, snarling, circling.
One charges—teeth bared, muscles swelling with aura.
This time, I react.
A twist.
A step.
My hand passes through its chest.
Flesh folds inward like ash.
Its scream cuts off, swallowed before it escapes.
When I pull my hand free, only dust remains.
The rest scatter.
It doesn't matter.
The darkness moves faster than they can run.
Black tendrils burst from the ground, wrapping around their limbs—constricting, crushing, devouring.
Each death feeds the void inside me.
Their mana flows into me, hot and sweet.
Each pulse of energy makes my vision sharpen, my body heavier, stronger.
The hunger hums in satisfaction, low and steady, as I walk forward through the trail of corpses.
Their eyes, glassy and hollow, all stare upward, as if even in death they're still trying to understand what I am.
But their silent stares fade behind me as I step beyond them… into something far worse.
I stop.
And for a moment, I forget to breathe.
The world before me is the scar of ruin.
The ground lies torn open in gaping fractures, each one exhaling a dull red glow.
Fire pools in the cracks like veins of molten blood, exhaling smoke that chokes my throat when I inhale.
The air hums—not with life, but with power that refuses to die.
It's as if the land itself remembers the battle.
Shattered boulders still smolder, scorched black and glassy from heat that once could melt steel.
Ash drifts like snow.
The remnants of a fortress wall lean against the horizon, half buried, warped by flame.
And in the center of it all—a crater so vast it looks like the world had been punched open.
This… this was where Commander Arvell fought the Lava Giant.
The earth still trembles with the memory of their clash.
I take a step forward.
The ground crunches underfoot, brittle like bone.
Hot air presses against my skin like unseen fingers, testing me, tasting the darkness that bleeds from my veins.
Everywhere I look, destruction speaks louder than life.
Stone melted into glass.
Steel twisted into spirals.