Abaddon: "It is over, Little King. You stand alone."
Arthur: "Alone? I have always been alone."
Erebos: "A fitting end for a creature of shadows who dared to stand in the light. We will erase your name from the stone of this world."
Luxion: "Your light is a guttering candle, Arthur Novachron. We are the dawn that will extinguish it."
Arthur: "You are not Dawn. You are a lie. And I am not a candle. I am the night that was here before the first flame was ever lit."
Abaddon: "Enough words! Die with your world!"
Arthur: (A soft, final whisper) "Oblivion's Embrace."
(The sound of the world being unmade. A silence that is both absolute and deafening.)
(A sharp, insistent BEEPING.)
(The rustle of cheap bedsheets.)
(A ragged, confused intake of breath.)
Arthur: "...What?"
(The beeping continues. Arthur fumbles, his movements clumsy.)
Arthur: (Muttering to himself) "My... phone? This sound... I haven't heard it in..."
(He picks up the phone. It stops beeping, then immediately starts again.)
Arthur: (Voice rough with disuse and shock) "Hello?"
Leo: (Filtered through the phone, frantic and young) "Arthur! Finally! Get your ass to the guild hall in twenty minutes! We have a D-Rank gate rupture downtown, and we're short-staffed. This is your chance to prove you're not completely useless!"
Arthur: (A long, stunned silence) "...Leo?"
Leo: "Yes, it's Leo! Who else would it be? Are you still asleep? Move it! This is our big break!"
Arthur: (Voice dropping, the weariness of a king replacing a boy's confusion) "Understood. I'll be there."
(The sound of the call disconnecting.)
(Arthur's breathing, slow and deliberate, in the quiet room.)
Arthur: (Whispering to the empty air) "He's alive. They're all... alive."
(A sudden, violent cough. A gasp of pain.)
Arthur: "Ghh—! The core... It's too weak. It can't contain... me."
(He stumbles out of bed, footsteps on a thin carpet. A door creaks open.)
Arthur: "A mirror... Let me see..."
(A sharp, shocked inhale.)
Arthur: "This face... this boy. Ten years. I've come back ten years."
(His voice hardens, the echo of the Sword Demon bleeding through.)
Arthur: "The pain is a leash. A reminder that this body is a cage. For now."
(The phone buzzes again on the desk. He ignores it.)
Arthur: "A D-Rank gate rupture. A nuisance. A skirmish for children."
(He walks across the room. The sound of his hand closing around the hilt of a practice sword.)
Arthur: "A poor substitute for you, Adramelech. But you are out there. I can feel it. And I will find you."
(He closes his eyes. The shadows in the room seem to pull inwards.)
Arthur: (Commanding, quiet) "Come to me."
(A faint, whispering sound, like silk on stone.)
Arthur: (A grim, satisfied smile in his voice) "Good. The shadows remember their king."
(He opens his eyes. They glow with a faint, violet light.)
Arthur: "The Monarchs think they won. They think this world is theirs for the taking. But they are wrong."
(He hefts the practice sword, its weight insignificant in his grip.)
Arthur: "The hunt begins again."