Return of the Forsaken
The silence was absolute.
Then came the breath.
Ray's eyes snapped open.
For a heartbeat he thought he was dreaming — his body wasn't touching anything. He was floating, suspended mid-air like a leaf held by unseen hands. The world around him was still the same vast chamber of black stone and red sigils, but something inside him was different. Everything felt sharper, louder, alive.
He could hear the hum of the walls — a rhythm too slow for any human ear.
He could hear the beat of his own heart like the pounding of a drum buried beneath earth.
Even the drifting dust sounded like whispers.
When he looked down at himself, his breath caught.
His body — once that of a half-starved boy — had changed.
Taller. Broader. Muscles etched as if carved from the will of survival itself. His skin carried faint patterns of crimson light beneath the surface, glowing in threads that pulsed with every heartbeat.
And in his veins, he felt it — something cold, weightless, alive.
When he willed it, it moved.
A black substance slid down his arm like liquid shadow, wrapping his hand and forearm in a living sheen. It hardened where he focused, rippling with veins of red. It didn't burn or sting; it felt like him.
> "The Void Cells…" he whispered.
Memory rushed in — the red circle, the blinding light, the voice that had called itself Forsaken.
Their final whisper echoed like thunder through a canyon.
> "Our king…"
The word struck him harder than any weapon could. King.
Why had they called him that?
He clenched his fists and felt the void answer, a low vibration traveling up his arms. He wanted to test it — to know what he had become.
Dropping into a stance, he let instinct take over — the posture he had perfected through years of blood and starvation: The Nameless Art.
It had been born from raw survival, refined by desperation — a style without form, name, or teacher.
As he sank into it, something astonishing happened.
The black substance on his arms began to shift — flowing to his shoulders, his thighs, his fists. It moved with him, anticipating his motion, strengthening the exact points of tension in his body.
It wasn't reacting; it was thinking.
It knew his rhythm.
Ray exhaled slowly and drove his fist forward — the opening move of the Nameless Fist.
The air cracked.
A red flicker traced the path of his strike, distorting the air like heat waves. The impact didn't hit stone, yet the pressure rippled through the chamber, rattling dust from the carvings ten paces away.
He froze.
He hadn't even touched the wall.
The power wasn't just strength — it was precision.
The Void had aligned itself to his intent, amplifying the motion until even air became a weapon.
Ray looked down at his hands, awe creeping into his usually calm eyes.
Then another idea came.
The Nameless Art had once been purely fists, but during his years in the wild, he had adapted it — carving crude spears from wood and stone. The spear was an extension of his will.
He raised his right hand, palm open.
The Void answered.
Black liquid coiled from his wrist to his palm, spiraling like smoke caught in wind. It converged, condensed, and hardened — until a weapon of pure darkness took shape.
A spear.
Perfect in length and balance — as if it had waited for him since the day he was born. Its surface shimmered faintly, lined with veins of crimson light that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
Ray turned it slowly in his grip.
The weapon moved like a living creature — weightless, obedient.
> "So this… is the power they gave me," he murmured.
He shifted into stance again, one foot forward, spear at his side.
The void cells along the shaft glowed faint red.
He thrust.
The air screamed.
Pressure exploded outward from the spear's tip — invisible yet crushing. The wind slammed into the far wall five meters away, shaking the ground and scattering fragments of old stone. For a moment, it felt as if the entire chamber might collapse.
When the dust settled, the wall stood unbroken.
Not a crack. Not even a scratch.
Ray's eyes widened.
> "Even that… wasn't enough?"
He lowered the spear, breathing hard but smiling faintly for the first time in years. Not a smile of joy — but of challenge.
The power within him wasn't finished yet. It was only the beginning.
---
He turned toward the far end of the hall.
The massive throne waited — carved from black stone veined with red, towering yet solemn.
Drawn by instinct more than thought, Ray walked to it.
When he sat, the chill of the stone seeped into his bones. For a heartbeat, the world felt perfectly still — as if every echo in the chamber bowed before the figure who now claimed it.
The throne didn't reject him.
It recognized him.
> "Our King…"
The voices brushed against his mind again, distant but reverent.
Ray opened his eyes. "King… of what?" he whispered. But there was no answer. Only the hum of ancient energy filling the silence.
He rose and turned toward the six doors lining the chamber walls.
Each was sealed by intricate runes and carved patterns that glowed faintly with residual power.
He tried the first — nothing.
He struck it with his hand, the impact shaking dust from the ceiling — still nothing.
He poured the Void's energy into his palm, black veins lighting across his arm, and slammed his fist into the second door. The sound rang like metal struck underwater — but the door didn't move.
He tried again, and again, with everything the new body could muster.
Not one door yielded.
Finally, he stopped. His breath echoed through the chamber, harsh and rhythmic.
> "Still not enough…" he muttered, voice low.
He stood there, surrounded by silence and failure — but this time, it didn't feel like defeat. It felt like a promise. The doors were waiting for something he hadn't yet become.
---
As he turned back toward the red circle where his transformation began, something caught his eye.
Half-buried in the thin layer of ash near the center lay an object — small, rectangular, bound in dark leather blackened by age.
A book.
He crouched and brushed the dust away. The cover was etched with faint red sigils that pulsed when his fingers touched them, as if recognizing the blood that now ran in his veins.
The title, written in a script that shimmered like living ink, twisted into words he could almost understand:
> "The Chronicle of the Forsaken."
Ray's breath stilled.
The pages inside were brittle, yet the writing burned softly with ember-light. It wasn't ink — it was memory, written in essence. He flipped through carefully. Some pages were empty, others filled with lines of ancient script and moving diagrams that seemed to rearrange as he looked.
Then, near the final page, a single phrase appeared, written in fresh crimson light as though it had waited for him to open it:
> "To our King — may this record guide what was lost, and awaken what sleeps."
Ray's fingers trembled. The voice of the Forsaken whispered faintly at the edge of hearing, approving.
He closed the book slowly and held it against his chest.
He didn't yet know what it meant, or why it had survived when everything else had turned to dust. But he knew this much: it wasn't left here by accident.
He looked once more at the six sealed doors, the throne, and the red circle that had changed him.
> "Then I'll learn," he murmured. "I'll remember everything you buried."
The red veins under his skin glowed faintly in answer.
He turned toward the path leading out of the chamber — toward the world that had forgotten the Forsaken.
And as the echo of his footsteps faded, the book in his hand pulsed once, releasing a soft crimson glow that illuminated the empty hall.
Somewhere within those unwritten pages, a faint whisper stirred:
"The world must remember its King."
Chapter 2 — End