In the Forgotten Mountains, where jagged peaks clawed at storm-black skies like the bones of dead giants, the ruins of the Ebon Temple lay half-buried in silence. What had once been a place of power was now little more than a carcass of stone.
Vines strangled its shattered columns, and the wind slipped through broken walls, murmuring old curses to no one who cared to listen.
Far below the surface, past collapsed halls and rune-scarred doors worn smooth by time, something shifted.
Xander Blackthorn woke.
His eyes flew open, pits of endless black that swallowed the faint light leaking through cracks in the ceiling. Shadow essence peeled away from his body as the stasis that held him finally loosened its grip.
Every breath felt heavy, as if the darkness itself resisted letting him go.
Centuries had passed since he last walked the world. Centuries since he had sealed himself away, choosing oblivion over unleashing the thing growing inside him.
He could feel it now, restless and hungry, pressing against the walls he had built within his own soul.
The world above was no longer the one he remembered. He could taste it in the air, chaos, blood, smoke. Empires had burned. New wars had been born. Whatever balance once existed had long since shattered.
Xander's fingers curled against the cold stone floor.
It was time to rise.
He rose slowly, his form knitting itself together from tendrils of shadow that clung to him like obedient servants. Tall and imposing, with skin pale as moonlit marble and hair dark as the abyss, Xander radiated restrained power.
His garments followed, reforming piece by piece into a flowing cloak of living shadow, its surface traced with runes that pulsed with a faint, sickly light.
As he stretched, the stone beneath him groaned. Cracks spread across the chamber floor, splintering outward as the ancient wards finally gave way, shattering like brittle glass.
"What madness has taken the world in my absence?" he murmured. His voice was low and heavy, rolling through the chamber and echoing back at him.
Memories stirred. The Great Betrayal. Allies he had once trusted had turned on him. Mortals, gods, even demons had joined hands in fear of what he was becoming.
They had sealed him away, desperate to stop his rise, though not before he tore their essences from them. That act had bound him to an immortality that gnawed endlessly at his sanity.
Now the seal was broken, worn thin by time and eroded by the very wars meant to preserve the balance.
Xander stepped beyond the chamber and began his ascent, climbing the temple's crumbling stairs toward the surface.
The halls were strewn with bones, the remains of those who had come seeking power or treasure and found only death. He spared them no glance.
His senses unfurled instead, stretching outward like unseen threads, reaching beyond the ruined temple and into the world that waited above.
The world was unravelling.
To the north, divine armies clashed with demonic hordes, their wars shaking the land itself. Mortals hid behind stone walls and desperate prayers, trapped between forces that barely noticed them. Gods ruled through fear and demanded devotion at the edge of a blade.
Demons spread destruction for nothing more than amusement. And humans scurried between them all, forming brittle alliances that collapsed the moment pressure was applied.
A faint smirk touched Xander's lips.
"How predictable," he murmured. "They tear one another apart without me to bind them together through fear."
He stepped from the temple's broken entrance, his presence masked beneath layers of illusion. The first light of a blood-red dawn crested the horizon, spilling across the mountainside.
The land bore fresh scars. Trees stood blackened and split, stone lay gouged by magic, and somewhere below, steel rang against steel in distant conflict.
Xander paused.
Footsteps. Armoured, disciplined. Voices followed, sharp with command.
"Search every inch," someone barked. "The oracle sensed ancient power here. If we claim it for the Empire, those god-worshipping fanatics won't stand a chance."
Xander's eyes darkened.
Mortals, bold enough to trespass upon his domain.
His form dissolved into shadow, blending seamlessly with the mist and stone. He became still, a patient presence woven into the mountainside itself, waiting as the soldiers drew closer.
The band of invaders crested the ridge, two dozen soldiers clad in imperial armour stamped with the eagle of the Solarian Empire.
Their leader, a grizzled captain with a scar splitting his cheek, surveyed the ruins with naked greed.
"Spread out," he ordered. "Leave no stone unturned."
The soldiers fanned across the temple grounds, shoving aside rubble and wrenching at sealed doors worn smooth by time.
One of them, a young recruit whose hands shook despite his armour, froze near a patch of scorched stone.
"Captain," he called out. "There's something here. It's glowing."
The captain strode over, sword sliding free of its sheath. The faint rune pulsed beneath the dirt, its light sickly and uneven.
"Ancient magic," the captain muttered. "This must be what the oracle saw. Dig it up."
From the shadows, Xander watched, dark amusement stirring behind his eyes. They were children clawing at the edge of a bonfire, blind to the blaze waiting beneath their fingers.
The thing inside him stirred, restless and starving after centuries of restraint.
His patience snapped.
With a single thought, he let the darkness loose.
Shadows burst from the ground in violent surges, thick and fluid like spilled ink. They wrapped around legs and torsos, tightening with crushing force.
Screams tore through the air as soldiers were yanked from their feet and dragged into the stone.
The captain hacked wildly, his blade slicing through one shadow only for two more to coil in its place.
"What sorcery is this?" he shouted. "Hold the line! Stand your ground!"
But the ground itself had turned against them.
Xander stepped into the open, his form emerging from the darkness like a nightmare made solid. Shadows clung to him, alive and shifting, as his gaze settled on the soldiers.
"You trespass in the domain of the forgotten," he said calmly. "For that, you will pay with your souls."
Panic rippled through the ranks, then broke into desperate action. Arrows flew, cutting through the air in a shrill chorus.
Xander lifted one hand. The projectiles unravelled mid-flight, dissolving into thin strands of smoke before they could reach him.
He spread his fingers.
Darkness answered.
Shadows speared forward, slipping through armour as if it were paper, tearing into flesh and bone. Soldiers fell screaming, their bodies collapsing as their life was ripped from them.
Xander felt each stolen essence flow into him, warm and fleeting, like sparks swallowed by a greater fire.
A burly warrior charged through the chaos, axe raised high. He swung for Xander's neck with a roar born of fear and fury.
Xander stepped aside with lazy precision and seized the man by the throat.
"Your essence," he murmured, studying him with mild curiosity, "is disappointing."
The warrior's struggles weakened as his body shrivelled in Xander's grip. Skin split and cracked like drought-stricken earth.
With a slow breath, Xander drew the soul free, consuming it in a surge of dark energy that washed through him, sealing the last traces of weakness left by his long slumber.
The body collapsed into dust.
Only the captain remained. He staggered backward, face pale, sword trembling in his grasp.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
Xander tilted his head, shadows curling behind him as a predatory smile spread across his face.
"I am Xander Blackthorn. The Dark Lord who bows to no god, no demon, and no mortal." His eyes burned as they locked onto the captain. "And you are nothing more than sustenance."
With a flick of his wrist, the shadows surged upward and wrapped around the captain, lifting him from the ground. The man screamed as his soul was ripped free, torn from his body in a blaze of pale light.
Xander closed his hand around it, crushing the glowing orb and drawing its essence into himself. What remained of the captain fell lifelessly to the stone.
Silence settled over the mountains once more, broken only by the mournful sweep of the wind through ruined stone. Xander flexed his fingers, savouring the strength returning to him.
Vitality coursed through his veins, steady and intoxicating. Along with it came fragments of knowledge torn from the souls he had consumed.
The Solarian Empire was on the march, its borders spreading through conquest and prophecy. The Divine Coalition waged holy wars in the name of order. Beneath it all, the Demonic Underrealms stirred with rebellion and bloodshed.
The world was fractured, ripe with conflict.
Perfect.
Xander turned to descend the mountain when a sudden pressure brushed against his senses. Power radiated from the east, raw and infernal, pulsing with fury and desperation. It was demonic in origin, but unrefined. Not a threat.
An invitation.
Something, or someone, was reaching out into the dark, whether consciously or not.
Xander smiled. It was a real smile, the first he had worn in centuries.
"Perhaps this world still remembers how to surprise me."
Shadows gathered at his heels as he moved toward the distant call, leaving the ruins of the Ebon Temple behind.
He could not yet know that this pulse of power marked the first thread in a growing tapestry of devotion, nor that it would one day force even a dark lord to reconsider the meaning of kneeling.