Darkness is not silence.
Not truly.
Beneath the stone, beneath the blood-soaked soil of Netherhold, beneath the rituals and ruin, there is always a murmur. A whisper. A heartbeat that does not belong to the living or the dead.
It belongs to me.
And tonight, it called louder than usual.
I sat in the Throne of Bone, alone in the vast chamber where my will forged the future.
The remnants of the expedition to the Mirrorwood weighed heavily in my thoughts. The twisted reflections. The whispers from the simulacrum. The way the air itself seemed to remember who I was — or who I might have been.
But it wasn't fear that gnawed at me.
It was curiosity.
"What part of me still lingers in that mirror?" I murmured.
The Throne pulsed beneath me, responding with a low vibration, as if encouraging the question but offering no answer.
I stood.
There was work to be done.
Far beneath the core chambers of Netherhold—deeper than even my mutated legions dared to venture—there lay a vault.
Not of gold. Not of weapons.
But of possibility.
My private sanctum.
Walls of ancient bone fused with soulsteel. Lights flickered not from flame, but from trapped memories—crystallized fragments of long-dead minds that pulsed like dying stars.
Here, in silence untouched by even death, I began my next creation.
The Cradle of Discord hovered in the center, a sphere of condensed soul fragments, swirling with malice and purpose. Thousands of spirits screamed within it—some in prayer, some in agony, some too broken to feel anything at all.
I reached toward it.
I pulled three from the mass.
One from a traitorous mage whose forbidden knowledge once collapsed kingdoms. One from a divine beast I had slain in my previous life. And one… from myself.
The part of me that once believed in mercy. That dreamed of forgiveness. That bled for others.
It screamed louder than the rest.
That meant it was still alive.
The altar of flesh awakened at my will. It opened like a wound, awaiting instruction. Materials unfolded—bone dust from the Dreadlands, ichor of cursed fiends, ligaments of void serpents. I sculpted new vessels not for perfection, but for contradiction. I didn't want loyal soldiers. I wanted fragments of broken truths.
One creature emerged with two faces—one eternally weeping, the other laughing without pause.
Another had five arms, each gripping a different memory—rage, fear, grief, joy, and something I couldn't name.
The third didn't keep a shape. It shifted endlessly, as if refusing to be seen as one thing. Looking at it too long made the walls cry.
I gave them no names. Names were chains. They would earn theirs through blood and evolution.
When I returned to the higher levels of Netherhold, I sensed change.
Not in the stone. But in the structure of thought.
The first generation had begun to organize.
Virella trained others in aerial formations, building a fleet of bone-winged shadows.
Ka'Zhur had carved out forges in molten tunnels, creating weapons of living obsidian.
Silthis influenced without speaking—his patterns of movement copied by others, mimicking silence and death.
They no longer waited for orders.
They acted.
And action creates independence. Independence births questions. And questions are where betrayal begins.
I summoned Glepharion.
He arrived in typical fashion—upside down, spinning, draped in chaos.
"You called, Sovereign of the Spiraling Path?"
"I need to know who's thinking," I said. "Who's dreaming."
He giggled. "Aren't we all?"
"No. Only those too close to forgetting fear."
He vanished without a word, dissolving into echo and dust.
When he returned, his smile was thinner.
"They wonder," he said.
"Who?"
"Virella dreams of open skies. Ka'Zhur counts the days since our last conquest. Silthis… listens. And the new ones? They ask what purpose binds their flesh."
I said nothing.
"They don't rebel," Glepharion added. "Not yet. But you can smell it, can't you? That flicker."
"Let it burn a little longer," I whispered. "But keep them from turning it into fire."
He bowed, but before vanishing, handed me a torn parchment.
"Found this near the surface."
The parchment was faded, torn, and smeared with dried blood. A single sentence stood out:
"Azrael shall rise again."
Beneath it, drawn in childish hand, was a crude crown.
My hand tightened.
"Where?" I asked.
"A ruined chapel," he said. "Empty for decades. But someone's been praying there. Recently."
I opened a portal.
Not to act.
But to see.
Through Glepharion's eyes, I watched him ascend from Netherhold, crossing into lands that still remembered my name in whispers and curses.
He visited three villages. Each bore scars of silence—no leaders, no elders. Each had once kept records, lore, journals.
All gone.
What remained were signs of forced cleansing—scrolls burned, bodies buried hastily.
They had found my name… and erased it.
Not because they disbelieved it.
But because they feared it.
One image captured in Glepharion's memory crystal confirmed it—soldiers in white armor bearing sun crests, shouting my name while burning texts.
They erased history… because it contained me.
That night, I summoned my first creations—Virella, Ka'Zhur, and Silthis.
They entered in silence, each carrying the weight of evolution on their backs.
"I know what you've begun," I said. "You've built order. Training. Purpose."
They said nothing.
"You wonder why we remain hidden. Why we wait."
Ka'Zhur's fists tightened.
"I am not hiding," I said, standing from the throne. "I am fermenting."
I opened a glimpse of the surface—just enough to show crumbling kingdoms, false idols, and nations built on fear.
"When I rise," I said, "it will not be with noise. It will be with inevitability."
"When I rise," I said again, softer this time, "it will not be war. It will be gravity."
I dismissed them.
But before she left, Virella turned and said, "If they already fear you… why hide your name?"
I replied, "Because fear that grows in silence becomes myth."
"And myth… is eternal."
She nodded, then disappeared into the dark.
I returned to the Cradle of Discord, where the souls still howled in madness and memory. Among them, I heard the voice again.
My voice.
The old me.
"Azrael... is this still your path?"
"Or are you simply walking because there's no other road left?"
I stared into the black.
Then I answered.
"It doesn't matter anymore."
"I will walk it to the end."
---