The moon stood high at its peak, drenching the world in a pale silver glow. Yet on the outskirts of the Nalanda Institute, where the light could not pierce the tangled canopy of trees, shadows reigned. There, a lone figure paced back and forth, his hooded robe swaying with each hurried step.
The silence pressed in on him. His hands twitched at his sides before he raised one to his mouth, gnawing nervously at his nails. His voice, barely more than a whisper, slipped into the night air.
"It is time… he should be here any moment."
The words had scarcely left his lips when the atmosphere shifted. The air grew heavy—thick, as though something unseen had descended upon the clearing. Then, without warning, another figure materialized before him, stepping out of nothingness itself.
This newcomer did not possess the build of a grown man. His frame was slender, almost delicate, belonging to a boy of fifteen at most. But the sight was far from ordinary. From beneath the cover of his hood, two sharp, curved horns jutted upward, casting twisted shadows in the dim light. His face was hidden behind a mask—a grotesque thing painted with a perpetual grin. Its eyes were arched into crescents of joy, and its mouth curled unnaturally high, as though mocking the very world it gazed upon.
The hooded man froze, breath catching in his throat. The boy's presence was quiet, but it pressed down like an invisible weight, the smiling mask gleaming faintly in the dark.
"Rolack Kize pays his respects, my lord."
The hooded man dropped to his knees the instant the horned figure appeared, bowing his head low against the dirt in reverence.
The masked youth tilted his head, the crescent grin of his mask gleaming faintly in the shadows. His voice was calm, but it carried an edge that made the air feel heavy.
"Hmm… have you mastered the footwork I taught you?"
"Yes, my lord—I have mastered it." Rolack answered at once, his words tumbling out without hesitation, almost as if fearing the pause between question and reply.
"Good." The horned figure's tone sharpened, leaving no room for doubt. He straightened slightly, the smile of his mask fixed and unchanging. "Then lead the way."
Heeding the order, Rolack moved at once, his body melting into motion. He employed the footless steps—the secret art he had painstakingly mastered—his figure slipping through shadows without leaving the faintest trace behind. The night seemed to swallow him whole as he weaved through the outskirts, never once daring to glance back.
At last, he halted before a hidden structure buried in the earth: an underground storage… or perhaps a prison. It lay concealed behind the Nalanda Institute, its stone entrance half-covered by creeping vines and the weight of years.
Though its design spoke of secrecy, the place was strangely unguarded. Not a single sentry stood watch, and the silence that hung in the air felt deliberate, unsettling.
The masked figure came to a stop behind him, his presence pressing cold against Rolack's back. His voice slipped through the smiling mask, calm yet carrying a quiet authority.
"Is the key prepared?"
"Yes, my lord." Rolack bowed his head quickly, producing a massive key, its length nearly the size of his forearm. The iron surface caught the faintest sliver of moonlight, gleaming with a dull, ominous sheen as he held it out with both hands.
This key was no ordinary object. Rolack had forged it himself, pouring two months of painstaking effort into its creation after swearing his loyalty to the masked man.
There had been a time, not long ago, when Rolack had been trapped in the depths of despair. Shut away in his research chamber, he had wrestled endlessly with problems that refused to yield. For over a decade, his work had stagnated, his ambition shackled by the lack of a breakthrough. Day after day, he drowned in frustration, certain that the years he had sacrificed were about to wither into nothing.
It was then, at the height of his hopelessness, that the masked man appeared. Mysterious and unreadable, he had answered questions Rolack thought unsolvable, guiding his hand and illuminating paths Rolack had never seen. With his aid, walls that had held firm for ten long years finally crumbled, and the impossible became attainable.
From that day forward, Rolack had bound himself to him with a soul oath, vowing service until death. To outsiders, it might have seemed excessive—madness, even—to chain one's life to a stranger. But to Rolack, it was a price worth paying. For in exchange, he had achieved the one thing that mattered most: the completion of his long-stalled research.
After swearing himself to the masked man, Rolack was given his first task: to investigate this place in secret—discover how to enter it, and uncover the reason why no guards were ever stationed nearby.
Rolack obeyed with utmost diligence. Days turned into weeks as he scoured the area, probing every stone, every shadow, every faint trace of forgotten wards. His persistence finally bore fruit—he had uncovered a hidden way inside. And with that discovery came the truth behind the strange absence of sentries.
It was not negligence, nor oversight. No, it was something far darker.
Within the underground prison slumbered a being so dreadful that its very presence warped the hearts of mortals. Any human who lingered nearby for long would find their emotions twisted—fear magnified into terror, sorrow into despair, anger into unquenchable rage. To prevent catastrophe, the Institute had decreed in secret that none were permitted to approach this place.
And so it remained unguarded, sealed in silence… a cage for a horror that defied human restraint.
"Open the gate." The masked man's voice was calm, yet it carried a weight that brooked no refusal.
"Yes."
Without a shred of hesitation, Rolack stepped forward. He lifted the massive key, slid it into the lock, and turned it with both hands.
Creakkkk…
The ancient mechanism groaned as the gate shuddered open, the sound echoing unnaturally in the still night.
Beyond lay nothing but darkness—thick, suffocating, impenetrable. The void swallowed even the faint light of the moon.
Rolack raised his hand, and with a flicker, an artifact in his grasp flared to life, spilling pale light across the threshold. Shadows scattered weakly as he stepped forward, his voice low and reverent.
"This way, my lord."
They entered what seemed to be a vast chamber—its size more like an underground auditorium than a simple prison. The walls stretched into obscurity, vanishing into darkness the artifact could not pierce.
Then came the sounds.
A deep, guttural breathing, slow but powerful, reverberated through the air. With it came the steady thump… thump… thump of a colossal heartbeat, each pulse rattling faint vibrations beneath their feet.
It was a sound too immense, too primal to belong to any human or ordinary beast. The very air seemed to shiver with each beat, whispering one undeniable truth:
Whatever lurked in this abyss was not of the natural world.
Following the sound, the two of them pressed deeper into the underground chamber. Their footsteps echoed faintly, swallowed quickly by the suffocating dark. After a few paces, they halted.
Rolack slowly lifted the artifact higher, its pale light straining to pierce the abyss. The glow spread across the cavern, and then—
Gasp!
The sight before him made Rolack stumble back, his breath catching in his throat. Cold sweat broke across his back in an instant, his legs trembling as though the ground beneath him had turned unsteady.
But beside him, the masked man remained utterly still. He did not flinch, did not falter—his head tilted slightly as he stared into the illuminated darkness, the painted smile of his mask reflecting the faint light.
Where Rolack saw horror, the masked man saw only inevitability.
In front of them loomed a colossal prison, its sheer size dwarfing them to the stature of rats before an elephant. The iron bars stretched upward like the pillars of a cathedral, vanishing into the shadowed heights of the chamber.
And within… lay the source of the heartbeat.
A creature so vast it seemed to fill the entire cage. Its body coiled and stretched across the stone floor, scales gleaming faintly under the artifact's pale light. Each scale was the color of molten moonlight—silver, pure and radiant, yet dulled by centuries of dust and neglect. The faint shimmer rippled across its form like liquid metal, hinting at the impossible strength contained within.
Its wings, though folded tightly against its sides, were enormous, membranes etched with ancient patterns that caught the light in ghostly reflections. A long tail lay curled, thick as a tree trunk, its end tipped with a jagged fin-like blade.
The dragon's head rested upon the ground, yet even in slumber it radiated majesty. Its horns, arched and sweeping back like a crown of silver, framed a face both regal and fearsome. With each breath, mist curled from its nostrils, seeping through the bars and filling the chamber with a cold, metallic tang. The rhythmic thump… thump of its heart reverberated like a war drum, shaking the air around them.
The creature was beautiful. Terrifying. Eternal.
A silver dragon—the kind spoken of only in myths, shackled and left to slumber in a forgotten prison.
Seeing this sight, the masked man's eyes gleamed with a brilliance that pierced through the dim chamber. From the gaps of his smiling mask, a faint light flickered—whether it was reflection or something far more sinister, Rolack could not tell.
"So… it was true," the masked man whispered, his voice low but brimming with satisfaction. The words lingered in the air, heavy with meaning, as though he had finally uncovered a secret the world had long buried.
Rolack, still drenched in cold sweat, dared not raise his head. His legs trembled, and the artifact in his hand quivered as the silver dragon's breathing filled the prison like thunder rolling through the earth.