Darkness.
That was all Azarim knew.
Not silence. Not peace. Just a vast, formless void pressing in from every side. The only sensation he could feel was the thick warmth of blood tracing a line down his forehead. His limbs were numb. His breath—if he still drew any—was lost to the abyss.
And yet, somehow, in all its cold emptiness, the darkness felt… comforting.
He let himself float in it. Suspended. Weightless. Thoughtless.
Until something stirred.
A flicker of fire—black as pitch—etched itself into his mind like a brand. A question, scrawled in the dark. It did not speak, but he heard it all the same.
Was it worth it?
Azarim didn't answer. He turned away, ignoring the thought, retreating deeper into himself.
But it followed.
The question twisted, morphed—burning letters formed inches from his vision, pulsing with a strange inner fire that cast no light. He tried to wave it away, but the darkness responded, coiling tighter, creeping in like a tide rising to swallow him whole.
More words appeared.
Did you find the thing you were searching for?
He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to move, to reject it. But his resistance only fed it. The fire grew hotter, brighter—blinding now, not with light, but with meaning. The words pressed in closer, suffocating in their stillness.
Then came the final sentence.
The one that stopped him.
The one that tore through the dark like a blade to his chest.
Was I not enough?
Azarim no longer resisted.
He looked—truly looked—at the thing that haunted him.
Slowly, he reached his hand into the nothing… and saw a boy.
Black hair, tousled and matted. Blue eyes, dulled—void of hope. His frame was frail, skeletal almost, draped in torn clothes that barely clung to his shoulders. Fabric hung like ash, slipping off his thin form, as though the weight of it alone could make him collapse.
He looked like he could break at any moment.
Azarim knew him.
The boy lingered by the city gates, waiting for the guards to toss him their leftover bones. He would bite into them hungrily, savoring the traces of flavor clinging to scraps no one else wanted.
That was his life.
Azarim's life—before.
One day, like all others, he approached the guards and asked for their scraps. But that day felt… wrong. He didn't notice it at first. Just a quiet unease, like the wind had stopped breathing.
At noon, the guards usually laughed over hot meals, their voices loud and crude. But the posts were silent. No soldiers. No merchants. No passersby. The city's edge was empty.
And then—hands.
A grip on his neck. Swift. Merciless.
He had no time to scream before he was dragged across the ground. His fingers clawed at stone, scraped against walls, but it was useless. No one came. No one saw. No one cared.
Inside the gates, a man stood waiting.
And Azarim fell into darkness.
What came after was scattered, shattered, like broken glass in his mind.
He saw robed mages in black, their faces hidden beneath hoods. They encircled him, whispering in a tongue that didn't echo in the air—but inside him, vibrating through bone and blood.
A ritual sigil surrounded him, scrawled in black chalk—a circle intertwined with a star. He knelt at its center, helpless.
The voices grew louder. He felt his body ring like struck iron, as if their chants were reshaping him from the inside out.
And then—something rose.
From the edges of the circle, a shadow took shape. Formless. Cold. Alive.
That was the last thing he remembered.
When he woke, it was in a field of grey sand. Endless and dead. He wandered, empty, until his legs gave out. Until he fell to his knees and waited. For death. For silence. For anything.
'I never would've thought you'd still remember that moment.'
The words twisted into shape once more, flickering in the dark.
Azarim turned his head.
'It was when we were together. Those were the days, were they not? The only one we could trust… was us.'
He closed his eyes. The weight of memory pressed in. When he opened them again, he faced the flame—the presence—the silent voice made of thought and fire.
"What are you?" Azarim asked, voice low.
Silence. A long, pregnant pause.
Then the words returned, forming slowly:
'You know what I am.'
The shadows stirred, rippling outward, and then bled together into a humanoid shape. It took form slowly, patiently. A figure—his own, but hollow. Azarim's outline without Azarim's soul. Made of ash and void, its eyes blazed with a cold blue flame.
He stared at it.
He knew this thing.
The shadow he had torn from himself. The corruption he had cast out and buried.
And then, like smoke unraveling, it dissolved—dispersed back into the dark. The words returned.
'We really are something,' they coiled through the stillness, 'When you charged that thing head-on, I thought you were on to something. But that something only left us tasting dirt and pinned to a wall.'
Azarim turned away again, his voice quiet. "What do you want?"
Another pause.
Then:
'An answer from us. Were they worth it?'
He stared into the abyss, feeling for a hand that wasn't there. A phantom pain pulsed where it should have been.
"You know what I am," Azarim replied. "And you know the answer."
More words formed, colder now, edged with contempt.
'For all I knew of us, we were never this naive. Dreaming of normalcy—that was the folly. That was what we fought for, destroyed for, made pacts for. All of it… for his hope…And then you cut me out.'
Azarim gave no answer. He let himself sink, deeper into the cold, letting the words pass through him like wind through leaves.
Another line twisted into shape.
'Every moment wasted here, every second—we lose them. And still you sit in silence, choosing nothing.'
Still, Azarim did not respond.
'Open your eyes. See.'
And he did.
He saw Walas and Deckard, locked in a desperate battle with the entity. Revel lunged first—his massive body clad in chitin and mana, horns lit like war-torches. Walas blinked between angles, the ceiling, the back, the walls—seeking a weakness.
But it was all for nothing.
The entity smiled with its perfect face, so beautiful it hurt to look at. It caught Revel's charge mid-air and flung him aside like a shattered blade. Walas was intercepted mid-blink—slammed into stone with a single motion.
Azarim tried to move. Pain answered.
His body was embedded in the wall. His limbs broken, blood pooling. And when the entity noticed, it turned its gaze to him—its smile widening.
With a flick of its fingers, it crushed him deeper into the wall. Bones cracked. Something inside tore.
His vision blurred red.
And he fell again—back into the abyss.
Words returned, like blades this time:
'Did you really believe that giving us up—our power, our magic—would make anything right?'
"It was all for him. Our son," Azarim said.
A figure began to form from the dark. A silhouette—his own. A perfect mockery sculpted in shadow.
'Do you remember who we were? The boy they spat on. The creature they scorned. The one who fed on pig bones and filth. They hated us. And they will remember.'
It stepped forward, shadow pressing in like breath against skin.
Then, for the first time, it spoke.
Not through letters.
But in a voice—quiet as husk and wind but with contempt and fury.
"You and me," it said, "We will take back everything. Everything they stole. No one will possess what is ours. And they will pay, for every bite, every bruise, every word they used to break us. They will remember… until the universe forgets how to breathe."
And then it moved.
Like vapor, it drifted into him, drawn into his chest like smoke inhaled by fire. Azarim's body jerked, trembling as the mark over his heart ignited, glowing through torn flesh and blood.
"I will stay with you. I will make them pay."
*************
The Entity planted its head against Walas. He squirmed and wobbled, trying to rise. Turning his head, he spotted his broken sword—its chipped pieces scattered around him. Above, Revel floated in the air, clutching his neck as the Entity reached out a hand.
Revel hovered with authority, his face turning slightly blue, his limbs twitching uselessly.
All the eyes along the Entity's wings stared down at them—watchful, hungry, gnawing at their resolve.
"Even if this form is merely a fragment of me," it said, voice cold and echoing, "it's still worth a hundred of you, even combined."
Its grip tightened around them both.
"What use is glory when you're already dead?"
Walas and Revel smiled.
"For such a higher being as you claim to be," Walas grinned, letting out a faint laugh, "you're painfully dull."
"Dull?" It scratched its nose, all of its eyes locking onto Walas. "Very well. Care to enlighten me?"
Walas grinned wider, as if he had been waiting for that moment—but before he could respond, the Entity pressed down harder with its foot, trying to crush him.
"Buying time won't save you," it hissed. "Whatever you say—honor, fame, gold, legacy—whatever you pretend to cherish..." It leaned closer, smiling with cruel delight. "All of it is meaningless to the rotten."
It then raised its foot, hovering over his skull, threatening to crush it.
"Don't fret—I'll leave you barely alive. You'll wake up as if nothing has changed. That's a promise."
With a grin, it brought its foot down. Walas gritted his teeth, bracing for the inevitable, while Revel could only watch as he struggled to breathe.
Then, as if the world had paused, the room trembled.
Lights flickered wildly. The rune-marked lamps lining the chamber walls began to crackle—sigils unraveling, their glow sputtering out like dying embers. One by one, they burst, glass and metal crashing to the floor in a rain of shattered magic.
Above, the great chandelier groaned. It rocked violently on its chain, its once-proud brilliance dimming with each swing. Light faded from it like breath from a dying man.
The Entity froze mid-step.
"Well," it murmured, tilting its head, "this ought to be something."
A surge of mana erupted—raw, seething, and dark. The arcane etchings on the remaining lamps flared violently before bursting apart in rapid succession. The chandelier's final flicker died.
The room fell into shadow.
The Entity turned, gaze narrowing.
And then it saw.
Azarim.
He hovered above the cracked stone floor, suspended by coils of living shadow. The darkness twisted around him like sentient smoke, licking at his torn flesh before diving into the wounds like a burning serpent. Wherever it touched, the gashes closed. Skin sizzled.
His shattered bones knit together—bridged by something unnatural.
It was as if the darkness itself were remaking him.
Azarim felt everything: the pain, the fire, the way his body threatened to collapse under the strain. But he didn't flinch. He didn't scream.
'We will take everything back,' a husk thought echoed..
The searing shadows wrapped him fully now. Azarim drew a slow, steady breath—and descended.
His feet touched the ground in silence. A cloak of shadow coalesced around his shoulders, flowing like liquid night.
He rolled his neck, letting out a soft crack.
Then, with calm finality, he curled his fingers into a fist.
"Shall we?"
'Kill. Kill. Kill. Burn it. Take everything back.'