The night should have been silent.
Instead, the heavens screamed.
Across the ruined plains of Varyon, soldiers of the Allied Forces stood frozen as crimson cracks spread across the sky like shattered glass. Lightning moved inside the fractures, not white or blue, but black. Pure darkness flashing against darkness itself.
Commander Rael tightened his grip around the hilt of his sword.
"Tell me I'm not seeing this," one of the younger soldiers whispered.
Nobody answered him.
Because everyone saw it.
The sky was opening.
Far beyond the mountains, the great fortress city of Kaelor burned. Towers collapsed one after another, disappearing beneath waves of shadow pouring from the heavens. Refugees fled through the valley roads, their screams carried by the wind long before their bodies appeared.
General Seraphine stepped forward onto the broken battlements overlooking the camp.
Her silver armor reflected the bleeding sky.
"They've crossed the veil already," she said quietly.
Rael looked at her sharply. "That fast?"
"They were never far away."
A deep tremor shook the earth.
Then another.
Then another.
The ground beneath the camp split open as black smoke erupted upward. Soldiers stumbled backward, raising weapons as creatures began crawling out from the cracks.
Tall.
Thin.
Wrong.
Their bodies looked almost human until the shadows peeled away from them. No eyes. No mouths. Only hollow skin stretched over moving darkness.
"The Hollowborn," Seraphine breathed.
One creature tilted its head.
Then the slaughter began.
Arrows tore through the air.
Magic exploded across the battlefield.
Steel clashed against claws.
But the creatures did not fall easily. Even when cut apart, their shadows kept moving, dragging themselves across the ground toward screaming soldiers.
Rael charged forward.
His blade ignited with blue fire as he cut through the first Hollowborn, splitting it in half. The creature shrieked, not from a mouth, but from everywhere around them at once.
Another leaped toward him.
Rael spun just as a burst of golden energy smashed the creature aside.
Lyra landed beside him, breathing hard, strands of dark hair whipping across her face.
"You left without me again," she snapped.
Rael smirked despite the chaos. "You came anyway."
"Of course I did."
Behind them, the battlefield was collapsing.
The Allied Forces were losing ground.
Every Hollowborn destroyed seemed replaced by two more emerging from the fractures in the earth. Entire defense lines crumbled beneath the assault.
Then the horns sounded.
Three long blasts.
Retreat.
Seraphine turned toward the commanders. "Pull everyone back to the inner walls!"
"We'll lose the outer camps!" a captain protested.
"We'll lose everything if we stay!"
A roar thundered across the plains.
Not human.
Not beast.
Something far worse.
The soldiers stopped fighting for half a second.
And in war, half a second was enough.
A massive figure emerged from the darkness beyond the battlefield. Taller than the fortress walls. Wrapped in torn black armor fused into its flesh. Chains dragged behind it like tails of iron.
Its eyes glowed red beneath a crown of jagged bone.
Every soldier felt it immediately.
Fear.
Ancient.
Primal.
The creature raised one enormous hand toward the fortress.
And the shadows obeyed.
Thousands of Hollowborn suddenly stopped moving.
Stopped fighting.
Stopped screaming.
Then, together, they turned toward the giant being and knelt.
Seraphine's face lost color.
"No," she whispered.
Rael looked at her. "What is it?"
But deep down, he already knew he would hate the answer.
Seraphine stared at the creature with horror in her eyes.
"That's not a general," she said.
The giant slowly lifted its head toward the bleeding sky.
"That is one of the Kings."
Lightning exploded across the heavens.
And the war truly began.