That night, Elias dreamed.
He stood once more in the field where he had found the chest. But the land was no longer his farm.
It had become something else.
A wasteland stretching beyond the horizon.
Broken towers rose in the distance, their shadows swallowed by a crimson sky.
Armies marched across the dead earth.
Kings fell.
Cities burned.
And everywhere Elias looked, he saw the same ring shining on the hands of different people across centuries.
Warriors.
Queens.
Assassins.
Mad prophets.
The voice spoke again.
"The curse does not belong to you."
"You are merely the beginning."
Elias woke with a gasp.
Outside his window, the crows had formed a circle around his house.
And in the distance, deep within the Whispering Forest…
Something enormous opened its eyes.