Rexdeus had long stopped counting time.
Inside the territory granted to him by the Anathema, days no longer held meaning. Darkness remained darkness, and silence stretched endlessly through the black halls built for someone who was never truly allowed to exist.
Ever since the ritual of the True Anathema had been completed, everything had changed.
The declaration still lingered in his mind like a curse.
A contradiction that should never have been born.
After that day, Erebos—the leader of the clan and the one Rexdeus had once called father—ordered him to remain inside his territory and await judgment.
So he waited.
Not because he wished to obey. But because there was nowhere else for him to go.
The Anathema did not imprison with chains. They imprisoned through isolation. Through silence. Through the certainty that the world beyond those walls no longer belonged to you.
Then, one day, a magical telegram arrived.
The paper emerged silently from the dark flames burning inside the communication altar before falling onto the cold floor at his feet.
Only a single word was written upon it.
Haka.
The borderland between the territory of the Anathema and the lands of living races.
A graveyard.
Long ago, countless holy knights from the women's clans had marched there to exterminate the Anathema. None of them returned. Their bodies remained beneath the black soil, buried under endless hatred and forgotten prayers.
The clan later built a massive black structure atop those graves.
A place for meetings.
Judgment.
Execution.
Rexdeus understood what the summons meant.
Erebos had finally reached a decision.
The sky was dark when he departed.
A massive black dragon descended from the shadows behind the castle walls, its enormous wings swallowing the moonlight itself. Rexdeus climbed onto its back without a word, and moments later the creature soared into the night sky.
Cold wind swept across the dead lands beneath them.
From above, Haka resembled a scar carved into the world itself. Endless graves stretched beneath a lifeless sky while broken swords and weathered crosses remained buried in black earth.
At the center stood the black structure.
A monument to death itself.
When the dragon finally descended before the entrance, Rexdeus stepped onto the cold stone ground.
The beast remained motionless behind him.
Waiting.
Rexdeus placed one hand against its dark scales.
"Return."
The dragon released a low growl before vanishing back into the darkness, leaving him alone before the enormous black doors.
Silence greeted him.
No signs of life.
The massive doors slowly opened with a deep metallic groan. Cold air flowed from within like the breath of a corpse.
And—
The moment Rexdeus entered the hall, something felt wrong.
Too quiet.
Too empty.
His gaze swept across the dark chamber beneath the towering black ceiling.
No council.
No Elders.
No Erebos.
Only silence remained.
Rexdeus stopped walking.
For the first time in a very long while, uncertainty flickered faintly inside him.
Then—A voice echoed from the darkness behind him.
"You finally came."