The earth cracked differently here.
No fire. No bones. Just silence — the kind that feels ancient, as if the world itself had forgotten how to speak. Shadow stood before a vast gate, half-buried in stone and time. It pulsed — faintly — like a heart just remembering how to beat.
The entrance was carved with symbols not even the gods had spoken in millennia. Not light. Not hell. Older. Wiser. Hungrier.
Shadow laid his hand on the gate.
It opened.
Not with thunder or screams — but with a slow inhale, like the void itself had been waiting to breathe him in.
He stepped inside.
The tunnel was cold. Not in temperature, but in memory. Walls whispered not with voices, but with moments — betrayals sealed in stone, names erased by force, kingdoms unmade by silence.
And in the center…
A throne.
It wasn't grand. It wasn't gold. It was a slab of blackstone surrounded by cracked mirrors and dead torches. And yet — it felt more powerful than anything Shadow had ever sat upon.
And something sat on it already.
A corpse.
Eyes burned out. Chest caved in. But still upright, as if refusing to fall.
Shadow approached.
No traps. No illusions. Just weight.
He crouched, studying the figure.
Then he heard it:
"I knew you'd come."
The corpse didn't move. But the voice echoed inside the chamber.
Shadow didn't speak.
The voice continued: "I burned this world long before you wore the title of King. I was forgotten not because I failed — but because I succeeded. Too well."
Shadow's eyes glinted. "You're the Forgotten One."
"Not anymore."
And the corpse moved.
Not fully — just a twitch.
But the pressure in the chamber shifted. Shadow stepped back, hand on his sword.
"I do not come to kneel," he said coldly.
"I didn't expect you to," said the voice. "But even kings must learn humility… when they find the throne beneath all others."
A sudden shockwave blasted from the corpse.
Stone cracked. The entrance sealed behind him.
Shadow gritted his teeth — but didn't retreat. Instead, he smiled.
"You've been dead too long," he said. "Let me remind you what the living can do."
The echoes rose.
And from beneath the stone — something awoke.