-The Gate Unsealed-
The air itself grew heavier over the blood-slick fields of Artherion. It had been ten days of relentless combat, each dawn rising redder than the last, each night echoing with the cries of the dying and the rage of the vengeful. The earth was no longer sacred; its sacredness had been broken open by swords, crushed by fallen bodies, stained by shattered dreams. But now, as the sky dimmed long before dusk, a new, terrible pressure descended.
Something was coming.
And it was not of this world.
---
From the obsidian throne deep within the volcanic sanctum of Dravenguard, King Zeburel Ashkeroth stirred.
A stillness followed. A silence that spread across the chamber like a plague.
Prince Alaric stood nearby, arms crossed, still brooding, his blood-healed wounds a reminder of the power he had once dared to challenge.
And Saevan stood at the far edge of the shadowfire dais, one hand gloved, the other bare, his eyes, unreadable.
"Now," Ashkeroth said. It wasn't a shout. It was a command uttered through time itself. Final. Immutable.
Saevan gave a nod. A single nod.
He turned to the runed altar, one carved from the bones of the first slain drake, soaked in the ichor of shadow priests who once ruled the forgotten cities of the deep abyss. He placed his bare hand on it.
The world shuddered.
Not just the fortress.
The world.
Cracks formed in the sky like glass breaking.
But not above Dravenguard.
Above Artherion.
---
Far over the western reaches of Artherion, where snow-draped mountains met the spires of highwatch towers, the heavens twisted. The sun blinked. Once. Then again. Birds dropped from the sky. The clouds spiraled. Lightning flashed. Thunder hammered in deafening decibels.
And then
It tore.
The sky tore as though a blade had cleaved it.
Not with fire.
Not with thunder.
But with absence. With non-being.
A fissure opened, vast, black, unnatural. It bled void, a liquid mist of writhing shadows that smelled of rot and dreams long devoured.
From its depths came shrieks. Not sound, concepts. Words unspoken by gods. Realities that had been erased returned in howl.
And then the first wave descended.
They fell, descending not with wings, nor with war cries, but with certainty.
Shadow soldiers, countless, numberless, titanic.
Their armor was not forged but grown from darkness itself, limbs long and unnaturally sharp, each bearing weapons pulsing with anti-light. Their mere presence drowned hope.
Dark knights.
They did not speak. They did not scream.
They fell.
And where they landed, the world wept.
Villages vanished.
Forests shriveled.
Fortresses crumbled beneath the sheer weight of shadow.
The Western Fortress of Lirael fell within nine minutes.
Its spires shattered. Its wards bled light and were consumed. Its soldiers screamed and fell, only to rise moments later, not as men, but as shadows of their former selves, their eyes burning with Ashkeroth's silent fire.
---
In Artherion's capital, beneath the Hall of Aetherian Thrones, the Knight raised his head.
For the first time in two thousand years, his blade stirred within its sheath.
King Elyrion sat unmoving upon His throne, robed in sapphire, eyes unreadable. One hand rested beneath His chin.
He watched.
And watched.
Lucien, high above in the Eastwind cliffs, stood. His coat fluttered like angel wings torn from the firmament. His eyes were narrowed. His hands remained in his pockets.
"So it begins," he whispered.
---
From the royal hospital camps of Vaelthorne, I looked up.
My skin shivered with a cold that wasn't cold. My soul twisted. I saw the gate in the sky.
I didn't need anyone to explain it.
I fell to my knees and whispered one name:
"Lucien..."
---
Ashkeroth stepped from his throne hall, his cloak of living flame trailing behind him.
He raised both arms to the blood sky. His voice thundered across dimensions.
He called to them: Come, my sons. Let the world remember the cost of denying a king.
And they came.
More shadow soldiers. More. Until the land beneath the gate resembled a living ocean of void.
But then...
From the East
A glow.
Pale. Like the first dream of a newborn child.
Then brighter.
Then unbearable.
The clouds parted.
The darkness could not comprehend.
Seven.
Descending.
Not in chariots. Not with horns.
But in silence.
They were like angelic beings having 4 wings.
Their garments weren't robes. They were tapestries of flame and light, woven with truths the stars dare not speak. Each moved like kings who had ruled creation before the first sunrise. Their faces were veiled with burning halos, and behind them trailed glory.
And ahead of them walked the Knight.
His armor shone with a thousand refracted hues. The light around him did not reflect. It obeyed.
Each step was not a movement but a pronouncement.
The gate trembled.
The shadow army paused.
Lucien, still on the cliffs, finally moved.
He took a step forward.
Then another.
His eyes burned.
Ashkeroth's laughter stopped.
Saevan's fingers twitched.
The Knight unsheathed his sword.
And the world held its breath.
To be continued...