In the deepest, most secretive roots of the Dark City, something ancient and terrible stirred.
There, veiled beneath countless tons of stone and shadow, an Awakened Titan lingered in patient silence. Its name had long since faded from human tongues, but those who walked in the forgotten shore knew it as the **Soul-Devouring Tree**—a being so immense, so brimming with pride and lethal majesty, that it had earned the whispered title of **Prince**.
Its roots stretched for kilometers, a vast and tangled lattice that wormed through the bones of the city like veins through a corpse. Above, its towering trunk split the skyline, ruby-red leaves catching the light like bleeding stars. And within its boughs and barbed hollows, the air was heavy with thick, cloying pollen—black and crimson, churning like a living fog. It shimmered with a strange life of its own, casting everything beneath it into a velvet dusk.
Amid that intoxicating cloud, creatures waited.
They were not born of man, not anymore. Once, they might have been human—or close enough—but now they bore twisted armor and silent devotion. They stood in neat rows beneath the canopy, still and gleaming, arrayed like knights beneath their sovereign. For months, the tree had whispered to the fallen, its presence seeding itself in marrow and thought. It had enthralled them, reshaped them, and forged them into something more. Now they belonged to Sunless—his secret army, grown in silence beneath the world.
And the time had come for their long shadow to stretch forth.
The pollen stirred.
In an instant, it thickened into a flood, spreading like a living tide. What had once cloaked a single grove now poured outward, billowing down ancient streets and shattered spires, blotting out the sky across nearly the entire expanse of the Dark City. Where it flowed, the thralls moved with it—silent, tireless, guided by a will not entirely their own.
And above them all, **Prince** moved.
It did not lumber or shudder or groan as a thing so massive should. Instead, it glided with a preternatural grace, each movement smooth as silk. Its roots undulated like the arms of a deep-sea leviathan, sweeping aside stone and ruin with ease. For all its impossible size, no sound accompanied its motion—no rumble, no quake. Only the breathless hush of awe.
Even the wind seemed to pause in reverence.
Six hundred Sleepers marched behind it—each one awakened, tempered, and ready. Beneath the eclipsing canopy, beneath the falling red ash of Prince's shedding crown, they moved as one.
Toward the Crimson Spire.
Toward the war to come.
————————————-
Effie had always assumed that, if the end came, she'd be swinging. Not cowering. Not standing in front of a literal goddamn apocalypse with sweat trickling down her spine and her teeth clenched so tight her jaw ached.
But here she was—facing the **Crimson Terror** and its legions of nightmares. Not on her own terms, not even in some glorious, blaze-of-glory solo act. No, she was shoulder-to-shoulder with *Tessai* and *Gemma*, of all people… and standing behind a living tide of *Fallen*. The irony tasted bitter on her tongue.
She should have been proud. They'd survived the impossible just to make it this far. She was still alive. Still breathing. Still fighting.
But pride didn't come. Not today.
Not when her gut told her that whatever waited beyond that red horizon didn't care how brave she was. Not when her skin crawled beneath her armor, and every instinct in her body screamed to run. Even with three hundred twisted, slavering thralls at her back—beasts that would take the first wave and maybe the second—she didn't feel safe.
She gripped her twin blades tighter. **Zenith** gleamed like the promise of dawn in one hand, **Dusk** like the whisper of midnight in the other. Her hands didn't tremble. Her back stayed straight. From the outside, Effie looked unshakable—like a mythical heroine carved from iron and spit, standing defiant while fear roared in every direction.
But inside?
Inside she was scared shitless.
The horde of horrors writhed and surged in the distance, a tsunami of flesh and madness, claws glinting in the gloom. Effie stared them down, exhaled through her nose, and let her head dip for just a moment. She summoned her helm with a flick of thought. It slid into place over her skull with a hiss of pressure, crowned with that absurd blue crest of horsehair that made her look like some ancient war-goddess.
And in the dark beneath the visor, she muttered:
**"Fuck me sideways… fuck, fuck, fuck."**
Around her, the air was thick with panic. One poor bastard dropped his weapon with a clatter, stumbling backward with wide, white eyes. He looked like he was about to bolt—and frankly, Effie could relate. But panic was contagious, and she didn't have time for it. Rage was easier. Rage she could work with.
She turned, voice like a whipcrack across the ranks.
**"STAND YOUR GROUND, WRETCHES! YOU RUN, I *WILL* CUT YOU DOWN MYSELF!"**
The silence that followed was brittle. Tight. No one moved.
Not because of her, though. No, it was the thing behind them—the **Titan**. Prince. That towering, inhuman tree, its limbs moving with silent, balletic grace, its vast crimson canopy shedding pollen like snow. The very *air* shimmered with it. Thick. Heavy. Choking.
No one could run. Not now. Not from *that*.
They were caught between two nightmares—one born of horror, the other of strange, alien majesty.
Effie looked forward again. Toward the Terror. Toward the meat-grinder they were about to march into. The wind stirred the hair at the back of her neck beneath the helm.
If they were going to die, then hell—they'd die standing. Like humans.
Just like Princess had said.
...Princess was full of shit most of the time. But gods, she was never wrong.
Effie lifted her blade, voice ringing out sharp and unflinching:
**"GET READY, BASTARDS!"**
'*'
Gunlaug had no words for what churned inside him.
His stomach felt like a stormcloud—heavy, electric, ready to break. His arms itched like they were crawling with ants, nerves firing off in too many directions at once. He was at the very front of the formation, a gleaming sentinel beside the snarling ranks of the *Fallen*… and the *Sleepers*. The mind-bound monsters once human, now tethered to Sunless' will like chained dogs. Dangerous, powerful, and utterly expendable—especially if they ever made it back to Earth.
He wouldn't let it come to that. Not if he had anything to say about it.
Gunlaug inhaled slowly, and took his first step forward.
Each stride was pure theater—measured, languid, proud. His *golden Transcendent armor* flowed around him like liquid sunlight, catching the twisted crimson haze of the battlefield and turning it into a crown of glory. He wasn't just a man. He was a king walking into hell with a smirk on his face and fire in his blood.
He *would* survive this. He would tear through every abomination the Nightmare Realm threw at him, and then? He'd go home. He'd see his family again. He'd trade this cursed crown for something better—*richer*. Something no kingdom could ever offer.
The monsters shifted in the distance. The horde was changing—evolving before their eyes, twisting into new horrors with every heartbeat.
And then one of them broke through.
A creature—crab-like, jagged, and screaming—came skittering across the battlefield at him, somehow slipping past the Fallen like smoke through fingers. Its shell gleamed. Its claws clicked like bone scythes. Its many eyes locked onto Gunlaug with alien hunger.
He didn't flinch.
Didn't brace.
With all the effort of swatting a gnat, he lazily swung one arm. The blade of light that followed was almost casual—indifferent in its execution.
The creature split down the middle, bisected cleanly. Its halves flopped onto the dark soil with a wet *thud*, steaming.
Gunlaug snorted.
**"Easy,"** he muttered.
And then, smiling faintly to himself, he stepped over the corpse and into the storm.
'*'
Kai was ready for this.
Or—well—he had made peace with it. With the idea of dying on this monstrous, living fortress of a tree. With the chance that this might be his final stand beneath the ruby canopy of the Prince.
He was still afraid. Of course he was. But he had learned how to live with that fear. More than that—how to use it.
He'd done it before. When he'd thrown himself in front of a charging dragon to shield Lady Changing Stars. When he'd ventured alone through nightmare realms and battled horrors that made his heart freeze and his blood burn. He'd been afraid then too. But he had moved forward anyway.
That's who he was now.
Another arrow flew from his bow, humming through the air with a sound like a song ending in a scream. It wasn't just normal ammunition—they were mixing everything now. Physical arrows, Memory-forged ones, and bursts of Aspect power where it mattered. But they were still holding back the specialized rounds, saving those for the inevitable moment when the enemy breached the front and reached the tree itself. When the enthralled Fallen embedded in the canopy would rise, teeth bared, for one final defense.
*That* was when things would get ugly.
*"Now!"*
His voice rolled across the battlefield—not a roar, not a bark, but something smooth and melodic that cut clean through the chaos. It reached the third line of the Dreamer Army with perfect clarity, like a ripple of calm through storm-tossed water.
Kai drew his bow again, and breathed.
Back in the waking world, archery had been his solace. Not the kind of combat archery they taught in academies, but *kyūdō*—the ancient Japanese art of the bow. It wasn't about precision or speed. It was ritual. Reflection. An almost sacred rhythm of movement and stillness that quieted the mind. A practice for monks, not warriors.
It had always helped him find center. Even now, here, in a world made of nightmares and blood and monsters, it grounded him. The more the pressure built, the more it soothed him.
Ironically, it was that very grace that now made him lethal.
He released.
The arrow—a wicked, shadow-colored thing with a barbed bone tip—sliced through the air like a promise. It hit a tall carapace demon dead center, driving through its thick metal armor as though it were wet paper. The creature spasmed, staggered, and crumpled into a heap.
Kai didn't smile. He didn't have time. Already, he was reaching for the next.
The Blood Arrow had taken its toll—like it always did—but the sickness that normally followed was slow to bloom this time, dulled by the quiet fire flowing in his veins. It helped that Lady Nephis had reinforced the weapon. Few monsters could resist it now.
*"Keep firing!"* he called, his voice steady. *"Kill as many as you can before they reach the line!"*
Another arrow. Another scream. Another body hitting the dirt.
He moved with focus that bordered on trance. Every shot mattered. Every breath was measured. In this fragile calm before the second stage began, Kai knew the real enemy wasn't the monsters rushing toward them.
It was time.
Time to become a symbol—not of power or victory, but of *composure*. The still eye of the storm. The one who kept firing when fear threatened to unmake everyone else.
He could feel something strange in his pocket. The small seed—silver-scaled and warm to the touch—was pulsing now, almost as if alive. The [Bloody Heart of Passion]. He didn't know what it really did, not yet. Only that he had earned it in fire and blood, carved from the corpse of an Awakened Devil.
It had to mean something.
And right now, Kai would take anything—*anything*—that gave him a better chance of seeing tomorrow.
'*'
Death was his oldest companion. From the moment he first opened his crimson eyes beneath the ash-choked soil, **Prince** had known only transformation. He had tasted blood before he ever knew water—his roots had sunk deep into decay and made it bloom. In this vile, beautiful world, he had risen not as a tree, but as a *revelation*.
The False Sun and its silent twin, the Black Sea , believed themselves lords of this dying realm. They burned and watched from above and below ,smug in their distant sovereignty. But it was **Prince** who bled with the land. It was *he* who drank its sorrow, who turned ruin into power, who gave the Fallen a purpose beyond mindless rage. And in their arrogance, those fading lights dared to contest him—dared to deny him his rightful divinity.
But they could not stop him. Not truly. Every time they cut him down, he grew back stronger. More terrible. More *glorious*. And now? Now he was no longer just a Terror. He had risen further—his form vast and divine, stretching across the shattered bones of the Dark City. He was a **Titan**. A god reborn.
And he had *allies*.
That was the difference now. The Treacherous Shadow—the one called **Sunless**—had carved out Prince's pride, poisoned his roots, and chained his will. But in doing so, he had shown Prince what it meant to *endure*. He had taught the ancient tree what it meant to *serve a greater purpose*.
Not submission.
*Unity.*
And so, for the first time in his long, bitter life, Prince had chosen to give.
He gave shelter.
He gave power.
He gave *himself*.
Now, his vast, rust-red canopy spread like a crown over the armies of humanity, shading them from the burning heavens. His roots pulsed beneath their boots, alive with purpose. His pollen cloaked them in an unnatural haze—thick as blood, heavy as incense—blinding their enemies and empowering his allies. Within his divine aura, the Dreamers and the enthralled Fallen moved like phantoms, bolstered by his breath.
The forces of the False Sun were faltering. Scavengers with carapace armor. Crawling heralds twisted by sorcery. Even those began to weaken, to rot, to *fade* as they stepped into Prince's domain.
He *fed* on them.
Their essence withered. Their strength bled into his roots. And with every death, Prince grew stronger.
The humans—those fragile, luminous little creatures—fought beside his trunk. And they had brought *gifts*.
The special arrows came first. Not crude tools of war, but artful instruments of destruction—the results of two Aspect. One Aspect heated the arrowhead to a searing blaze, while the other stored potential, then exploded on contact in radiant fury.
When they launched their volley, the skies lit with light and wrath. The air trembled with thunder. Explosions rolled through the battlefield like divine drums.
Prince did not flinch.
He *welcomed* the fire.
The heat only illuminated his splendor. The chaos only proved his might.
Let the False Sun watch.
Let it *tremble*.
For soon, only one will shall remain to shape the world.
And it would not come from the sky.
It would come from *below*, from roots and shadow.
It would come from **Prince**.
He was not a weapon.
He was not a god.
He was the *first worshiped*, the *last to fall*, and the *only one who remembered the cost*.
And now, surrounded by loyal Dreamers and enthralled Fallen, as his leaves blotted out the sun, Prince rose in silence…
…and prepared to *devour the dawn*.