Chapter 1 The Coffin Beneath the Sky
The Coffin Beneath the Sky
The sky wept ash
It drifted in slow,glowing spirals—falling like snow over the ruined kingdom of solvane once a citadel of light, now a graveyard of memories. Towers lay split like bones. Statues of gods had melted into pools of golden stone. Nothing sang here anymore, not even the wind.
Except one sound
A heartbeat
Thumb
Beneath the fractured marble of the central cathedral, past the forgotten catacombs lined with rusted prayer bells and sunless roots, a slab of obsidian began to crack
Thumb. Thumb.
Then silence
And then—
Shatter
From the stone coffin rose a man—no a relic of a man. Skin pale like burned paper, armor fused into his flesh, silver hair tangled with dried blood. He gasped like someone drowning in memory, clutching his chest as a divine mark—an inverted halo—burned on his clothes.
His name was Erevan Duskgrave.
Last knight of light
Betrayer of his god
Unforgiven by his world
And he was alive.
He stumbled from the wreckage of his tomb, fingers trembling as they reached for the sword embedded in the altar before him. Not just any sword— Eclipsion the nullblade. It's black-steel edge shimmered not with light, but with absence. A weapon forged from the death of god. A blade that could erase divinity.
Erevan stared at it, memories flickering like lightning through his skull—of burning cities, angelic screams, and the moment his god whispered, "You are the seed of my ruin."
His grip tightened.
He pulled the blade free. The world trembled as it left the stone. Shadows bent toward him like prayer.
A voice echoed from the void, ancient and cruel:
"The knight awakens... and the kingdoms will burn."
Above, the ash continued to fall.
And in distant lands where kings wore masks of saints and demons ruled with silver tongues, a ripple spread through the fabric of power. Old things stirred. Prophecies bled ink. And those who had killed gods felt a chill they could not name.
The Knight of the Fallen Kingdoms had returned.
And nothing—man, god, or monster—would stand in his way.
Erevan fell to one knee, panting.
His body remembered agony before it remembered breath. His lungs clawed at the stagnant air, heavy with incense, dust, and rot. The cathedral had collapsed around him — only the altar remained intact, as if the world itself dared not defile the place where a god had once knelt.
He looked down at his hand. The skin was cracked. Veins glowed faintly silver, pulsing with something not entirely human. His reflection in the broken marble floor barely looked like the knight who'd once sworn himself to the Lightborn Pantheon.
A face hollowed by sleep.
Eyes dim with ruin.
But behind that gaze… something still burned.
He rose slowly, gripping Eclipsion — the Nullblade — and stared at the distant arch of broken sky beyond the cathedral walls. Where once the heavens had shimmered with celestial flame, only black clouds churned now, veined with crimson.
How long had it been?
His memories were fragmented, like pages torn from a book. He remembered battle. He remembered betrayal. And a voice—his god's voice—whispering his sentence before silence swallowed him.
"Sleep beneath the ruin you failed to save.
Let your shame rot with you."
And yet, here he stood.
Not by divine mercy.
But by a crack in fate.
His legs moved before thought returned. Through fallen pillars, past stone angels that now wept blood, Erevan stepped into the open. Solvane, his once-radiant kingdom, now stretched before him like a corpse — gutted streets, shattered homes, bones picked clean by time.
But even ruin whispered secrets.
Across the plaza, a blackened sigil pulsed against the temple wall — a mark etched in seared flesh, not stone. A Sigilbrand.
Someone… or something had been here. Recently.
Erevan's grip tightened.
"If the gods have cursed me to walk again…
Then I'll make sure they never rise."
He turned his head sharply.
From the far gate of the cathedral square, movement—a cloaked figure, half-armored, dragging a massive iron bell chained to its back. A ritualist. One of the Bell-Mourners, scavengers of the divine dead. The figure stopped as it saw Erevan… and it knelt.
Not in fear. Not in worship.
In recognition.
"Knight of Dusk," it rasped, voice hollow beneath its mask.
"The echo has returned. The last kingdom shivers in your shadow."
Erevan said nothing.
But in the deepest recess of his mind, a low hum stirred — the Nullblade singing silently, sensing the presence of divine residue.
And beneath the earth… something else moved.
Something ancient. Watching. Waiting.
The knight was not alone in his resurrection.
End of Chapter 1
Chapter 2: The Bell-Mourner's BargainThe ash thickened as Erevan stepped into the courtyard.
The cloaked figure remained on one knee, the iron bell chained to its back letting out a low, haunting hum—not from movement, but from something inside it.
A memory? A soul?
Erevan approached slowly, the Nullblade resting across his back like a sleeping curse. He studied the mourner's mask: smooth bone-white, no eyeholes, just a sigil carved in deep red. It pulsed.
"You're not human," Erevan said flatly.
The mourner chuckled. "I was. Before the gods began feeding on names."
It rose, creaking under the weight of the bell. "They took my face, my voice, and bound me to the Bell. But I remember your name, knight of the lightless flame. The King-Breaker. The one who slew Seraphiel."
Erevan's jaw tightened. "I didn't kill him."
"No," the mourner mused. "But you unmade him. And something worse took his place."
Silence lingered. Then Erevan asked, "Why are you here?"
The mourner turned slightly, as if listening to the sky.
"The gods are waking.
Their children crawl from ruins.
And something has begun whispering from the south — something older than flame."
It paused.
"And you, knight, are an echo that should not be walking."
Erevan stepped closer, gaze sharp.
"Speak plainly. What woke me?"
The mourner's grip on its staff tightened. "A fragment of the Origin Flame pulsed. Just once. Enough to crack your tomb. Enough to turn every blood-born priest to salt from here to Hollowfen."
Erevan's stomach sank.
A piece of the Flame — the divine source — still existed. And it had responded to him.
"Am I the echo… or the flame?"
"Or am I the weapon both fear?"
He didn't say the words aloud.
The mourner extended a scroll from its cloak. The parchment trembled as if resisting reality. "This is a map — to the first kingdom fallen to the void: Caelmere. There lies the first Sigil you must reclaim. But beware… the one who guards it has already begun to Ascend."
Erevan hesitated.
"Why give me this?"
The mourner tilted its head.
"Because your blade can kill gods. And this world doesn't need more gods. It needs a clean end."
Without another word, the mourner turned, dragging the bell behind him. With each step, the ash parted, and whispers echoed from inside the iron.
Erevan stared down at the map.
Caelmere.
The kingdom that once reached the stars. Now swallowed by the Pale Sea, and ruled by a former knight who had embraced voidcraft.
His first trial awaited.
And Erevan didn't know if he'd survive it.
End of Chapter 2
Chapter 3: The Pale SeaThe road to Caelmere no longer existed.
What once had been paved with sunstone and lined with runes of protection now lay beneath a churning wasteland of bone-colored mist. The Pale Sea, they called it. A land drowned not by water, but by memory—where the dead whispered and the living forgot their names.
Erevan stood at the edge, cloak rustling in the quiet wind. The sky above was gray, the color of mourning. Behind him, the last spire of Solvane's cathedral disappeared into the ashstorm.
Before him: emptiness.
The map the mourner had given him crumbled as soon as he passed the last boundary stone, but Erevan didn't need it. The sword guided him. The Nullblade trembled in his hand like a tuning fork, attuned not to direction… but desecration.
Caelmere still lived. But it was no longer human.
He stepped into the Pale Sea.
The moment his foot touched the dust, sound vanished.
No birds. No echo. Not even his own breath.
And then… it started.
Whispers.
"Erevan…"
"Traitor…"
"Do you remember how she screamed…?"
"You could have saved us…"
He stopped walking. The mist swirled, forming faces — half-formed, featureless, yet painfully familiar. His comrades. His brothers. His king.
He gritted his teeth. "I buried you all."
"But you never mourned us."
The blade pulsed, and the faces vanished in a shriek of static.
Hours—maybe days—passed. Time broke in the Pale Sea.
He trudged forward, following the pull of the Nullblade, until finally… the mist broke.
There, half-sunken into the saltstone horizon, stood Caelmere.
Its towers now bent like spears stabbing the sky. Its palace suspended in the air by thick chains of black flesh. The walls pulsed as if the city had grown a heart.
And atop the highest tower stood a man wreathed in tendrils of silver fire.
Erevan's breath caught.
"Ser Kaien…"
The knight he had once called brother.
The knight who had fallen into the Void… and Ascended.
A bell rang — impossibly loud — across the silent world.
A voice, not Kaien's, echoed through Erevan's mind:
"Welcome, knight.
The first of the Fallen Kingdoms awaits your judgment.
Let us see if your ruin still burns."
Erevan drew the Nullblade.
His eyes glowed with flickering silver.
The Sea began to boil.
And Caelmere opened its gates.
End of Chapter 3
Chapter 4: Ash and KnighthoodThe gates of Caelmere didn't creak.
They breathed.
As Erevan stepped through them, the walls seemed to inhale, pulling him deeper into a city that no longer obeyed natural law. The marble stones beneath his feet were slick with black ichor; the old banners of the Dawn Sigil hung like rotting skin from their poles. The city stank of holy rot — the scent of something once divine, now festering.
He moved carefully. The sword in his hand—Nullblade—grew heavier the further he went. Not with weight, but with memory.
Every corner held ghosts.
He passed the old knight academy where he and Kaien had trained. The courtyard was littered with armored husks, their weapons driven through their own chests. They knelt in eternal prayer, lips stitched shut by strands of angelic hair. Above them, scrawled in divine flame across the sky:
"MERCY IS A SIN."
Erevan stopped.
"That wasn't Kaien's handwriting," he muttered.
No. This was something else.
As he approached the central plaza, time stuttered.
The air thickened. Every step felt like a heartbeat dragging across shattered glass. The cathedral ahead—once a place of light—had become a cocoon. Its bell tower curled upward, spiraling into a thorned halo. Light leaked from its seams like blood from a broken god.
And then he heard it—
"Erevan."
The voice was wrong.
Too familiar. Too broken.
From the shadows of the cathedral entrance stepped Ser Kaien.
Or what was left of him.
His armor was molten gold, cracked and fused into his flesh. Wings of smoke flared from his back — not angelic, but reconstructed from pain and memory. His eyes burned silver, leaking divine flame like tears.
And in his hand… he held a lance made of shattered prayers.
"You look older," Kaien said, smiling gently.
"You look dead," Erevan replied.
A silence stretched between them.
Then Kaien spoke: "I offered them salvation. I offered you salvation. But you chose the blade."
"You chose submission," Erevan growled. "You let the gods hollow you out."
Kaien's expression twisted — grief and fury dancing together.
"No, brother. I became something greater. And now I must test you."
He raised his lance.
"The gates have opened. Let Caelmere decide who is worthy."
Erevan stepped forward, the Nullblade humming with a hunger that felt almost alive.
The first trial had begun.
Chapter 4 finished
Chapter 5: BrotherbladeThe plaza shook with power as Erevan and Kaien stood, weapons drawn.
The fallen city of Caelmere watched silently — its cathedrals twitching with anticipation, its streets pulsing with ghostlight.
Kaien spoke first.
"Last time we crossed blades, you were still human."
Erevan tightened his grip on the Nullblade. "And you were still my brother."
Then they moved.
Steel collided with prayer.
Kaien's lance struck like thunder, powered by divine judgment. His steps left trails of radiant fire across the ground, branding symbols into the stone. Erevan ducked low, his Nullblade absorbing the light with each clash, its black edge warping reality around it.
He remembered Kaien's old patterns — the way he'd feint with the left, the tilt of his stance before the Sky-Piercing Thrust. But this Kaien… this was different. Every move was laced with divine augmentation, powered not just by muscle, but belief. The city itself fought for him.
"You gave up your soul," Erevan spat, narrowly dodging a spiraling strike.
Kaien's wings erupted outward — blades of scripture and flame.
"I gave it purpose!" he roared, lunging again.
Erevan rolled beneath the arc, the Nullblade singing a dirge as it slashed upward — catching Kaien across the chest. A gash appeared, hissing as holy light leaked like boiling water.
Kaien staggered, growling. "You always held back."
"And you always chased power you didn't understand," Erevan answered.
The sky fractured.
Above them, an enormous eye opened — golden and lidless. A god was watching.
Kaien's voice dropped to a whisper. "They see you now, Erevan. Even dead, you are a threat."
Erevan paused. "Then let them see what a threat truly is."
He drove the Nullblade into the ground.
The plaza ruptured.
Black light surged upward, forming chains of anti-divine energy that wrapped around Kaien, suppressing the flame in his veins. Kaien cried out as wings burned away, the lance cracking under pressure.
Erevan stepped forward, breathing hard.
Kaien fell to one knee.
"They'll come for you," Kaien whispered. "The real gods. The old ones. Not these newborn tyrants."
"I know," Erevan said. "But first, I'll unmake every kingdom they've poisoned."
He raised the Nullblade—
—but Kaien smiled. "You won't kill me."
"…Why not?"
"Because I still remember the oath we made." His voice trembled. "We rise together. We fall together."
Erevan's hand faltered.
For a moment, the rage dulled.
He turned.
Kaien didn't resist as he collapsed into unconsciousness.
Erevan walked away, blood and light soaking his cloak.
The first kingdom had fallen again — not to gods, not to demons — but to the last knight who remembered what it meant to be human.
But far above, the eye never blinked.
And elsewhere… something older stirred.
End of Chapter 5
Chapter 6: The Silent PantheonFar above the mortal world, beyond light and death, the Throne of Veils pulsed with divine tension.
Nine thrones.
Eight were filled.
One — the God of Silence — remained absent.
Golden forms shimmered: gods made of fire, stone, thought, and void. They were not born, but written — echoes of reality sculpted into permanence by worship and war.
At the center sat Olyx, the Lord of Chains, crowned with a sun made from dead stars.
He spoke without voice, and yet all creation heard:
"Erevan draws breath.
The Nullblade lives.
Caelmere has fallen — again."
A ripple of emotion passed through the gods — contempt, curiosity, hunger.
The Goddess of Light and Law leaned forward. Her hair glowed like seared parchment.
"We erased his name. We unmade his oaths. He should not exist."
"He should not," Olyx agreed. "But he does."
The God of War, forged from endless battlefields, grinned.
"Then let us erase him again. Permanently."
But the God of Dreams, the softest and strangest of them all, whispered:
"If he has returned, the pact is broken. The chains are loosening.
What lies beneath the world… may rise again."
A silence fell.
Then Olyx rose.
"Send the Herald.
Let Erevan know the gods have remembered him."
Chapter 7: The Herald and the HowlErevan stood at the edge of Caelmere, the city behind him now a twisted graveyard.
Kaien remained bound and unconscious in the cathedral — alive, but barely. Erevan had left him with a parting gift: a fragment of his soul embedded in the Nullblade's wound. Kaien would live… and remember.
But something stirred.
A wind, sharp and sudden.
The moon cracked.
From the sky descended a being that was not angel, not demon, and not god.
It wore no face — just a mirrored mask reflecting Erevan's expression.
Its voice was thunder and wind:
"You are summoned.
By the Eight.
Your crimes echo louder than your oaths."
Erevan raised his blade. "And what sentence will they pass?"
The Herald didn't answer.
Instead, it howled — not with a mouth, but with memory.
Erevan fell to one knee, visions slamming into his mind:
The first war, where gods fed on prayer like wolves.
The burning of the sky, when men tried to ascend.
The birth of the Nullblade, forged not to destroy, but to unwrite.
Erevan gasped, bleeding from his eyes. "So that's what you fear…"
He stood again, shakily.
"I am not your servant," he told the Herald. "I'm your consequence."
The Herald paused.
And smiled.
"Then we look forward to your reckoning, O Fallen Knight."
It vanished, leaving only ash and silence.
Erevan looked toward the horizon.
The other kingdoms would not fall quietly.
But neither would he.
End of Book One: Knight of the Fallen Kingdoms