The sky did not shift as Kael walked away from the ashes of the village
It remained gray and heavy like a sky mourning the death of something ancient
His cloak dragged behind him soaked in blood dirt and grief
He did not look back
There was nothing behind him but graves and ghosts
Ahead stretched the black forest its trees twisted and sick as if the roots had drunk too deeply from cursed soil
The birds did not sing here
Even the wind moved like it feared to wake something older than time
Kael moved between the trees his boots crushing bones and brittle leaves
His skin was cold but his blood burned his thoughts echoing with the last scream of his sister
He would never forget that sound
He would make the world remember it too
The forest grew darker the deeper he walked the air thick with decay and silence
Then a whisper slithered through the branches not words but hunger
Kael stopped his hand tightening around the hilt of his sword
From the shadows stepped a creature hunched and broken with arms too long and a face like torn leather stitched with teeth
Its eyes were hollow filled with smoke and endless hunger
Kael said nothing
The thing lunged
Kael struck once clean and fast the blade slicing through bone and shadow
The creature collapsed its head rolling through the roots of a dead tree
Its body did not bleed
It leaked smoke and whispers
Kael kept walking
This was not the last
More followed
Some crawled others floated their limbs twitching their mouths open in silent screams
They came from every side and Kael welcomed them
He moved like a storm his blade spinning arcs of shadow light slicing necks crushing skulls cutting bodies in half
Each kill was a release
Each scream was a prayer
Not for mercy
But for vengeance
One of the beasts slammed into him claws tearing through his arm
Kael grabbed it by the throat shadow exploding from his palm melting its face to ash
He did not stop
The deeper he walked the stronger they came
Some could speak broken words whispers of temptation promises of lost souls and false gods
Kael answered them with fire and steel
He reached a clearing where the trees ended in a wall of black stone rising like the bones of a buried god
An ancient gate sealed with runes pulsing red stood before him
He touched the gate
The runes hissed and burned his hand
But he did not pull back
He poured his rage into it the curse in his veins reacting to the ancient seal
The stone screamed and cracked then opened
Behind it lay a stairway descending into darkness so deep it swallowed even light
Kael stepped into it without hesitation
The air grew colder with each step the stone beneath his feet damp and slick with old blood
He could hear them breathing below not creatures but watchers the ones who whispered into the minds of kings and drove men mad
The stair ended in a chamber wide and round with walls covered in carvings of gods with their eyes gouged out
At the center was an altar
And on the altar lay a mask
It was made of bone and shadow its edges sharp its eyeholes empty and endless
Kael walked toward it
Voices rose from the walls from the cracks from the floor screaming warnings curses threats
He did not care
He picked up the mask and put it on
It fused to his face not like an object but like a memory he had forgotten
He saw everything
The death of kingdoms
The betrayal of gods
The curse born from vengeance
He saw himself standing in a sea of bodies his eyes glowing like dying stars
The mask whispered one word
Begin
Kael turned from the altar his new eyes cutting through the dark
He could see the veins of the world now the cracks in reality the lines of magic twisting beneath the surface
He walked back up the stairs the chamber collapsing behind him as if the world itself rejected what he had become
Outside the sky bled
Not rain
But ash and fire
The trees screamed as they burned
The world was beginning to rot
Kael stood on the edge of the cliff his body wrapped in shadow his heart hollow his hands ready
They would feel what he felt
They would suffer as he suffered
He was not the hero
He was the end
And his path had only just begun