Coker woke, not to silence—but to pulse.
It wasn't the sound of blood or the beat of a heart. It was something deeper. Older. A primordial rhythm that moved through stone, root, and breath. He didn't open his eyes at first. He didn't need to. He could feel everything.
Every molecule around him trembled. Every breath the world took, he took with it.
Then—
He opened his eyes.
The cave wasn't a cave anymore. The walls were shifting, glowing with sigils from a language no one remembered. Symbols carved into the stone before memory existed. It was as if the world itself had written a prophecy here, and his presence had awakened it.
And he knew...
This wasn't just a cave.
It was a womb.
And he had been reborn.
He sat up slowly, feeling the weight of power roll off his skin like steam. His hands glowed faintly. Not with light, but with authority. The markings that had burned across his arms hadn't faded—they had deepened. They shimmered like they were alive, like they were watching him.
The curse? No.
Not anymore.
This was something more.
An inheritance.
He stepped forward and the stone cracked. Not violently. But like it was giving way. Yielding to him. The very earth remembered his name, even if he still didn't.
The air was cold outside. The sky? Pitch-black.
But the moon... oh, the moon had descended.
It no longer hovered high like some distant god.
No.
Tonight, the moon had knelt.
Lower than ever before, massive and glowing silver-gold, it hovered at the edge of the horizon as if trying to meet his gaze. It was swollen with power, as if it, too, had felt his awakening.
Coker stepped into the clearing.
The trees bowed away from him. The wind grew still. The stars dimmed slightly—as if even they were holding their breath.
And in that moment, a storm of memories slammed into him.
He saw other beast masters, hundreds of them—each one burning bright and falling in silence.
He saw shadows so ancient they didn't even have forms—only hunger.
He saw the throne of bones—his throne—shattered in a war no book ever recorded.
He saw himself.
Not as the dirty boy in rags.
But as a beast in human skin. Horns. Fangs. Wings forged of night.
And behind him…
Legions.
Creatures of nightmare. Dragons. Hounds. Crows the size of cities. And they all looked at him the way a church looks at a god.
The vision shattered.
And the world returned.
But it wasn't the same.
Nothing was.
He lifted his hand—and the shadows bent with it.
A voice rose from deep within the forest, hissing like a blade pulled from its scabbard. Coker turned his head slowly.
The trees twisted.
A new beast stepped out.
It wasn't Vorakh.
It wasn't any beast he'd known.
It was something older.
Its body was bone and ash, stitched together by lightning and rage. Its eyes were pits of endless dark. It didn't snarl. It didn't roar.
It knelt.
And in a voice that sounded like every death scream in the world, it said:
"He has awakened."
The forest bowed.
The moon trembled.
And across the ocean, in the halls of kings and cowards, seers fell to their knees and screamed. Paintings cracked. Books caught fire. Magic flinched.
Because the one they'd tried to erase…
Was back.
Coker didn't speak.
He didn't smile.
He just took one step forward—and the world moved with him.