Perspective: Alessio Leone
Before the stone slab, I finally found the answer to the mystery surrounding the Gloomshade Forest—
and the two vanished armies.
Ironically, it wasn't the result of brilliant deduction or memories from my past life.
The answer was simply there, carved in front of me—letters etched by hand, worn by time yet still legible.
A record.
A confession.
And, in the end, a farewell.
The slab behind the sealed coffin wasn't some ritual relic, nor a dark altar as I had imagined.
It was a tomb.
A memorial for all the men who gave their lives in this place—trying to prevent a far greater evil from awakening.
The first lines were crude, written by someone likely on the brink of death, yet determined to leave the truth for those who would come after:
"Let the world know, one day, what happened in Gloomshade."
From there, the account unfolded with the desperate clarity of someone racing against death itself.
It spoke of the arrival of the Thalgrande army in the forest, pursuing the last remnants of Durnholde's forces.
Even within the maze-like vastness of Gloomshade, Thalgrande's soldiers managed to track their enemies—thanks to a skilled tracker who accompanied them.
However, when the two forces finally met, what followed was not the expected confrontation.
Not a desperate clash between hunters and hunted.
Not even the clean massacre Thalgrande anticipated.
What happened was an alliance.
The following lines described an unlikely union—between pursuers and fugitives—who, upon facing each other, discovered a far greater evil rising within the forest.
From there, the writing grew unsteady, trembling strokes and broken words—but the name stood out, carved deep enough to defy time itself:
"The Lich of the Green Moon."
The name made my body go cold.
It wasn't unfamiliar.
I remembered it all too well.
The Lich of the Green Moon had been responsible for countless catastrophes in my previous life—events that wiped out entire cities, destroyed guilds, and took the lives of thousands of players.
He was one of the most brutal and infamous bosses in all of the Black Tower.
And now, I was standing before his tomb.
The account went on to describe the ritual the Lich had attempted—a profane ceremony meant to absorb the power of the dead and transcend the limits of death itself.
That ritual was discovered by the surviving soldiers of Durnholde, and with the help of Thalgrande's army, the two forces united to face him.
They fought against an endless horde of undead under the Lich's command.
Months of war, chaos, and despair followed.
But in the end—they did the impossible.
They sealed him.
The price, however, was far too great.
The text spoke of a world collapsing—casualties mounting, disease, hunger, and finally… silence.
None of them survived.
Both armies were sacrificed to stop the monster's advance.
The man who wrote the slab explained in his final words that both Durnholde and Thalgrande soldiers had families within the kingdom—parents, wives, children—and they knew that if they failed, those loved ones would be the first to die under the Lich's power.
It was a conscious sacrifice.
Final.
And heroic.
The last line read like a prayer—an ominous warning carved with trembling strokes:
"We sealed him, but the seal is temporary.
One day, the Green Moon will shine again, and with it, the Lich will awaken.
May future generations finish what we began.
He is trapped… within the coffin."
When I finished reading, I stood in silence.
The air grew heavier.
The torches flickered, as though they too responded to the story just unearthed.
In the end, my suspicions were right.
The player who once discovered the magical items in this dungeon… was the same one who awakened the Lich of the Green Moon.
A tragic mistake that cost thousands of lives when the monster returned.
No wonder the man never revealed all the details.
If he had told the full truth, he would've become a target—and his head would've been worth gold to the great guilds of Thalgrande.
Even so, pride betrayed him.
He couldn't resist boasting in the forums, bragging about his "adventure," omitting what he had truly found.
And now… I understood why.
That was when my mind snapped back to the present.
I heard Sith's voice in the background, but the words didn't register at first—just a muffled call, a faint echo.
Then, as the pieces fell into place—the tomb, the seals, the Lich, the story—the meaning struck like lightning.
Cold ran through my veins.
Instinct screamed before reason could form.
"Wait, Sith!" I roared, spinning around.
But it was already too late.
She stood with her back to me, smiling—two magical items in her hands.
And the ground was already trembling.
A deep, resonant rumble rolled beneath us like a subterranean thunder.
The torches flared.
The runes on the floor lit up in green and gold.
The seal was broken.
The items Sith held—the crimson grimoire and the golden necklace—were no mere treasures.
And I realized it too late.
They were part of the seal.
The cores that powered the magic keeping the Lich of the Green Moon imprisoned within his coffin.
Living batteries of ancient power.
Now, without them, the containment began to collapse before my eyes.
The floor shook beneath our feet, and an invisible pressure filled the air—heavy, suffocating—as if something long dead was trying to breathe again after centuries of silence.
The runes around the coffin, once dormant, flared in red and gold, the same glow I had seen on the lid.
And then—the worst happened.
Two of the five seals began to crack.
At first, thin fractures spread across the glowing metal—then, with a sharp snap, each one shattered in a burst of blinding energy.
The sound echoed like glass breaking inside a temple.
Particles of light scattered through the air, and the power that once sealed the coffin was absorbed by the stone itself—gone.
My stomach dropped.
There was no doubt anymore.
The seal was unraveling—visibly, audibly, terrifyingly real.
The air in the room changed.
An unnatural cold tore through the lingering heat of the torches. Their green flames flickered, growing pale and unstable—as if even the fire was afraid to stay alive.
Sith and I locked eyes. I could see it in her gaze—she didn't yet understand what she had done.
But I did.
We had released the Lich of the Green Moon.
And far too early.
In my memory, the Lich's awakening event was supposed to happen nearly two years later—
when the Black Tower would already be filled with powerful players, when great guilds had armies and strategies prepared.
But now…
now it was only the third day of the game.
No armies.
No plans.
No one else but us.
And the thing sleeping beneath that coffin—
was beginning to wake.