Krail's body remained motionless in the ruined street. The skin-walker stood over him, its stolen face staring blankly into the distance. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then its body began to change. Bones shifted beneath its skin with unnatural fluidity. Its height decreased, its shoulders narrowed, and its features rearranged themselves until the creature looked exactly like Krail. Even his clothes, weapons, and mana signature were reproduced perfectly. Black flames flickered around its fingers. The skin-walker stared at its new hands before smiling with Krail's face. "Interesting." Even its voice was almost perfect. It picked up Krail's weapons and began walking.
It eventually found Ravik and Morthan moving through the ruins. Morthan was the first to notice him. "There you are." The false Krail nodded. "Took me a while to find you." Morthan relaxed, but Ravik did not. His eyes remained fixed on Krail. Something was wrong. He couldn't identify it. The mana signature was correct. The appearance was correct. Even the mannerisms were nearly flawless. Yet Ravik's instincts whispered that the demon standing before him wasn't Krail. "Where were you?" Ravik asked. "I got separated after the teleportation spell." The answer sounded reasonable. Ravik narrowed his eyes. "And you found us?" "Eventually." Krail smiled. Ravik said nothing. He couldn't prove his suspicion, so he continued moving. From that moment onward, however, he kept the false Krail within his sight.
For five days, the three demons traveled through Gorgoroth while avoiding its horrors. The city seemed to change around them. Streets occasionally led somewhere different from where they remembered. Buildings seemed to shift whenever they weren't looking. Strange creatures watched them from the darkness before disappearing without a sound. Ravik became increasingly cautious, while Morthan grew increasingly irritated. The false Krail remained quiet and obedient, carefully studying both demons. It learned their movements, their habits, their fighting styles, and the subtle expressions they made when afraid. It never made a mistake large enough to expose itself. Ravik's suspicion remained, but there was nothing he could do about it.
On the fifth day, they found what they had been searching for. A small orchard grew between several ancient ruins. It was strangely peaceful compared to the rest of Gorgoroth. Twisted trees grew in neat rows, their branches covered in bizarre fruits. Some resembled hearts. Others had tiny eyes embedded within their surfaces. Several fruits pulsed slowly as if they were alive. In the center of the garden grew a strange plant with pale golden roots and a single glowing fruit hanging from its highest branch.
Ravik immediately recognized it. "The Elixir Worm." Morthan looked around uneasily. "It's too quiet." The false Krail smiled. "Then let's take it before the quiet becomes something else." Ravik nodded and stepped into the orchard. None of them noticed the distant shadows moving between the trees.
Deep beneath the ancient temple, Bani closed the book in his hands. His thoughts were racing. The Void King. The pact. The avatar. He had believed the faceless mask was merely an artifact that had granted him an unusual ability. Now he knew the truth. The mask had not simply chosen him. Through it, he had become an avatar of the Void King. Bani remained silent for several moments. "So that's what I am." The realization should have terrified him. Instead, he felt strangely calm. Perhaps some part of him had always known. Perhaps the mask had been revealing the truth gradually.
He continued searching the ancient records and discovered something even more important. Gorgoroth possessed a method of escape. Somewhere within the ruined city was a circular stone engraved with ancient runes. If activated correctly, the stone could create a passage beyond the boundaries of Gorgoroth. Bani stared at the description. Then he sighed. Of course. The one thing capable of getting him out was located in the city crawling with skin-walkers. "Why couldn't it have been under the library?" he muttered. He closed the book and began making his way toward the surface.
Bani entered the ruined city while concealing his presence with the faceless mask. He moved through the shadows, keeping his footsteps silent and his mana signature hidden. The city was far larger than he had expected. Ancient towers rose into the darkness, broken bridges connected ruined structures, and countless streets stretched toward the enormous castle dominating the center of Gorgoroth. Then Bani saw them. Skin-walkers. Dozens of them moved through the streets. Some were tall and slender, others were massive, but all possessed the same horrifying speed. They searched through buildings and ruins as though hunting for something. Bani remained hidden beneath the shadow of a collapsed structure. "They're looking for something." His instincts told him that whatever had caused their behavior was important.
Above the city stood the castle. It was so enormous that it seemed less like a fortress and more like a mountain carved into the shape of one. Its towers pierced the darkness, rising toward the dim star hanging above Gorgoroth. Bani watched it for several moments. Something about that castle disturbed him. The mask itself seemed strangely tense. Then the sky broke.
There was no explosion. No warning. Reality simply fractured.
Cracks spread across the heavens like fractures through an enormous mirror. The dim star vanished behind the broken sky. Every creature in Gorgoroth stopped moving. The demons froze. The skin-walkers froze. Bani froze. Even the wind seemed to disappear.
Then an eye emerged.
It appeared behind the fractured reality, impossibly enormous. Its iris was larger than mountains, its pupil deeper than the darkest abyss. There was no ordinary color within it. Instead, Bani saw darkness, stars, strange patterns, and things his mind refused to understand. The eye did not merely look at Gorgoroth. It perceived everything within it.
It saw the skin-walkers.
It saw the demons.
It saw Bani.
It saw their thoughts.
Their memories.
Their emotions.
Their intentions.
Bani felt something cold pass through his mind.
For a fraction of a second, he felt as though every secret he possessed had been laid bare before that eye.
The faceless mask reacted violently.
Bani's mana surged uncontrollably.
He immediately lowered himself.
Then the pressure descended.
It wasn't simply physical pressure.
It was the weight of an existence.
The entire city seemed to become heavier.
Stone cracked beneath the skin-walkers.
Buildings groaned.
The ground trembled.
Demons collapsed to their knees.
Bani's body was forced downward despite every attempt to resist.
His soul trembled.
His connection to his shadows became unstable.
For the first time since receiving the mask, Bani felt genuinely helpless.
The eye wasn't attacking him.
It didn't need to.
Its mere attention was enough.
Across Gorgoroth, the skin-walkers collapsed.
Creatures that could overwhelm demons with their physical strength were suddenly reduced to trembling figures pressed against the ground. Their monstrous bodies were unable to resist the pressure.
Then the darkness came
It emerged from the castle.
At first, it looked like ordinary shadow.
Then it expanded.
It poured from the castle walls and spread across the city like an endless ocean.
Buildings disappeared beneath it.
Streets vanished.
The ground itself became swallowed by darkness.
But this wasn't ordinary darkness.
There was something inside it.
Something vast.
Something ancient.
Something that Bani instinctively recognized.
The Void King.
He could not see its true form.
There was no body to see.
No face.
No limbs.
Only an unfathomable presence hidden within the darkness.
The darkness wasn't simply surrounding the Void King.
It felt as though the darkness itself was what remained visible because everything else about the Void King's existence was too incomprehensible for reality to display.
Bani lowered his head.
His instincts screamed at him not to look.
This was the being whose avatar he had become.
And yet standing beneath its presence made him feel smaller than ever.
There was no warmth from the connection.
No protection.
The Void King simply existed.
That alone was enough to make Gorgoroth kneel.
Then Bani noticed another figure.
A man hovered in the space between the fractured sky and the darkness consuming the castle.
Unlike the Void King, the man possessed a visible form.
He stood calmly in the air.
His presence was immense.
Yet it was completely different from the Void King's.
The Void King felt like an endless abyss.
This man felt like something that could stand before that abyss without being swallowed.
This was August.
The moment Bani recognized him, an uncomfortable realization settled within him.
August wasn't hiding from the Void King.
He wasn't being crushed by its presence.
He was simply standing there.
As though the overwhelming pressure of the Void King was merely an unpleasant wind.
Bani's heart tightened.
How powerful did someone have to be to stand there?
The colossal eye shifted toward August.
The darkness surrounding the castle moved.
The entire city trembled.
August did not.
He remained suspended between the eye above and the darkness below.
The contrast was terrifying. Above him was the colossal eye, a manifestation of something so vast that reality itself had fractured to make room for it.
Below him was the darkness containing the Void King, an existence so incomprehensible that even its true form could not properly manifest.
And between them stood one man.
August.
Morthan made the mistake of looking.
Only for an instant.
His eyes caught a glimpse of the darkness.
Not the Void King's complete form.
Not even a fraction of it.
Only something within the shadows.
That was enough.
Morthan's mind tried to understand what it had witnessed.
His thoughts collapsed.
His soul could not contain the information.His existence simply failed beneath the weight of that glimpse.
Ravik watched Morthan fall. His face turned pale.
"Don't look."
He immediately lowered his head. His hands trembled. He finally understood. This was not a battle between powerful beings.
It was something far beyond the scale of battle.
A battle required two sides capable of harming each other.
The demons beneath them were not participants.
They were spectators standing too close to an approaching storm.
If the Void King unleashed even a fraction of its power, Gorgoroth would cease to be a city.
If August answered with equal force, the consequences would likely extend far beyond Gorgoroth.
The world itself might become the battlefield.
Then August spoke.
His voice echoed across the entire city.
It did not come from his mouth alone.
It traveled through the air, the stone, the darkness, and the fractured sky.
"No."
The single word caused the ruins to tremble. August's gaze remained fixed upon the darkness.
"I will not battle."
The Void King remained silent. The colossal eye stared down at him.
August continued calmly. "It will not benefit either of us if we were to battle."
The darkness shifted. The pressure increased. Cracks spread across the ground. The remaining demons groaned. Bani's body was forced even lower.
Yet August remained completely still. There was no fear in his posture.
No hesitation. No need to demonstrate his strength. That calmness was more frightening than any display of power.
August didn't refuse because he was weaker.
He refused because he understood exactly what a battle between them would mean.
The Void King was not merely an extraordinarily powerful creature.
It was an existence that stood outside the normal boundaries of reality.
August, however, possessed enough power to stand before that existence and negotiate.
That alone placed him beyond anything Bani had previously encountered.
Bani finally understood why the ancient records had spoken of the Void King in such strange terms.
It wasn't a monarch in the conventional sense.
It wasn't simply a god.
It was something that made the word god feel inadequate.
And August?
August was the only being in Gorgoroth who looked at that incomprehensible existence and spoke as though they were equals.
Bani remained on the ground, his head lowered.
For once, even his unusual humor had disappeared.
He had spent weeks running from skin-walkers.
He had feared the guardians of Gorgoroth. The hollow statue of kings that hunted him through the mask
He had nearly exhausted his mana fighting for survival.
Yet all those dangers suddenly felt insignificant.
Because now he understood what true power looked like.
The skin-walkers were profane beast.
The demons were warriors.
Bani himself was an avatar.
But the beings above them?
They were something else entirely.
They were the kind of existence that could turn the battlefield into reality itself.
And Bani could only hope that neither August nor the Void King decided that Gorgoroth was worth destroying.