The ruins of the Great Hall felt smaller now, or perhaps it was just that Clevatess had grown too large for them. He stood motionless, the high collar of his midnight-black tunic framing a face that had aged not in years, but in wisdom. The gold embroidery on his sleeves seemed to catch the very little light left in the room, pulsing like a slow, rhythmic heartbeat.
"Ten years," Clevatess whispered. The words didn't fall; they hung in the air, freezing the moisture into tiny, glittering crystals of Absolute Zero.
The Golden Executioner, a man whose "Vanguard" plate armor was etched with runes of solar fire, took a trembling step back. The heat from his spear, once a roaring flame, was being choked out by the mere presence of the King.The Queen... she told us the era of Shadows was over," the Hero stammered, his lion-shaped visor reflecting the violet glow of Clevatess's eyes. "She told us the King was a martyr who died so we could have the Light."
Clevatess didn't strike. He simply reached out and touched the tip of the Hero's glowing spear. Upon contact, the golden light didn't shatter—it surrendered. The violet mana flowed into the metal like ink in water, turning the holy weapon into a tool of the abyss.
"A martyr is someone who dies for a cause," Clevatess said, his voice a calm eye in the center of a gathering storm. "I did not die. I was simply waiting for the world to remember why it needs the night."
Beside him, Alicia and Nelluru watched as the "Stained Reality" began to bleed out of the room and into the sky above. They weren't just in a ruined hall anymore; they were at the starting line of a war that had been brewing for a decade while they slept.
Clevatess looked at the Hero, his raven-feather mantle rustling though there was no wind. "Go back to your High Citadel. Do not tell her I am here. Just tell her that the shadows she tried to bury have started to grow again. Let her wonder which one will reach her first."
As the Hero fled into the mist, Clevatess turned to his companions. The path to the capital was long, filled with "Vanguard" fortresses and a people who thought their savior was a ghost.We move at dawn," the King commanded. "The throne is occupied, but the kingdom still belongs to the shadow."