The dawn after our victory was quiet—too quiet.
Even with the enemy retreating, the Crown Mark on my chest pulsed with unease. A cold pressure gripped the air around me, like the world itself had shifted. Something wasn't right.
I stood beside a campfire near the command tents, staring down at the message Cira had handed me the night before. The ancient glyphs still shimmered faintly across the parchment.
The Chained God stirs. The Gate will open. The Harbinger prepares the ritual.
"Chained God," I murmured aloud. "What the hell is he trying to awaken?"
Behind me, Cira approached with silent steps. Her hair was tied back tightly, armor neatly fastened. She looked like she hadn't slept, and I doubted she had.
"There are myths," she said quietly. "Even in the forgotten continent, we treat them like taboo. Stories of a power sealed beyond the veil of our reality. Something that predates the Divin forces, the gods, even mana itself."
"You think it's real?"
Her expression was grim. "We didn't. Not until now."
I folded the parchment slowly. "Then we need to find the gate. Before he opens it."
The Trail to the Forgotten Ruins
Kieran, Elara, Darian, and Lord Kaelen gathered in the war tent as I relayed what we'd learned. The camp outside buzzed with activity—troops recovering, engineers repairing equipment, scouts preparing for recon missions.
Galen leaned over the map table, tracing a path with a thick callused finger. "Our scouts found something last night. Northwest of here—an ancient ruin buried in a collapsed valley. We believe it was once a Divin research site. It's been dormant for centuries."
Lord Kaelen nodded. "Some believe the Gate lies beneath it. The location aligns with forbidden coordinates hidden within our old lore archives."
"We leave today," I said without hesitation.
Kieran looked up. "You think the Harbinger is already there?"
"No," I replied. "But I think he's moving toward it—and I don't intend to let him get there first."
Into the Hollow
The journey to the ruins was rough. For two days, we traveled through thick forests and broken mountain passes, accompanied by a small unit of elite scouts and Cira's commandos.
The land itself resisted us. The further north we went, the stranger things became—trees twisted at unnatural angles, light bent wrong in certain places, and shadows moved where none should exist.
At night, the Mark burned softly under my skin, warning me of something ancient and hungry beneath the soil.
On the third day, we arrived.
The ruins sprawled across a massive crater, half-buried in collapsed rock. Towers of old blackstone jutted from the earth at unnatural angles. Etched into the center of it all was a massive circular stone gate—thirty feet tall, etched in ancient runes that shimmered faintly with golden decay.
"The Gate," Cira breathed, eyes wide. "It's real."
I stepped closer, the Crown Mark glowing as I approached.
And then—
It spoke.
Voice of the Chained
The world froze.
My allies vanished.
The air turned dark, thick, like ink-filled fog.
And in the center of it all stood a being made of chains and shadows, bound by shackles of starlight, suspended within the ring of the broken gate. Its voice echoed directly into my thoughts—deep, layered, ancient.
"Another comes… wearing the Crown… drunk on borrowed fate."
I stood still, body locked in place, though I could still breathe.
"You are not the first. And you will not be the last. The Harbinger seeks to free me… but you… you are a ripple."
"A ripple?" I asked aloud.
"A contradiction… You are both flame and flood. Order and undoing. You were once whole… now shattered into will and fear."
I gritted my teeth. "What are you?"
"I am the Forgotten God… the one even the stars abandoned."
The vision shifted—flashes of ancient war, gods falling from the sky, cities crumbling beneath waves of formless madness. A glimpse of what once ruled and what should never return.
"The Harbinger would make me flesh again. Would tear the veil and return me to the waking world."
"And what would you do if freed?"
The being laughed—chains rattling like thunder.
"Unmake. Reclaim. Reforge."
And just as suddenly, I was back.
Alarm in the Ruins
I staggered back, gasping. Kieran grabbed my shoulder. "Sylas?! What just happened?"
"I spoke to it," I said hoarsely, shaking. "The Chained God. He's real. He's aware."
Everyone froze.
Cira's face drained of color. "What did he say?"
"That the Harbinger wants to break the Gate and unleash him."
"And if he does?" Elara asked.
I looked at her gravely. "Then everything we know—this world, the next—it all ends."
Saboteurs in the Shadows
We didn't have long to process what I'd seen. That night, as we camped in the ruins, the enemy made their move.
It started with a scream.
One of the scouts fell, his throat slashed silently. Another vanished in the dark, only their blood marking the stone floor.
Cira reacted instantly, flaring a pulse of light from a glyph on her bracer. "We're under attack!"
Silencers poured from the shadows—cloaked figures, their movements unnatural and silent. Their blades gleamed with poisoned mana, and their eyes glowed with eerie violet light.
I moved instinctively, drawing on the Crown's power and releasing a protective wave of force around our core team.
Kieran blinked forward, cutting two Silencers down before they could react. Elara met them with crushing fists, each blow laced with mana that shattered bone and stone alike.
I faced one directly—his eyes dead, his face half-covered in ancient runes. He lunged, faster than any normal man, but the Crown whispered his intent before he moved. I parried, twisted, and drove golden threads into his chest, unraveling the power animating him.
Within minutes, it was over.
But the damage had been done.
Two of our scouts were dead. A third mortally wounded.
And worse—
"They were stalling," Cira said darkly, crouched near a damaged terminal.
"What?" I asked.
She pointed. "They triggered something. The Gate—it's starting to react."
Awakening
The broken Gate began to glow, slowly at first. Runes etched into its surface flared to life, pulsing in time with an unseen heartbeat. The air grew cold, and the very sky above began to shimmer, bending unnaturally.
Lord Kaelen and the engineers worked fast, attempting to shut the system down, but something had been activated deep beneath the ruins—a forgotten mechanism designed to prepare the world for a god's return.
"They started the ritual," Kaelen cursed. "They didn't need the Harbinger to do it—they just needed enough Crown energy. And Sylas just gave it to them."
"It was a trap," I muttered, heart sinking.
"Can we stop it?" Elara demanded.
Cira turned, her face pale. "We don't have time. This place is becoming unstable. If the Gate completes activation, the Chained God's influence will spill through—even without a full release."
Kaelen straightened. "We evacuate. Now. And we bomb this ruin from the sky."
Evacuation and Resolve
The retreat was fast and coordinated. Airships circled low, picking up squads and survivors while engineers planted mana disruptors along the perimeter. As the last of us boarded the final ship, I looked back once—at the gate now glowing like a second sun.
And in my mind, I heard the Chained God whisper again.
You will choose… release or ruin. Soon.
Then we were airborne, and the charges below detonated.
The ruins collapsed in on themselves, stone and light imploding into the earth.
But the sky above continued to shimmer, as if the Gate had only begun to awaken.