The ruins had not yet settled when the sky itself seemed to react.
Dark clouds twisted overhead, thick and heavy.
Every head tilted up.
A presence descended.
It was not fast, nor dramatic. It came down slowly, confidently, as if the battlefield already belonged to it. The clouds parted just enough to allow a single figure to emerge, drifting downward with a strange calm.
He landed lightly, boots touching the ruined ground without sound.
The man wore a bright smile, too bright. It did not fit the destruction around him. It did not fit the tension, the grief, the exhaustion written on every face present.
His eyes swept across the group, amused.
Then his gaze dropped to the ashes on the ground. To the broken remains of Xekar.
"What a sight," the man said softly, almost cheerfully. "Reduced to nothing but ash… and a hand."
He sighed, shaking his head. "Such a pity."
Only then did he look back at them.
"Oh," he added suddenly, clapping his hands together once. "Where are my manners?"
He cleared his throat, straightened slightly, and spoke as if he were introducing himself at a gathering rather than standing in the middle of a battlefield soaked in blood and ruin.
"I am Vorath," he said. "The Sixth Commander of the one who shall soon reign over this world."
Vorath's appearance was deeply unsettling the longer one looked at him. His body was tall but unnaturally thin, as if the flesh barely clung to his bones, pale skin stretched tight and marked with countless scars and crude stitches from experiments long past.
His left arm was wrong, part scaled, part feathered, part clawed, its shape subtly shifting as if it could not decide what it wanted to be. One of his eyes glowed an eerie green, the veins around it dark and pulsing, while the other looked almost ordinary, making the contrast even more disturbing.
He wore a tattered wizard's robe etched with faintly glowing runes that moved slowly, like something alive beneath the fabric. Floating beside him hovered a strange device, warped and mechanical yet arcane, quietly rotating as if waiting to release whatever horrors it stored within.
Despite all of this, his smile remained calm, almost friendly, which somehow made him far more terrifying than any monster they had faced so far.
His smile widened just a little.
"And for that future to come to pass," he continued, "the jewel you are fighting over is required. So… if you could simply hand it over, that would be nice. For all of us."
The words were polite. The meaning was not.
Doran stepped forward immediately, fury in his voice. "Do you have something loose in your head? You really think we're just going to give it to you?"
Vorath tilted his head, as if genuinely confused. "How rude," he said. "And how arrogant."
He spread his arms slightly. "As I said, hand me the jewel, and this can end in a way that would be nice for all of us. I save time. You save your lives."
His smile never faded. Not even as he spoke a clear threat.
Caelus did not move, but his grip tightened around his sword. His eyes narrowed. "He mentioned experiments," he said quietly. "Does that mean… Xekar's body was his doing?"
Vorath's glowing eye flickered with interest.
"My, my," he said pleasantly. "Such a clever one among you."
He snapped his fingers.
"In a word, yes."
Before anyone could react, Vorath vanished from where he stood. Not a blur. Not speed.
He simply wasn't there anymore.
In the next instant, he reappeared beside the ashes. His hand closed around what remained of Xekar, the twisted, broken hand that had once held so much power, which was held by Kalix just a second ago. Kalix was clearly stunned, he didn't get how Vorath took Xekar of his hand without him realising it.
He lifted it gently, almost tenderly.
"Look how poorly they treated you," Vorath said softly. "But don't worry. I will fix this. I always do."
The strange eye embedded within the hand flickered faintly. There was exhaustion in it. And rage.
Vorath smiled at that.
"I shall resurrect you soon."
As he spoke, Xekar's eyes closed, the world seemed to fade slightly, and a memory surfaced, one not born from magic alone, but from pain so deep it had carved itself into existence.
Xekar had not always been a monster.
He had been born into the lowest tier of demon society, a place where worth was decided before breath. From the moment he could understand the world, he understood one truth clearly, he was considered lesser. Not because of weakness, but because of birth.
He had wanted only one thing. To grow strong enough to protect his family. But the world did not allow that dream to live.
One day, he saw his father kneeling in the dirt, begging another demon, one of higher class, for food. The demon did not answer with words. He answered with a kick, sending Xekar's father crashing to the ground.
Xekar had reacted without thinking. He rushed forward, anger overtaking fear.
He never reached him.
Hands seized him, holding him back as punishment was prepared. And when it came, it did not fall on Xekar.
His father stepped forward. He took it all.
The beating. The humiliation. The laughter. He was stripped of dignity in front of everyone, treated as less than nothing. Xekar was forced to watch, frozen, powerless, as the world carved that moment into him forever.
That night, Xekar cried until his chest hurt. He begged forgiveness for being weak, for being unable to protect the man who had protected him his whole life.
His father did not blame him.
He held him. Calmed him. Looked him in the eyes and spoke the truth they lived by.
"We are lower class," he said gently. "We survive by lowering our heads."
But Xekar refused to accept that truth.
He trained. He endured. He grew stronger.
Eventually, he earned a place within a dungeon force. He thought things would change.
They didn't.
No matter how capable he became, respect never came with it. When he spoke against the discrimination, they responded with force. When he resisted, they overwhelmed him. Many against one.
They broke him again.
This time, they imprisoned him.
They brought his family to the dungeon.
And they made him watch.
Day after day, his family was abused, broken, and destroyed in front of his eyes. He was restrained, unable to move, unable to look away. They ensured he could not escape what he was forced to witness. His father was used as a punch bag and his mother and siblings were seen as a tool for their pleasure.
Time lost meaning.
Pain became routine.
When his father finally died under the endless torture, it did not stop. When his mother and siblings were no longer seen as entertaining, they were taken from him forever.
Xekar was left with nothing.
Less than nothing. They tortured him daily, and one by one they sliced off each of his limbs.
When they were done, they threw him away like refuse. His broken body was cast into a river, their final words carved into him as deeply as the scars he carried. You are just a worthless being, This is what lower class get.
That was where Z———r found him.
Floating. Barely alive.
Most would have looked away.
Z———r did not.
He saw something in Xekar. Not strength. Not rage.
Resilience.
Xekar was brought to Vorath.
What followed was rebirth through suffering. His body was rebuilt through forbidden magic and chimeric methods beyond morality by no other than Vorath. When Xekar awoke, his body was no longer his own.
And Z———r spoke only one question.
"Do you want to shake the entire upper class?"
That question gave Xekar purpose again.
---
Back in the present, Vorath stood calmly amidst the ruins, holding the remains of his creation. The battlefield trembled, not just from corrupted energy, but from what his presence meant.
The Ruins of Never-ending Dreams had survived war.
But now... A new foe had arrived.