The clouds parted for a breath of sunlight. Ice cracked gently beneath Adrien's boots as he stood just outside the cave, scanning the mountain slope. The cold stung, but he didn't flinch.
Damien leaned against the rock wall behind him, still nursing bruises. "You sure you felt him?"
Adrien didn't answer right away.
Then… a pulse.
It wasn't heard — it was known. Deep in the chest, like the echo of a heartbeat that wasn't his.
A shape emerged from the treeline below.
Four legs. Low to the snow. Eyes like bloodlit glass.
Nyxaris.
Adrien stepped forward, breath caught in his throat. The young shadowbeast moved slowly, with visible strain, but his form was whole — black fur seamless, crimson eyes dull but alive, horn cracked but glowing faintly.
Nyxaris stopped before Adrien and lowered his head.
Adrien knelt.
There were no words at first — just hands in fur, a forehead pressed gently to the wolf's. The shadows around Nyxaris pulsed like breath.
Damien let out a long sigh. "…You weren't joking. I thought he was gone for good."
"Me too," Adrien said, voice low, steady. Then he whispered to Nyxaris, "Don't do that again."
Nyxaris grumbled softly, flicking his tail.
Adrien gave a short laugh and scratched behind his ear. "Yeah, yeah. I know. Next time I'll let you do the thinking."
Adrien sat near the fire again, cloaked in his coat, watching the flames.
The tall man — who had barely spoken since morning — stood nearby, staring toward the sealed path deeper into the rock.
Adrien finally broke the silence. "That beast we fought… it wasn't just wild. It was protecting something."
The man nodded slowly. "It was a sentinel. Not the first. Not the last."
"Sentinel of what?"
The man didn't look at him. "A prison."
Adrien narrowed his eyes. "…You mean like… a sealed monster?"
"No," the man said quietly. "Something older. Buried when your kind still thought fire was a gift from the sky. And it was not sealed by man."
Adrien was silent. His gaze dropped to the fire. His fingers idly brushed the hilt of his sword.
"…You're not just some wandering hunter, are you?"
Finally, the man turned.
"I am a Warden," he said. "Of what Ardonis once deemed too dangerous to unmake. I was left behind… to remember what others chose to forget."
The name struck Adrien like a whisper in his spine.
"…You know that name?"
The Warden studied him now, his voice low. "You carry a piece of him. Not his power, not exactly. But the weight of it. I can feel it in your shadow."
Adrien's expression faltered, his sarcasm gone. He looked down at his hands.
"…I didn't choose it."
"No one does."
"…Then what do I do with it?"
The Warden sat beside the fire, setting his blade beside him.
"You carry it until you understand why it chose you. And when you do — you decide whether to become him… or undo him."
Adrien stayed quiet, jaw tense.
"I'm not him," he said after a while. "I don't want to be him."
The Warden looked to the cave mouth, where snowflakes danced against the black.
"You may not have a choice."
The world changed with a single step.
As Adrien, Damien, Nyxaris, and the Warden climbed higher past the frostline, the air shimmered — not from heat or cold, but from veil-rent light.
The sky darkened unnaturally.
A crescent moon hung in a void-black sky where the sun should have been, casting no light.
Around them, the mountain warped. The stones pulsed faintly, as though alive. Strange, ancient glyphs glimmered briefly along the cliff face and vanished. Nyxaris stopped once, fur raised, hackles stiff.
Damien exhaled. "Where the hell are we?"
The Warden answered simply, voice firm. "The boundary broke. We've stepped into the Shadowborn Realm."
Adrien frowned, his steps slowing. "You knew this would happen?"
"I suspected. The mountain guards more than a prisoner — it touches the edge of what Ardonis left behind."
Nyxaris snarled. Adrien's hand hovered over his sword.
The wind grew heavy.
A shriek tore across the sky — not natural, not born of lungs.
A shape dove from the clouds.
Its wingspan blotted out the warped sky. Feathers like blades of onyx, streaked in deep crimson. A face like bone carved by grief and fury.
The Shadowblood Eagle.
It struck without warning.
Adrien dodged right, Damien backflipped, and Nyxaris slammed a burst of shadow mist between them and the creature's claws.
"Don't let it touch you!" the Warden roared. "Its talons steal the blood they strike!"
Adrien and Damien circled opposite flanks, their attacks coordinated. Fire arced from Damien's palms while Adrien weaved in with his blade — swift, focused, precise.
Nyxaris leapt onto its back, horn gleaming as it bit deep into the eagle's wing.
But the beast screeched, unleashing a concussive wave of raw shadowforce.
Everything went black.
Damien crashed into a stone ridge, blood in his mouth.
Adrien tumbled, breath ragged, pain screaming through his ribs.
The Warden stood alone — cloak torn, expression unreadable. He whispered words not meant for mortal tongues… and his body began to change.
Shadow bled from his skin.
A second pair of eyes opened along his cheekbones — slitted, gleaming dark violet.
His limbs stretched, his spine snapped and reformed with crackling energy. Armor of layered, jagged umbra formed over him.
In moments, he was no longer the man who had saved them.
He was Shadowborn.
His blade became a storm. He danced through the eagle's strikes with brutal elegance, carving deep across its chest and wings until, with a final howl, he drove his arm — now sharpened like a living spear — through its skull.
The eagle shattered into black mist.
Adrien pushed himself upright, coughing.
"…That was new," he muttered.
Damien groaned from the rocks. "I vote we… don't do that again…"
But the victory turned sour.
The mountain shook.
Glyphs across the slope flashed and cracked.
The seal.
It had weakened.
A sound rose from below the stone — a throbbing pulse, like a heart that had been asleep far too long.
Then — the explosion.
From beneath the mountain, a pillar of violent, burning crimson energy burst outward, shredding stone and ripping into the sky.
"NO!" the Warden shouted. "The seal—!"
A face began to emerge from the mountain — no eyes, just molten veins. A body bound in shattering chains. Heat radiated outward in waves of pressure.
A system tone rang in Adrien's mind, cold and sharp.
> System Emergency Triggered. Host is in fatal proximity to Ancient-Class Prisoner. Initiating forced return.
Adrien reached for Nyxaris just as the world fractured.
In a blink, the mountain vanished.
Sand whipped at Adrien's cloak as he stumbled to his feet in the familiar wasteland heat.
Damien collapsed beside him, panting.
Nyxaris growled lowly and licked Adrien's hand, tail twitching.
The Warden did not reappear.
Adrien stood slowly, wind brushing past him like ghosts.
"…We didn't pass the trial," he muttered.
Damien chuckled darkly. "Trial's still goin'. We just… failed it sideways."
Adrien looked at his hands — still shaking. Not with fear.
With something older.
"…Whatever's up there," he whispered, "It's not just a prisoner. It's awake now."
And somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt it — a pair of ancient eyes. Watching.
Waiting.