The winds shifted. It wasn't the kind that stirred flags or chilled skin—it was older, heavier. The kind that made warriors sweat beneath armor and mages fumble their incantations. It carried no sound, only dread.
Atop the Iron Hold's tower, Damien stood frozen. The Shadow System pulsed a warning, not with alerts but with silence.
Then came the message.
> [System Alert: The Sleeper's Influence has Breached the Realm]
[Enemies Detected: Sleeper's Heralds]
[Engagement Level: Immediate]
They were here.
---
A distant bell rang once from the west wall. Then again. Then... shattered.
A guard's scream echoed—sharp, wet, final.
Damien moved, cloak flaring behind him, Crown glowing like a sun swallowed by night. Rionach joined him, already shouting orders.
"Voidguard, to the breach! Joara's illusions failed—something saw through them."
Damien's system brought up a vision.
An entire forest beyond the Iron Hold had withered—its trees blackened, roots clawed toward the surface as if trying to escape what lay beneath.
From that cursed land, humanoid figures emerged. But these weren't men.
They were echoes—shells of past Crownbearers, wrapped in shadow armor, their hollow eyes burning with a pale violet flame.
> [Enemy Class: Herald of the Sleeper]
[Level: ???]
[Traits: Undying, Corrupted Will, Echo of Betrayal]
---
At the inner wall, chaos bloomed.
Barendd was already there, wielding a warhammer engraved with ancient runes. He struck a Herald down, only for it to reform, whispering in an extinct tongue.
"They remember us," Barendd growled, slamming his hammer again. "They remember our fear."
Damien descended like a reaper, shadow-forged wings forming around him as he struck. His blade, Veilrender, split through one Herald cleanly—but the echo didn't scream.
It smiled.
"You wear the Crown... but you are no King."
Its voice was ancient, layered with thousands of screams.
"You are our vessel."
Damien's rage flared, but before he could reply, another notification cut through his focus.
> [Warning: Southern Outpost Breached]
[Casualties: 68%]
[Priority: Critical]
Joara's voice echoed in his ear through the system's internal communication.
"We're being attacked from within! Someone opened the gates!"
---
Damien had no choice.
He opened a rift, stepping through darkness and emerging in the outpost.
Bodies littered the floor. Children of the Shadow—those who'd sworn fealty—were torn apart, not by blades, but by corrupted shadow creatures, small and insect-like, crawling into corpses and puppeteering them like twisted marionettes.
At the center stood a traitor.
One of the nobles spared in the last purge, now revealed in full corruption.
He bowed mockingly. "I told them you were dangerous, Damien. But no one listened."
"Who sent you?" Damien's voice was low, deadly.
The man chuckled. "The Sleeper needs no armies. Just doubt."
Damien responded with steel.
His blade struck true—but something inside cracked when he looked into the man's eyes as he died.
It wasn't madness.
It was belief.
---
That night, the Iron Hold burned in places. The Vault pulsed violently.
> [Sleeper Awakening Progress: 57%]
[Kingdom Stability: Shaken]
Damien called an emergency gathering in the war room.
"We've been infiltrated beyond what we feared," he said. "This is no longer just about the Sleeper. This is a war for memory, for truth, for identity."
Rionach slammed her hand down. "We need to seal the Crown. It's drawing them to you!"
Joara shook her head. "Seal it and we lose the only edge we have."
Damien stood silent. Both were right. Both were wrong.
Then the system presented a third option.
> [New Path Unlocked: The Pact of Midnight]
Sacrifice something irreplaceable to bind the Crown and redirect its signal. Prevent full corruption, but awaken an ancient enemy asleep even before the Sleeper.
Damien's eyes narrowed.
Sacrifice. Not just gold or blood.
Something personal.
His hand drifted to a ring he hadn't worn in years—the only thing left from someone he had loved... and lost.
---
He made the choice at dawn.
At the altar of shadows, Damien placed the ring and whispered the binding words.
Energy exploded outward, a wave of screaming silence that echoed across realms. The Crown dimmed. The Vault quieted. For a moment, peace returned.
But far away, in a dead city no map remembered, another being stirred.
Eyes opened. Cold. Older than time.
And it smiled.
> [You have silenced the Sleeper's call. But another has heard your voice.]
---