The tome changed again.
Not suddenly. Not like a page turning. But like it remembered something new. New chapters bloomed into existence overnight, etched in ink that shimmered with an iridescent darkness, as if the void itself had bled onto the page.
One symbol repeated itself again and again—an ouroboros made of bone and fire, surrounding a single word:
Nhal'Zarim.
It wasn't a place.
It wasn't even a word in any known language.
It was a key.
The deeper I studied it, the more the world around me seemed to thin—like a veil was being lifted. Shadows moved when they shouldn't. Stars blinked in strange patterns. Even my summoned creatures grew restless, growling at corners where no enemy stood.
Then, one night, I found the breach.
It was behind the throne of a shattered cathedral, where the sun hadn't touched the stone in centuries. A tear in reality—no bigger than a breath—hovered silently, pulsing with the same glyph that marked the tome.
I reached out. Not recklessly, but without hesitation.
The moment my fingers brushed the edge, I was pulled through.
---
There are no words for Nhal'Zarim.
Only impressions.
Floating towers made of fractured time. Rivers of blue flame that whispered in forgotten dialects. Skies that bled black lightning. And in the air—raw magic, thick as smoke, alive and waiting.
I stumbled through the first trial within minutes.
A circle of ancient necromancers—echoes, maybe, or projections—appeared before me. Their forms flickered between life and death. They spoke in voices layered over each other.
> "Why do you come, Deathmarked?"
"To steal what is not yours?"
"Or to remember what was forgotten?"
"I come to take back what was denied my bloodline," I said. "And to prove I am more than legend—I am future."
They laughed. Then attacked.
Illusions, tests, puzzles—realities folded in on themselves. The dead of a thousand ages challenged me. But I was stronger now. Faster. Smarter. Every trap they laid only sharpened me.
Hours passed. Or days. Maybe longer.
At the final gate, I stood before a monolith forged of obsidian and bone. Runes crawled across it, rearranging into a challenge:
"Name the price of true power."
I thought of Lira. Of Seraphine. Of the empire I would one day command.
I answered without hesitation.
> "Everything I was… for everything I will become."
The monolith split open—and light surged through me.
My soul—if it still existed—was branded by the realm itself.
A new sigil appeared on the tome when I returned. A symbol not even the Council would recognize. A seal of Nhal'Zarim.
My spells grew sharper. My summons lasted longer. And my connection to death... deepened.
I could now sense when someone was about to die. Hear the last thoughts of a corpse. Steal strength from the recently fallen.
And I felt it. Constantly.
This was only the first realm.
There were others.
But more importantly…
I knew who had sealed Nhal'Zarim in the first place.
The Council.
They hadn't erased necromancy to protect the world.
They had done it to keep its true power for themselves.
And now I would take it all back.
---