After Niara and Darian collapsed, the entire World of Life fell into silence.
The dwarf Risen was already dead. At the moment of his death, all the few remaining Risen still alive also dropped dead, suddenly. All of it had been to empower that skeletal figure that had appeared.
That thing had no life, no thoughts, no consciousness. It was just a final defense mechanism, created only after Athven had been captured. It held only a fraction of the ancient bloodline power and followed an extremely simple defensive protocol: kill anything not corrupted.
When the Risen Lord sacrificed himself to seal that place, his body hadn't been destroyed. It stayed behind, at the core of the world, sealed in a terrifying spatial rift — which made it undetectable to Athven.
