"The Battle's Aftermath..."
**Far away - Heroes' Union Headquarters - The Tower Where Clouds Dare Not Approach**
The sky trembled…
Birds stopped flying, a sudden silence cleaved the stillness as if the world had held its breath for a second.
Heroes' gazes rose towards the horizon, where the atmosphere was torn by a colossal explosion tinged with black and purple, wreathed in dark lightning and sparks alien to this world.
The Union Chief, an old man with a white beard and a celestial tattoo gleaming on his forehead, abruptly rose from his seat. His eyes widened with a fear unseen for a century.
He spoke softly, yet his voice carried the full weight of terror in his chest:
"That's no ordinary explosion… This is royal energy… No, not just royal… Forbidden."
A woman approached him, clad in a cloak woven from wind, young with grey eyes. She clenched her fist and whispered:
"This darkness… I feel it pressing on my heart, as if it's calling me… As if something has awakened."
Another Celestial Commander replied, his voice trembling:
"What is this? Has someone breached the world's laws? Who dares wield such power openly?"
As eyes watched from balconies, courtyards, and through enchanted mirrors, some students began to feel dizzy, others collapsed to the ground, unable to breathe.
...
The Child
The sound was faint, as if carried by the wind itself from afar...
"I want my mama..."
Kurgami stopped.
He slowly turned his head towards the sound and saw a small child, barely seven years old, lying amidst the grass, trembling with fear and hunger. His eyes were swollen from crying, his clothes torn and stained with mud, blood, and ash.
Kurgami approached slowly, knelt before him, removed his dark cloak, and draped it over the shivering child's body.
"Mama... I want my mama..."
The child whispered with a broken voice, as if his heart bled with every word.
Kurgami uttered no word.
He reached out, gently lifted the child, and placed him on his back, as if carrying the burden of the entire past... and the cries of a lost childhood that found no one to listen.
"Hold on tight..." Kurgami said calmly, then rose into the sky. His gaze swept over the trees, the shattered paths, searching for a trace, for warmth, for a mother… for something resembling hope.
The Hut
Night fell.
By the moonlight, he glimpsed an old hut... isolated on the edge of the forest, forgotten by the world, besieged by the shadows of wolves lurking from all directions.
From inside the hut, the sound of soft weeping echoed...
A woman, curled in on herself, screamed in a faint whisper:
"My son... Where are you? Take me, don't hurt him, please..."
She wasn't crying for herself, but for her little one... her heart was torn, her tears unending.
Outside, the wolves began to snarl, drawing closer, their fangs gleaming in the dark. But before they could attack...
*BOOOOM!*
A deadly aura exploded above their heads. The air changed, darkness cloaked the sky as if the abyss itself had fallen to earth.
Kurgami appeared in the sky before the hut, standing on the edges of his dark wings... His eyes blazed with deep violet, the aura surrounding him forcing the wolves to their knees before they fled, scattering as if Death itself had appeared.
Kurgami descended slowly.
He approached the hut door and knocked.
The woman shuddered, then flung the door open, tears streaming down her face.
When she saw the child on his back, she gasped, then rushed towards him, took her son into her arms, kissed him, cried over him, crushed him to her chest.
"My son... my baby... I thought you were dead..."
Kurgami remained standing, watching them, as if observing a scene from a time that no longer belonged to him.
Then a tear rolled down his cheek...
*Why am I crying?*
The question echoed within him.
*Why does my heart ache as I look at them?*
*Do I remember?*
*My sister... my parents…*
A single tear fell from his eye... and vanished into the darkness, just like everything that had ever meant anything to him.
The woman looked at him, wanting to thank him, but he turned his back and said quietly:
"Stay here... Nothing will approach you anymore."
Then he walked into the darkness, the wind wrapping around his cloak as if trying to prevent his departure, clinging to him like memory clings to the wreckage of a shattered heart.
**Kurgami's Solitude**
Kurgami vanished into the darkness.
His steps on the ground were soundless, but inside his chest, the earth was splitting. He sat near a burnt tree, staring at the silent sky, his cloak rippling in the wind like a shadow that had lost its form... its shape, its identity, all that remained of him.
In that moment, for the first time in a year... he began to remember them.
His mother... his father... and his sister.
A full year had passed without meeting them, hearing their voices, sending them news. He had been hidden... imprisoned in his shadow, trapped in the cells of hell. No one knew where he had gone, no one thought he was still alive.
He sighed and closed his eyes.
"Perhaps..." he whispered to himself in a broken voice. "Perhaps they thought I died."
But he was proud.
Despite everything... his little sister had dreamed of becoming a hero. And now, despite poverty, discrimination, hunger... she had actually joined the Heroes' Organization, achieved her dream, and maybe—yes, maybe—earned some money, lifting their family from the slums they had always lived in.
But...
The words choked his heart, turning to bitterness.
"That organization..."
He clenched his fist.
That merciless organization... where the weak are sacrificed for appearances, principles are sold for headlines, where the mask is honored and the true face is trampled.
"Shameless..." Kurgami said with bitter coldness, his eyes glinting with a dark flash.
"How could she join them?!"
He felt anguish whenever he pictured her standing with those fakes, hailed as a hero, when the very ones who now claimed justice were the first to cast her out.
"I will destroy that organization... I will erase it from the roots."
His voice was like a vow... or a curse uttered from the abyss.
He closed his eyes and pictured her...
Laughing, fighting, living her dream.
But he wasn't there... he wasn't with her.
"Do you miss me?"
No one answered.
He was alone.
Even the darkness around him was silent.
**Ragnar's Return**
Kurgami rose silently from the ground. He raised his hand heavily, and a black aura emanated from him as if rising from an ancient grave.
He thought flight would be like before, a mere flash, but...
*His body cracked from within.*
His eyes contracted in pain, darkness thickened chaotically around him, as if his body was rejecting what it once belonged to.
"Ah..."
The air around him vibrated, and he fell, but never reached the ground.
A strong black hand caught him.
"My Lord, you cannot yet."
The voice was familiar...
His ancient soul rose from the abyss.
Ragnar.
The First Soldier of Darkness, his right hand, one of those who bore Kurgami's banner when his name was whispered in cursed councils.
Ragnar knelt immediately and spoke with a pleading voice:
"My Lord, your mortal body cannot withstand your former power... Do not strain yourself. You have not fully regained your strength, and your memories are still incomplete. Please..."
But Kurgami was not one to heed warnings.
His voice echoed with mysterious coldness:
"Didn't you tell me, Ragnar... that the meteor will fall in four years?"
Ragnar nodded.
Kurgami continued:
"I want to make the meteor fall on the Monster Continent... where Barbaros, the bringer of catastrophe to this earth, resides."
Then he turned his face, his eyes gleaming with sharp violet:
"I won't fight him for justice... but because I want... to crush him."
Ragnar lowered his head, then spoke a warning tinged with loyalty:
"My Lord... Beware of your power, for it consumes your humanity bit by bit. Darkness does not give freely... and the price is steep."
Kurgami smiled, half a smile:
"Haha, Ragnar, stand. You are my right hand, so do not kneel to me anymore."
But he heard no enthusiasm.
Ragnar answered calmly:
"I thank you... my King."
Kurgami was silent for a moment, then raised an eyebrow:
"Stop calling me King. We are alone."
Ragnar looked at him with an inscrutable gaze, then tore the void with his finger.
"Who said we are alone?"
**The Floating Dimension**
An astonishing scene appeared behind the rift: A colossal castle floated in an eternal void, surrounded by seven palaces orbiting like moons, illuminated by faint hues of forbidden energies.
Kurgami was awestruck:
"Whose castle is this?"
"It is your own dimension... your own world. You created it, before you lost everything."
Kurgami looked at the palaces, contemplating them in silence.
"Are these... all my possessions?"
He laughed mockingly...
"Seems I'm always poor."
Ragnar closed the rift.
"Very well, it's time to return within me, Rah'tar... I will head to the Heroes' Union... to deliver the fake copies of the Four Leaders."
Kurgami raised his hand forward. A portal appeared. He stepped through it and vanished...