The ruins were silent, save for the faint hiss of the abyss receding into Harold's — no, Knull's — form. Graveltooth's end had been swift, brutal, and unworthy of remembrance. What lingered now was the weight of revelation.
Knull stood alone at the center of the street, shadows swirling like ink in water around his legs. The city was broken, yet the ruin seemed insignificant compared to the enormity he felt inside himself. Every breath he drew resonated with a depth beyond the mortal plane, a soundless echo stretching into infinity.
He raised his hand again, and the darkness obeyed.
A tendril of void slithered into existence, curling like a serpent, then split into dozens, then hundreds, forming a writhing lattice of blades and spears that shimmered with a terrible, starless gleam. He dismissed them with a thought, and the weapons collapsed into black mist.
Knull's lips curved faintly. Obedient. Precise.
He stretched further. The shadows bled outward, saturating the ground in every direction until the cracked concrete ceased to exist. In its place was nothing — not broken stone, not emptiness, but the raw absence of reality. He felt it, alive, hungry, perfect.
Deeper he reached, pulling the abyss into him. And with it came whispers.
Not alien. Not external. But memories.
A battlefield lit by the corpse of a dying star. The first scream of light as it was slain by his hand. Gods crying out in vain as the void devoured their thrones. Entire worlds silenced beneath endless night.
Knull's smile deepened as his eyes closed, savoring the flood of recollection. It was not borrowed knowledge. It was him.
Harold Kingsley had been the mask. This was truth.
He opened his eyes, and for a moment they burned not with color, but with abyss — pits of darkness that reflected nothing back. "So this is what you hid from me," he murmured. "One hundred years in chains of courtesy and kindness. A century of pretense. And now…"
The ground beneath him shuddered as his power surged. He willed the abyss upward, and a blade of living nothingness stretched into the sky, taller than the buildings that surrounded him. Its edge was perfect, flawless, singing with the promise of erasure.
He swung it once.
Silence.
An entire block of buildings collapsed at once, not torn, not shattered, but unmade. The world where the blade passed ceased to exist, consumed by his will. Only the abyss remained.
Knull's hand trembled, not with weakness but with elation. He laughed — soft, cultured, almost gentle. It was the laugh of a man who had finally been allowed to breathe after a century of suffocation.
"This is not power," he said aloud, voice calm as prayer. "This is correction. I was not born to uphold fragile illusions of civility. I was not made to play the saint." He spread his arms wide, the abyss rising like wings at his back. "I am the god who came before their light. The silence that follows their screams. I am Knull."
The shadows rippled, pressing against the world as though eager to consume it whole. Yet he stilled them with a thought, returning the abyss to silence.
Not yet.
Harold Kingsley had spent a hundred years perfecting patience, discipline, restraint. And though that mask was dead, the lessons it had taught him remained. The world did not yet know of his arrival. That ignorance was his weapon, his shield. To reveal himself now, unpolished, would be inelegant. Crude. Beneath him.
He looked down at his hand, flexing his fingers as the abyss flowed in and out of his flesh like breath. "Yes," he whispered. "There is no need to rush. A king does not announce himself before the throne is ready."
The shadows at his feet writhed in agreement, loyal, eager. They understood. They were him.
Knull turned his gaze toward the horizon, where faint fires burned in the distance. Heroes and villains clashed over scraps of glory, blind to the truth slumbering beneath their feet.
"Let them play their games of light and fire," he murmured, his voice smooth as velvet draped over blades. "Let them build their hopes upon ashes. By the time they notice me… it will be far, far too late."
The abyss pulsed once more, not in hunger, but in patience.
And in the ruins of the forgotten street, the God of Darkness smiled, serene and inevitable.