The morning after they escaped the ruins, Lagos was silent, too silent. Smoke still curled above the skyline, thin and pale, like the city was trying to breathe again after drowning in darkness. The streets were empty, cars left where people had run. Broken signs swung gently in the wind.
Taye, Nnena, and Lira walked through the quiet. Every step echoed. The air smelled of rain and ash.
Nnena's voice was low. "Feels strange. Like the city's watching us."
Lira nodded slowly. "It is. The Shadow Lord's roots go deep. Lagos is not just land,it's alive. It remembers what it was built on."
Taye looked around. "And what's that?"
Lira's eyes turned distant. "The bones of old kingdoms. The ruins of light and shadow. This city was born from both."
He didn't answer. He could still feel the shard's faint hum in his pocket..soft, steady, almost like a heartbeat. Sometimes, when he wasn't thinking, he could hear whispers coming from it. They weren't loud, just there, waiting.
They found shelter in an abandoned building near the old island bridge. Dust filled the air. The windows were shattered. On one wall, someone had painted the words "He Comes Again."
Nnena sighed and dropped her bag. "Comforting."
Lira didn't reply. She walked to the window and looked out toward the water. The lagoon shimmered under the weak sunlight, but the reflection was wrong, faint shapes moved in the waves, darker than shadows.
Taye followed her gaze. "You see that?"
"Yes," she said. "The city isn't healing. It's shifting. The Shadow Lord's essence is buried under it, and now that we've disturbed his throne, it's waking."
Nnena turned. "Then we messed up by touching those fragments?"
Lira's voice stayed calm. "We didn't mess up. We started something that can't be undone. The moment Taye touched the first fragment, the world changed course."
Taye sat on a broken chair. "You keep saying that. But what does it mean for us? For the city?"
"It means," Lira said quietly, "that the Shadow Lord isn't gone. He's looking for a new vessel."
The air went still.
Nnena's hand froze on her gun. "You mean...."
"Yes," Lira said, her eyes moving to Taye. "Him."
Taye didn't move. His face stayed calm, but inside, his chest tightened. He wanted to say she was wrong, that he was still himself, but deep down… he already knew something was different.
The shard in his pocket burned softly, as if agreeing with Lira's words.
"I can control it," he said at last.
Lira's eyes softened but didn't look convinced. "You can try. But the darkness doesn't fight like a man. It whispers. It waits. It promises."
Nnena frowned. "Then how do we stop it?"
"By finding the next Lightbearers," Lira said. "Before the shadow inside him grows too strong."
Taye stood. "Then we move now."
But Lira raised a hand. "We can't just rush in. The next gate lies far beneath the city, under the ruins of the old mainland. The place people forgot."
"Forgot?" Nnena repeated.
Lira nodded. "Before Lagos rose, there was another city. A hidden one. Built by those who guarded the first seals. It was swallowed when the Shadow Lord fell. They called it Erun Gate."
They left again at dusk.
The road to the mainland was cracked and empty. Burnt cars lined the streets. The wind carried a strange hum, low, like the sound of an old song played on broken strings.
As they walked, the sun dipped lower, painting the sky in shades of red and gray. Lagos Lagoon shimmered beside them, the waves now darker, slower. The water almost looked alive.
Nnena kept glancing back. "You feel that?" she asked.
Taye nodded. "Yes. Like someone's walking behind us."
Lira didn't turn. "Not someone. The city. It's following its echo."
By nightfall, they reached the edge of a collapsed overpass. Below it stretched a deep trench, filled with old stones and half-buried statues. Strange symbols glowed faintly on the rocks.
"This is it," Lira said. "The entrance to Erun Gate."
Taye peered into the darkness. "Doesn't look like a gate."
"It's not," Lira said. "It's a memory. A place folded into the earth."
They climbed down carefully, their footsteps echoing in the hollow air. The deeper they went, the colder it became. A faint mist clung to the ground, whispering like voices trying to speak.
Nnena stopped once. "Did you hear that?"
Taye nodded slowly. "They're calling names."
"Whose?"
He didn't answer.
The tunnel opened into a massive underground hall. The walls shimmered faintly, like veins of light ran through the stone. In the center stood a large stone gate carved with spirals, covered in dust.
Lira placed her hand on it. "This is it. The second seal."
"What do we do?" Taye asked.
"We wake it," she said.
Nnena frowned. "Wake it? Didn't that go badly the last time?"
Lira looked at her. "To seal something again, you must first open it."
Before they could protest, she began to chant...slow, low, each word echoing through the air. The gate began to tremble. Light crawled through the spirals like fire in oil.
Taye felt the shard burn in his pocket again. His head pounded. A voice whispered through him...soft, steady, like breath against his ear.
"You open what you can't close."
He stumbled back.
Nnena caught his arm. "Taye! What's wrong?"
"Voices," he muttered. "He's speaking again."
The light on the gate grew brighter, too bright. Cracks appeared in the stone. The air thickened. The hum became a roar.
Lira's voice broke through it. "Hold on! Don't move!"
But it was too late. The gate split open, and darkness poured out like smoke.
Shapes moved within it. Figures that is tall, thin, almost human, but their bodies shimmered like liquid shadow. Their eyes glowed red. The Echo Guards.
Nnena fired instantly, bullets of light cutting through the air. The creatures scattered, reforming around them.
Lira shouted, "Stay together!"
Taye drew the shard. It glowed bright, pulsing with white and red light. The air around him shifted. The shadows froze like they were listening.
Then, the voice came again.
"Eran… you open my heart each time you bleed."
Taye shouted and slammed the shard to the ground. Light exploded outward, cutting through the smoke. The echo guards screamed and dissolved.
When the glow faded, the gate was open but not empty. Behind it was a staircase spiraling down, glowing faintly blue.
Lira looked shaken. "It's awake now. We can't turn back."
Taye nodded. "Then we go down."
The staircase led them deeper than any tunnel before. The air became colder with each step. Strange symbols appeared on the walls not glowing, just etched deep, like scars.
After a while, they reached a wide chamber filled with statues,stone figures kneeling in circles. Each held a broken shard in its hand.
Nnena whispered, "They look like… us."
Lira's face tightened. "They were. The first Lightbearers. The ones who failed to seal the second gate."
Taye touched one of the statues. It felt warm. Beneath his fingers, the stone pulsed faintly like a heart still beating under rock.
"They're not gone," he said quietly.
Lira nodded. "Their souls are bound to the gate. Waiting for a new bearer to finish what they couldn't."
The ground trembled. Dust fell from the ceiling. A faint hum filled the chamber again deep, rhythmic, like the beating of a giant heart.
Taye turned toward the far end of the room. There, in the darkness, stood another throne smaller than the first, but carved from black stone. Above it floated a sphere of faint red light.
"The second fragment," Lira said
They approached slowly. The air around the throne shimmered like heat. Every step made the humming louder.
When they were close enough, the sphere pulsed once and shadows began to rise from the floor.
Nnena cursed. "Again?"
Lira drew her blade. "It's never that simple."
The shadow guards attacked. The fight was fierce but quiet, like a nightmare played in silence. Light clashed with smoke. Taye struck with the shard's glow, every movement powered by something inside him he didn't understand.
Then he reached the sphere. He touched it and the world changed.
He wasn't in the chamber anymore. He stood in a vast plain of black sand, under a red sky. The air smelled of rain and dust. In the distance stood a man,tall, cloaked, his back turned.
Taye called out. "Who are you?"
The man turned slowly. His face was familiar. His eyes burned with faint gold, the same color as Taye's.
"You already know," the man said. "Because you are me."
Taye shook his head. "No. I'm not you."
"You carry my light," the man said. "You carry my shadow. The world thinks we are enemies. But we are halves of the same flame."
Taye took a step forward. "You destroyed cities. You killed thousands."
The man smiled. "And you will too… if you try to seal what you don't understand."
The world shook. The red sky cracked.
Taye shouted, "I'll never become you!"
The man's voice echoed, fading.
"You already are."
Light burst around him.
He gasped and fell back into the chamber. Nnena's voice called his name. Lira held his shoulder, her face pale.
"What happened?" she asked.
Taye looked at the shard in his hand. It now glowed brighter, the red deeper, the white fading.
"He showed me something," he said quietly. "The truth. The Shadow Lord wasn't always darkness. He was one of us."
Lira's face went still. "Then it's worse than I thought."
Nnena frowned. "You mean he fell?"
Lira nodded. "He was the first Lightbearer, the one who broke the oath. He didn't create the shadows. He became them."
Taye's hand trembled. "And now his light is in me."
Lira placed a hand on his arm. "Then you have to be stronger than he was."
The chamber rumbled again. The sphere sank into the floor, sealing itself. The hum faded. The light on the walls dimmed.
Nnena looked around. "Did we do it?"
Lira nodded slowly. "The second gate is sealed. But the cost is growing."
Taye stood, the shard still glowing in his palm. "How many gates are left?"
"Three," Lira said softly. "And each one will test you more than the last."
They climbed back toward the surface. When they emerged, dawn was breaking again. The sky was faint gold, the air heavy but calm.
Nnena sat on the road, exhausted. "So we keep sealing these things until what? The world forgets again?
Lira looked at her. "Until the throne dies completely."
Taye didn't speak. He stared at the city. Somewhere in the distance, smoke rose again,faint but steady. Lagos wasn't resting. It was breathing.
He closed his hand around the shard.
Eran… you open what you cannot close.
The voice came again, softer this time, almost gentle. He didn't fight it. He let it whisper, let it echo, and for the first time… he understood.
The city wasn't dying. It was changing. Becoming something new....half light, half shadow, just like him.
Nnena stood beside him. "You ready?"
Taye nodded. "Yeah. But this time, we move faster. The next gate won't wait."
Lira looked at him, her eyes unreadable. "Just remember, every step forward brings you closer to him. And to what you might become."
He didn't answer. He just looked at the horizon, where the light met the smoke.
The city trembled once,faint, like a heartbeat.
And beneath it all, deep under the ground, something ancient stirred again.