Season 1 (Part: 1)
The Labyrinth of Lost Time
The antique shop was more than just a store; it was a cramped, dust-filled labyrinth of forgotten history, its air thick with the mingled scents of aged wood, decaying paper, and oxidized metal. Motes of dust danced in the slivers of weak, late-afternoon sunlight that managed to pierce the grime of the windowpanes. Eva wasn't hunting for anything specific; she was simply seeking a few minutes of distraction from a tedious, soul-crushing day in corporate data entry. This aimlessness was why she nearly missed the object entirely.
It was a small, oval locket, crafted from tarnished sterling silver, tucked almost apologetically into the very back corner of a low-slung, glass-and-velvet display case. The case itself was so aged the once-royal purple velvet lining was threadbare and faded to a sickly grey. As Eva leaned closer, tracing the faint outline of a forgotten monogram on the glass, a brief, sudden flash of reflected sunlight from a passing car on the street outside caught her eye. For a singular, breathtaking instant, the light struck the old metal, illuminating its surface with a brilliant, crystalline gleam. It was a beacon in the gloom. She didn't need to examine the craftsmanship or the weight; she knew instantly this was not just another piece of old jewelry; it felt profoundly important, a key to a door she didn't know existed.
The Fracture
"I'd like to see this one, please," Eva murmured, pointing to the locket.
The proprietor, a man whose skin looked as brittle and yellowed as the parchment he sold, wordlessly unlatched the case. The moment Eva's fingers closed around the cold, smooth metal, a sensation that transcended simple temperature spread from the locket: a faint, pervasive, yet undeniable warmth that seeped directly from the silver into the center of her palm.
In that very instant, the world fractured.
The massive, brass-pendulum clock above the counter, which had been ticking with aggressive diligence, abruptly stopped, the final 'tick' severed mid-vibration. The room's air grew heavy, thick, and chillingly still, as if all atmospheric pressure had been violently sucked away. The sunlight near her collapsed—everything within Eva's immediate peripheral vision darkened into a terrifying, absolute blackness, a void too deep and solid for the sunlit afternoon just outside the shop door. She was completely paralyzed, her muscles locked, a terrifying, icy sense of cold helplessness gripping her chest. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe.
Then, a voice—deep, powerful, and ringing with an ancient, terrifying authority—didn't echo in the room, but directly in the silent, vault-like confines of her mind.
The voice was a low, resonant rumble, utterly certain: "I won't let you die this time."
Eva was overwhelmed, assaulted by the words and the force behind them. Her mind flashed with a brief, intense, and unlocatable feeling of familiarity, a ghost of recognition, yet she couldn't conjure a single, coherent memory to anchor it. Panic overrode the paralysis. She screamed, a raw, strangled sound of terror and confusion. "Who are you?! Where am I?!"
The Proprietor's Prophecy
Just as quickly as it began, the phenomenon ended.
The oppressive blackness receded instantly, replaced by the mundane, dust-filled light of the shop. The paralysis vanished, releasing her in a rush of oxygen. The clock over the counter gave a shuddering CLANK! and resumed its tireless ticking. The locket in her hand was merely cold metal once more. Shaken to her core, her hands trembling so violently she nearly dropped the piece, Eva fumbled out her wallet, paid the proprietor an amount she wouldn't remember, and fled the shop into the blessed normality of the street.
Unheard by her, the aged shop owner slowly reached into the display case, touching the indentation where the locket had rested. His eyes, usually rheumy and distant, were wide and strangely knowing. He whispered a cryptic, archaic prophecy into the settling dust of the antique store:
"At last. Our king has come from the Abyss for the lady."
Eva returned to her small, quiet apartment, the scent of dust and fear clinging to her clothes. She walked straight to the bathroom and placed the locket on the porcelain sink, needing to examine it under the harsh, modern light. As she stared at the tarnished silver, needing desperately to find a flaw, a trick, or a mechanism, the metal began to change. It didn't just warm—it began to pulsate with a fierce, subterranean inner heat. The silver, losing all trace of tarnish, bled from a pure, white sheen into an increasingly terrifying, deep purple hue, settling finally into a permanent color that was both beautiful and utterly, cosmically wrong.
The Council's Panic
Miles away, in a grand, secluded mansion that looked out over a restless, fog-shrouded cityscape, a catastrophe was unfolding. Deep within a stone-vaulted chamber, the Council—eleven elite, masked figures who acted as the shadow government managing the affairs of the Abyss on Earth—were locked in a round-table meeting.
The serenity of the chamber was violently shattered. The stone walls bucked and groaned under the force of a tremendous earthquake, accompanied by a blinding, searing flash of dark light. The source of the disruption lay at the table's center: a dark purple demonic crystal—the ultimate containment device, known only as the 666 Seal—which detonated, scattering into thousands of razor-sharp fragments.
Simultaneously, miles outside the city, the sheer dimensional pressure of the event tore the fabric of reality. Near a dense jungle, space itself cracked, creating a direct, violently unstable connection between the Abyss and Earth.
The Shattered Seal
A messenger, his face pale and obscured by his mask, stumbled into the chamber, shaking uncontrollably. "Elders! It's the Abyss! The Abyss!" he stammered, his voice thin with panic.
One of the masked figures, his voice heavy and dismissive, interrupted. "Silence! Control yourself. It is merely a dimensional rift. The Plunderer Knights are already deployed. They will clean up any filthy spills and close the gap, as they always do."
The frantic messenger held up his hands, exhibiting the desperate clarity of a man who has seen a world-ending event. "No! It is not that! It's the seal! The crystal is shattered!"
A deathly, chilling silence fell over the Council, broken only by the settling dust and groaning stone. Fear—raw, deep-seated, and primordial—radiated from the elite figures.
It can't be..." one figure whispered, the terror momentarily stripping the power from his voice. "The 666 Seal... it's truly broken?"
Another, his voice a low, horrified confirmation, rasped, "That means he has returned."
The oldest Elder, his voice a grave, resonant rumble that demanded attention, slammed his hand onto the stone table. The sharp crack of impact silenced all whispers.
"As the prophecy foretold," the Elder began, his voice laced with dread and fatalistic certainty, "he will return for the Queen. He will be either the savior or the destructor. If he has returned, it means the Queen has indeed been born."
The Knight Captain
The Elder's gaze fixed on a new figure who had just entered: the Knight Captain, Andrew. He was a man in his forties, his face a map of old scars, and his right arm an advanced, lethal piece of metallic prosthetics.
"Andrew," the Elder began, the familiarity of the name a relic of a time long past. "It has been a long time."
Andrew, already stressed and sensing the magnitude of the event, replied with an aggressive edge. "Save the pleasantries, you old geezer. It's about the seal, isn't it?" He was visibly sweating beneath his armor. "What? How? And why now? You know as well as I do that if the tales are true, no one can stop him!"
"We know that," the Elder replied, his gaze unwavering. "But we must find her first. She is the blessing of heaven that balances his darkness. The world depends on you. You must find her before he does."
Andrew gave a single, grim nod. "I will do my best for the world's peace."
The Arrogance of Youth
As Andrew strode from the chamber, he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and immediately lit it, the smoke a thin, acrid comfort against the crushing weight of the new reality. He barked into a nearby communicator, summoning his arrogant apprentice, Mikel (a man of twenty-four or twenty-five).
"Mikel! Take a squad of Plunderer Knights and look for the area where the Abyss dimension shattered. Find me a rift and stabilize the perimeter."
Mikel appeared, a sharp, disrespectful laugh escaping his lips. "Master, I truly don't understand why you are all so tense over some old myth. A myth from more than six hundred years ago! Even demons don't live more than five hundred years. How much power can this ancient 'King' truly have? He can't face us all!"
Andrew crushed the cigarette in his metallic fist, the sound a sharp, painful crunch. He closed the gap between them, grabbing Mikel's collar with a terrifying, vice-like grip.
"Listen to me, and listen carefully," Andrew's voice dropped to a low, lethal snarl. "He is not a myth! He is not a demon! He's not even a demon king! He is the King of the Abyss, a true Darkness itself! You don't have a fucking idea who he is! Or what he is! That bloody dark past is not a myth!" He violently threw Mikel to the ground. "Do as I say! You are far too young and stupid to understand!"
Mikel scrambled up, his face burning with rage and humiliation. As he turned to leave, he muttered a vow under his breath, his youthful arrogance overriding all fear. "If this fucking bastard really exists, I'll kill him myself and prove the Master wrong." He departed for the investigation, driven by a desperate, reckless ambition.
The King's Descent
Simultaneously, in the deepest, most desolate stratum of the Abyss, a place where no light had ever touched, a profound shift occurred. The dimensional breach on Earth had served as a violent, irresistible summons.
The shattered fragments of the 666 Seal—the dark purple containment crystal—were immediately drawn back to their origin. They didn't reform, but instead, their collective shadow coalesced, a swirling nebula of pure darkness that hung over the desolate landscape. This was the raw, uncontained essence of the King.
The Materialization
The amorphous shadow began to shrink, compressing into a figure of devastating power. It solidified, shedding its formless state, and materialized into the King.
He stood fully revealed, a figure of striking, stark contrast. His skin was an unnatural, porcelain white, almost luminous against the crushing darkness of the Abyss. His hair was the absolute color of oblivion: a thick, flowing mass of black, framing a face of devastating, inhuman handsomeness. It was a beauty that held the terrifying promise of destruction.
His eyes were the most arresting feature: two piercing pools of vibrant, predatory purple light. They were the color of the shattered seal and the gateway to his own dimension, burning with an ancient, calculating intelligence.
He was completely naked, his body lean, muscled, and unmarked—save for a singular, mesmerizing detail.
The Beacon
On his right forearm, a mysterious, intricate tattoo—a symbol of profound, ancient power—began to glow. It was the identical, distinct sigil that would soon appear on the Queen's locket.
The tattoo pulsed with a slow, dark rhythm, emanating a soft, almost magnetic purple light that acted as a compass. It was a primal, unbreakable bond: the beacon pointing inexorably toward the location of the Queen's locket.
He stood still, his purple gaze cutting through the void. He did not look at the Abyss, but upward, past the dimensional veil, searching for his target. His sharp, intense eyes fixed not on the Earth itself, but on the luminous sphere hanging in the night sky: the Moon. He stared at it with an unnerving possessiveness, as if measuring the exact distance he had to travel.
With the Moon aligned as his navigational point, the King of the Abyss drew a long, silent breath—the first he had taken on this side of the void in six hundred years.
Then, without a ripple of dimensional disturbance, and with a speed that defied physics, he vanished. He was no longer a shadow in the Abyss; he was a silent, irresistible force descending upon the unsuspecting world.
The Stranger's Arrival
Back in the unassuming, fourth-floor apartment, Eva was oblivious to the chaos she was causing in both the mortal world and the Abyss. The metallic locket, now humming with a frantic, silent vibration on the bathroom sink, continued to act as the King's irresistible homing beacon.
Eva, her mind preoccupied with the strange locket, was preparing a bath when the stillness of the evening was violently shattered.