Chapter 7: The Hollow Gate Opens
The winds howled like wolves.
Adarsh stood at the edge of a broken cliff, the map scroll crumbling in his grip. Before him, nestled between razor-sharp peaks and swirling shadows, lay a crumbling obsidian arch: The Hollow Gate.
Legends called it the mouth of forgotten gods. The place where magic went to die.
Behind him, Ragnar sniffed the air. "Something sleeps here… something that remembers blood."
Liliane lit a charm that pulsed with silver fire. "This place hasn't been walked by a vampire in centuries."
Kaelara traced ancient runes on her blade. "We go in together. If we split up, we die."
Darian simply said, "Stay close, Prince. Your death would be... inconvenient."
Inside the Hollow Gate
The moment Adarsh stepped through, the world twisted.
They were no longer in the mountains.
They stood in an upside-down city — towers spiraled toward the ground, rivers flowed through the air, and the sky burned red with trapped stars.
The gate had taken them to the Realm Between Realms — a place where time bent and memories became monsters.
As they walked, echoes whispered:
"He is not worthy... He will fall... He will become us…"
Suddenly, shadows surged from the buildings — beasts formed of nightmares and regret. Fanged wolves with no eyes. Faceless kings on skeletal steeds.
Ragnar roared and shifted — claws ripping through illusions.
Liliane danced like flame, her blood magic slicing through monsters like wind through silk.
Kaelara raised her runeblade and called down light from an unseen moon.
But the shadows kept coming — until they turned on Adarsh.
He froze — until something inside snapped.
He screamed — not in fear, but fury — and the mark on his chest blazed like a sun.
Vampire speed. Werewolf strength. Human heart.
The monsters howled and vanished.
The realm bent again — and from the center rose a glowing crystal, wrapped in bone-like vines.
Darian stepped forward, eyes wide. "The Core Memory. This is what your parents died to protect."
Inside the crystal, an image shimmered.
Adarsh's father — a royal vampire — and his mother — a crowned werewolf — holding a baby wrapped in silver cloth.
Then the image twisted — as a cloaked figure pierced them both through the heart.
Adarsh gasped. "That— That figure… it's still alive."
Kaelara whispered, "The Shadow King."
Meanwhile… at the hospital
Priya's body convulsed as magic surged through her.
Visions flooded her mind: cities burning, wolves weeping, Adarsh kneeling before a throne of bones.
She opened her eyes — glowing with blinding white light — and stood, her wounds gone.
In the mirror, a glowing figure appeared: the same cloaked woman who had visited her before.
"You are the last Moonseer. Your visions will either save your brother… or destroy him."
Priya spoke with a voice not entirely her own: "Then I choose to save him."
The woman smiled sadly. "Then run. For the Shadow King has found him."
In the Realm Between Realms
The sky turned black.
A scream split the realm — ancient, endless.
The shadows parted.
And from the rift above the crystal dropped a figure cloaked in living darkness, crowned with antlers of bone.
His eyes burned with hatred and hunger.
"Adarsh. Son of betrayal. Blood of two broken thrones. I have waited centuries to consume you."
Adarsh stared up at the monster — feeling the same fear he once felt in school hallways. In the hospital. In the silence after his sister's accident.
But now... he was not that boy anymore.
He stepped forward.
"I'm not afraid of you."
The Shadow King smiled with fangs older than time.
"You will be."
And with that — the battle for the hybrid prince began.
To be continued...