It took four days for Varranis to calm.
Though the Golden Sovereign had been defeated, his presence lingered—in the melted stone, the broken minds of those who'd worshipped him, and in the weight of silence that followed every whispered mention of Callan's name. Soldiers once loyal to Varranis now looked to him not as a conqueror, but as the only man who could stand against divinity.
He didn't want their loyalty.
He needed their silence.
Because something worse was coming.
And to stop it, Callan would have to break into the place even Sovereigns feared to tread:
The Blackened Vault.
Located deep beneath the capital of the Imperial Empire, the Blackened Vault was more than a prison. It was a burial site for forbidden power—shards too unstable to destroy and too dangerous to wield. Only the Emperor and his Ascendant Priors knew what truly lay within.
But Callan had learned the truth years ago.
Because he had died in that place.
Or at least, a part of him had.
"It's suicide," Lysander warned, unrolling a parchment soaked in warding glyphs. "Every entrance is guarded by relics that erase the soul, not just the body. You don't walk in—you cease to exist."
Solenne tossed a bone-dagger onto the war table. "Then we don't walk in. We tear it open."
Callan said nothing.
His eyes were fixed on the shard they'd taken from the Sovereign—now pulsing faintly with golden light, tempered by mortal blood. The heat had cooled, but its song remained.
It was calling to its brothers.
And one of them was in the Vault.
The one that shattered nations.
The Annihilation Shard.
They traveled by shadow, riding under false moons and cloaking themselves in spells older than memory.
The outer walls of the capital were impenetrable—unless one knew where the ground had once cracked during the Great Rift War. Callan did.
Through tunnels built by ancient beasts and forgotten gods, they entered.
And then, they found it.
A door made of nullstone, with no handle, no hinge, no lock.
Just a whisper.
"You who seek the grave of gods... abandon your name."
Lysander stepped forward. "I—"
Callan caught his shoulder. "It means it. You give it your name... you lose it forever. Everything tied to it. Every bond, every oath, every memory."
Lysander paused.
Then stepped back.
Callan stepped forward.
And whispered: "Callan."
The door opened with a sigh.
The Blackened Vault was more like a wound than a prison. Its walls bled shadow. Its air whispered in voices not meant for human ears.
They passed a pedestal bearing a half-melted mask.
The Mask of the Raven Queen—last seen when she devoured the sky above the Whispering Coast.
Another chamber contained a vial of shifting mercury—the bottled consciousness of a god who had tried to rewrite time.
Then came the shards.
Some pulsed weakly, like dying stars.
Others screamed, lashing out with invisible fury.
But at the end of it, in the deepest pit where even light dared not go... they found it.
The Annihilation Shard.
Black. Silent. Perfect.
And it knew Callan.
It didn't glow.
It didn't hum.
It just waited.
Solenne approached first. "What happens if you touch it?"
Callan answered with a question of his own. "What happens if I don't?"
He reached forward.
And the moment his fingers brushed the surface, the world ended.
Or it tried to.
For a heartbeat, everything ceased. Color, time, sound—devoured.
Then Callan screamed, and light tore back into the Vault.
His back arched as the shard carved through his soul—digging into memories sealed even from himself.
He saw his first death.
His last breath.
The day the Empire chained him beneath stone and burned his body while keeping his mind alive.
But he didn't fall.
He endured.
Because now, he remembered.
They had called him the Demon General not because he was a monster—but because he was their weapon.
One they thought they'd buried.
Now, reborn with four shards, he stood not as a puppet of fate—
—but as its executioner.
The Vault began to crumble.
No alarms. No explosions.
Just quiet collapse, like the world politely retreating before what had awakened.
Lysander held Solenne close as the walls cracked. "We need to move—now."
But Callan didn't run.
He walked.
And as they surfaced back into the cursed light of the Empire's capital, a new sky greeted them.
One with no sun.
Just a hole—vast, pulsing, and alive.
The sky had been eaten.
And above the Emperor's throne, a voice whispered from the dark:
"You were always meant to return, Callan. Come. Let us end what we began."