"Death is not the end. It is the unveiling."
Darkness.
Not the absence of light, but something deeper to the world he knew. There was no sky. No stars. Only an endless expanse of ruins — thrones overturned, banners rotting in still air, and statues of faceless kings crumbling under time's indifference.
He rose from the cracked obsidian floor, his breath fogging in the cold that clung to this realm like a second skin. The blackened silver armor clung to him still — weightless yet suffocating. The crown hovered above his head, flickering like dying flame.
His voice, though raspy, came steady. "Where… am I?"
"Where all kings go when they are forgotten."
Kael turned.
A figure emerged from the fog — cloaked in royal black, with eyes like hollowed moons. Tall. Regal. Not alive. Not dead.
"You wear the crown, and so the Hollow Realm answers."
Kael's fists clenched. "I didn't ask for this."
"Neither did we. Yet here we sit, still bound to our thrones… still echoing through the silence."
Around him, specters began to appear — dozens, maybe hundreds. Kings and queens of empires long lost. Their visages broken, their voices layered in grief and fury.
One stepped forward — an armored warlord with a shattered helm. "Do you seek vengeance?"
Kael hesitated. Then nodded. "They murdered my honor. My name. My soul. I will unmake their empire."
The warlord grinned. "Then wear the Hollow Crown not as a burden… but as a blade."
Suddenly, Kael staggered as memories not his own rushed into him — battles from forgotten wars, betrayals of ancient dynasties, thrones taken and thrones lost. With each vision, a fragment of power etched itself into his bones.
A staff of black bone formed in his hand — veined with violet light. Around him, the shadows bent, awaiting his command.
He didn't scream. He endured.
And when the visions faded, he stood taller. Heavier. Not just a man anymore.
A king of the forsaken.
"How do I return?" he asked.
The crowned spirits parted. In the distance, a jagged gate of bone and iron rose from the ground — a rift between realms.
"Cross the threshold. But know this, Hollow King: the living world fears what crawls back from the grave. You will not be welcomed. You will be hunted."
Kael looked toward the gate, then back at the gathered monarchs.
"I won't return to be welcomed," he said.
"I'll return to conquer."
He walked forward. The crown pulsed. The gate groaned open.
And with a final breath, Kael Varian stepped thoough — into a world
unprepared for what it had buried.
To be continued…