Into the Depths of Darkness
The knight stepped forward, and the tomb swallowed him whole.
Darkness pressed against him, thick and suffocating. The air reeked of damp stone and old death. His boots scraped against the uneven floor, the silence broken only by the distant, rhythmic drip of water.
Then, the whisper returned. No longer faint. No longer distant.
It spoke in a tongue long buried by time—words eroded, fragmented, devoid of meaning. Yet the weight behind them carried something deeper. Grief. Rage. A demand to be remembered.
A shape emerged from the abyss.
The Forgotten King
Tall. Twisted. Cloaked in a veil of tattered, regal cloth that clung to a body more bone than flesh. A crown of rusted metal rested upon its skull, its golden luster lost to centuries of decay. Its limbs were stretched thin, its fingers ending in claw-like remnants of what once had been hands. The corpse of a forgotten king.
But it was not merely dead. It had become something else. Something wretched.
The knight barely had time to react before it lunged.
Battle Against the Wretched King
A gust of foul wind preceded its movement. He raised his sword, but the creature did not strike like a man. Its elongated limbs twisted unnaturally, bones snapping and reforming as it flowed around his guard. A withered hand slammed against his chest, sending him crashing into the stone wall.
The impact rattled his bones. He gasped, struggling to rise, but the thing was already upon him. It did not move like a warrior. It moved like a plague.
The knight rolled away just as jagged claws carved through the space he had occupied. Sparks flew as the talons scraped the stone. He found his footing, blade ready, but already he could feel it—this was not an enemy that could simply be slain.
The thing loomed before him, its empty eye sockets locked onto his own. And then, it spoke again.
Not in words. In memories.
Flashes of ancient halls, banners stripped of meaning. A throne abandoned in dust. A name whispered in desperation, lost before it could be understood.
The knight clenched his jaw. He did not care who this thing had been.
It had to be stopped.
The creature let out a shuddering breath, and the whisper became a wail. The air grew heavy. The tomb walls trembled. And with unnatural speed, it lunged again—
This time, to kill.
The knight barely managed to raise his blade before the creature struck. The force behind its blow sent tremors through his arms, steel clashing against bone with a deafening screech. He staggered, feet scraping against the cold stone floor, but he did not fall. Not yet.
The thing shrieked—not in pain, but in fury—a sound so raw it gnawed at the edges of his mind. The knight gritted his teeth and forced himself to move. He lunged, driving his sword toward the creature’s chest, but it was no longer there.
It had dissolved, twisting into a streak of shadow that slithered around him. A talon raked across his side, slicing through steel like rotted cloth. A flash of pain burned through his ribs, but he had no time to react.
Another strike.
Then another.
The blows came too fast. Too unnatural. The knight swung wildly, his blade finding only air as the creature wove between each attack. It was toying with him.
Then the voices came.
The Storm of Souls
The whispers, once chaotic and aimless, had taken on a rhythm. A pattern. Words still lost to time, but not without intent.
The knight’s instincts screamed. He threw himself backward just as the shadows around him converged. The tomb trembled, and the wail of the forgotten dead erupted all at once.
A storm of souls burst forth from the creature’s form, their hollow faces twisting in agony. They clawed at him with unseen hands, dragging him into the weight of their despair.
His strength faltered. The weight of countless forgotten voices pressed against his mind, filling him with sorrow that was not his own.
A throne abandoned. A name erased. A history unwritten.
His grip on his sword loosened.
He was vanishing.
The knight fell to one knee. His breath was shallow, his vision dimming. The creature was devouring him, not with fangs, but with the sheer weight of its existence.
And then, a sound.
A Memory of Steel
Faint, distant, yet unmistakable.
Steel against steel.
It was not real. It was a memory.
A lesson taught long ago, in a place no one remembered.
"When the weight of battle crushes you, when your body fails and your mind falters… listen to the steel."
His fingers twitched.
"Stand. Raise your blade. The fight is not over until you are dead."
A ragged breath tore from his throat. His gauntleted hand clenched around the hilt of his sword.
And then—he rose.
The Final Strike
The storm of souls wailed, recoiling as if burned. The creature shrieked, its form flickering between shadow and flesh. It lunged, desperate, but the knight did not falter.
His blade, heavy with purpose, carved through the darkness.
The strike was not fast. It was not desperate.
It was final.
The steel met the creature’s neck, slicing through decayed flesh and brittle bone. The whispering voices collapsed into silence. The shadows trembled… then vanished.
A dull thud echoed through the tomb as the severed skull of the forgotten king hit the stone floor.
The knight stood motionless, his breath ragged, his body trembling from wounds seen and unseen. The cavern was silent.
The battle was over.
He needs rest now.
