Nightblade (Darkest night)

"I’m back."

After what seemed like an eternity, he was finally back in the real world, in this bizarre dimension at least.

Still...

He was no longer under the black mists influence. Not to mention all the shocking thi fs he’d discovered.

It was truly mind numbing.

Modric. Lysara. King Aldren. Elaris. Nythrakar.

And—Azrael.

Morgan looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers. He coukd feel it. His body, his very being had undergone a profound qualitative change and even now, he could tell he was only beginning to fathom the ramifications of that transformation.

His body felt lighter, so incredibly light. The aches from the memories he’d experienced had faded away, leaving him with a sense of superhuman clarity.

He looked at the dust coating his boots. Then, he looked up at the four people standing several paces away, their weapons drawn or half-sheathed, their eyes wide with varying degrees of dread and caution.

"Are they...afraid?"

"What..." Morgan’s voice was raspy, dry as dust. He cleared his throat, blinking at them.

"What happened? Why are you all standing back there?"

Nobody moved at first. Raven swallowed hard, her eyes darting across Morgan’s face, as though searching for something familiar.

"Morgan..you’re finally awake..."

Raven hesitated for a few moments then spoke, choosing her words carefully.

"Do you... do you know who we are?"

Morgan frowned, brow furrowing in genuine confusion.

"Of course I do. Raven. Sye. Angel. Valerius. Why wouldn’t I?"

He pushed himself up onto his feet, dusting off his knees.

"How long was I out?"

Sye didn’t relax his posture. His hand remained firm on his sword pommel.

"You were out for quite a while, several hours actually..." Sye said softly.

"But that isn’t the problem."

Morgan stepped forward.

Instantly, Angel took another step back, her hands instinctively dropping to her sides.

.Morgan stopped, noticing her reaction. He looked at Valerius.

"Valerius? What is it?"

Valerius stepped between Morgan and the rest of the group.

Although, he didn’t draw his weapon, Morgan could feel his sharp gaze evaluating his every movement and every action Morgan took.

"Something about you has changed," Valerius said flatly.

The golden eyed Lord seemed...wary...

Morgan stared at him in surprise.

He’s wary? Of me...

Morgan stared at him.

"Changed how? I... I had a vision. A memory. It was intense, but I’m fine. The strain was just—"

"No," Valerius interrupted, his voice taking on a dangerous edge.

"You don’t understand. Your presence... it isn’t what it was twenty minutes ago. The air around you shifted. The mountain itself responded to you."

He paused, searching Morgan’s face. "You feel like Morgan. Your face is Morgan’s. Your voice is Morgan’s. But whatever is underneath... it isn’t entirely you anymore."

"I am me," Morgan insisted, though a cold coil of uncertainty tightening in his stomach.

He hadn’t told them about Azrael.

He hadn’t told them about the Golden Sun merging with the Void, or the centuries of blood and gold that had burned behind his eyelids, buried in the maelstrom of memories with his mind.

He couldn’t. How could he explain something he barely understood himself?

"I’m still here, aren’t i?

Valerius didn’t answer immediately. He stared into Morgan’s eyes, looking for a sign of possession, a sign of madness, or the subtle marks of a mind overridden by an ancient force

He found none—yet the instinct that had kept Valerius alive through decades of horrors screamed that the boy before him was standing on the threshold of something catastrophic.

"I hope you’re right," Valerius said softly. "Because if you aren’t—"

A violent crack split the tense silence within like a thunderclap.

The cavern ceiling tore open.

A massive fissure snapped across the stone roof, raining tons of rock and blinding grit down upon them.

The ground beneath their feet vibrated then broke. A jagged trench split the center of the cavern floor, opening into a black, bottomless void below.

"Out!" Valerius roared, his previous caution instantly discarded as survival took over.

"The cavern is failing! Move!"

Sye lunged forward, grabbing Raven by the collar and dragging her back just as a section of the stone ceiling crashed down precisely where Raven had been standing seconds before. Angel was already moving, vaulting across falling debris with effortless grace, her eyes locked on the exiting tunnel ahead.

"Morgan! Run!" Raven yelled over the deafening roar of grinding stone.

Morgan turned to follow, but as he took his first step, his eyes swept across the widening fissure in the center of the floor.

Down in the black abyss beneath the mountain then a familiar pulse hit him.

In that moment, an ancient, terrifying wave of intent smashed into his newly synchronized soul, temporarily freezing him in place.

It was cold, vast, and steeped in a horror so deep it made the darkness of his own Void feel shallow.

Nythrakar.

Morgan froze on the brink of the crumbling ledge.

Through his newly awakened senses, he felt the true scale of what lay below.

It wasn’t just a lingering shadow or a dormant memory. It was an entity—vast, ancient, and sleeping beneath miles of bedrock.

And for the first time, as Morgan looked down into the dark, the slowly awakening titan didn’t just exude passive pressure.

It reacted. The Void inside Morgan’s chest pulsed in sharp, violent recognition.

The Golden Sun within him flared with absolute hostility. The two forces in his soul rotated together, casting an invisible shockwave off his body that shattered the nearby falling rocks into fine powder before they could touch him.

Down in the lightless depth beneath the mountain, far below the collapsing cavern, something monstrous, ancient, and unfathomable shifted its weight.

And in the absolute darkness of the deep, a colossal eye—burning with the terrible power of an age before light—slowly opened.

It knew he was awake.

"Morgan!" Valerius’s hand clamped onto Morgan’s shoulder, yanked him backward with brute force just as the entire ceiling above the fissure gave way, burying the abyss in a mountain of falling stone and blinding dust.

"Run!"

Morgan didn’t look back. He turned and ran into the collapsing tunnel, the roar of the mountain swallowing them whole.