Nightblade (Darkest night)

In the deep darkness below, the colossal titan slowly lowered its massive head, its golden eye narrowing as it locked onto the mortal standing before it.

"Nythrakar."

Morgan spoke the name simply and yet as it echoed through the subterranean abyss it sounded like a challenge.

The silence that followed was so absolute and heavy that Morgan could hear the quiet, metallic scrape of his own blood pumping through his ears.

"Oh damn...perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all."

In hindsight, waltzing into the underground layer of a creature that was perhaps almost as ancient as the world itself wasnt the best idea.

"Azrael..."

At this point, the name sounded more like a curse.

Above him, the lake-sized orb of incandescent gold didn’t blink.

The slitted pupil remained pinned to the ledge, reflecting the faint golden hue cast by the power of the golden sun within Morgan.

The sheer weight of the titan’s gaze pressed down on his shoulders like a falling mountain, threatening to crush his collarbones into powder, but Morgan’s knees remained locked.

Then—the vibration of power in the air in the mountain reached a violent crescendo, a resonant, bone deep frequency that rattled the bedrock beneath his boots, shaking loose dust from the high ceiling miles above.

The sound formed a single, word spoken in an ancient, grinding cadence.

"Modric."

Morgan’s jaw tightened. The golden sun inside his chest flared with sudden, sharp irritation, its heat surging up into his throat.

"I am Morgan," he replied, his voice raspy but firm, cutting through the heavy vibration.

"Modric was a prince of Elaris. He died thousands of years ago, buried under the ash of a kingdom that no longer exists."

The colossal obsidian skull tilted down.

With that slight movement, thousands of tons of stone scales shifted, grinding against one another with the deafening roar of a landslide.

"Names are leaves on a river," the sound reverberating through Morgan’s bones.

Nythrakar’s voice was cold, vast, and entirely devoid of human cadence, like a force of nature speaking to a speck of dust.

"They float upon the surface, rot, and sink. The water beneath remains unchanged. You carry the mark. You carry the cage. You’re the face he has chosen to wear."

"I am nobody’s face," Morgan gritted out, the Void coiling around his arms, its dark energy stabilizing his posture against the crushing pressure.

"I came down here looking for answers. I saw a man in the mist, a man who claimed he’d carried a thousand lives and called himself Azrael. He spoke of you. He called himself your cage."

Morgan took half a step forward, stopping at the absolute edge of the drop.

"What was he to you? What happened between you before Elaris... before the first kingdoms were carved into the dirt?"

The slitted eye narrowed.

For a fleeting second, the molten orange cracks webbed across Nythrakar’s obsidian scales flared with a low, sullen heat.

"Azrael..."

The name dragged across the stone floor like a rustling chain.

"The first Jailer. The eternal fool who believed eternity could be bound by patience.

"He built a wall of blood and bone, thinking it would hold back the sea. He gave himself to the darkness, and in return, the darkness swallowed his whole."

"He said you were two sides of the same coin," Morgan pressed, his eyes tracking the vast, fluid movement of the scales.

"He said you were the anchor that kept him from fading into nothingness."

"He lied to himself to survive the weight of his accursed existence, " Nythrakar replied, the sound echoing like a dry wind in the vast underground chamber.

"I am the bedrock. He was the anchor that chained the world to my slumber."

"When he grew tired, he fractured. He poured his essence into vessels—princes, kings, beggars, monsters. Modric was one. You are another. A vessel built of broken light. "

Nythrakar paused, its slitted eyes narrowing.

Morgan felt it’s gaze sear through him, a flood of power crashing again the golden hue of the radiant barrier around him.

" And stolen shadow. How interesting...very interesting indeed."

Morgan’s pulse hammered against his ribs.

The connection the ancient titan hinted at clicked into place with terrifying, sickening clarity.

Azrael hadn’t simply died and reincarnated.

He had poured the crushing weight of his immortal existence into distinct fragments across time, creating vessels strong enough to hold Nythrakar’s seal intact.

"In other words, the latest bottle holding the storm,"Morgan thought bitterly.

...How wonderful...

" I suppose i should be honored then...If you’re so ancient, and I’m just another fragile vessel holding the door shut," Morgan said, a dry, mocking edge touching his tone despite the cold sweat on his neck, "why haven’t you broken through?"

" The mountain collapsed. The seals of Elaris are dust. Why are you still down here talking to a speck of dust? Why waste your time with a ’leaf floating on the river’ ?"

The massive eye widened slightly. The pupil contracted into a hairline sliver of darkness.

"Because I am tired of the cages," Nythrakar rumbled, the subterranean abyss shaking with a low, tragic resonance.

"Ten thousand years. A hundred empires. A thousand vessels. Every age builds a new prison. Every age drags me back into the dark. Azrael built a wheel that turns without end... but you..."

The ground trembled violently beneath his feet, the air pressure as the air vibrated and the entire range quaked chaotically, the harrowing pressure increasing until his ears popped.

" What the hell..."

Morgan’s eyes narrowed, his lips turning yo a thin line with the realization of what was happening.

" This overgrown reptile...is laughing. "

The titan’s head lowered further, stopping mere yards from the ledge. The dry heat radiating from its scales scorched the hem of Morgan’s coat.

"You...you are a flaw in his design."

Morgan frowned, his brow furrowing.

"A flaw?"

"You possess the light, the Golden light that builds, and the Void."

Nythrakar paused allowing its wors to sink in.

"And what’s so special about that?"

For a brief moment, Morgan felt the creature’s gaze turn to surprise and then to disdain and finally to pity.

Eventually it let out a massive sigh, the ground rumbling tremulously in its wake.

With the patience of a grownup teaching a toddler, Nythrakar explained.

"The Void, swallows all. In all the ages, no vessel has held both in balance without tearing itself apart."

Nythrakar tilted its gargantuan serpentine head.

" But you... the two forces within you move as one."

The serpent’s golden iris flared with an eerie, hypnotic light.

"You possess the capacity to do what no vessel before you could achieve."

The light in it’s eyes shone brighter still.

"You do not need to build another cage, Morgan. Your Void can devour me."