Blood of the First Age Chapter 34

 

Chapter 34 - The Last Moon

The moon above the wastelands no longer looked natural.

It hung over the frozen world like a dying eye: pale, cracked and surrounded by faint black rings barely visible through the endless storms.

For centuries humanity believed the scars upon the moon were remnants of the First Age.

Ancient wounds left behind when heaven descended upon the world.

But the oldest survivors knew better.

The moon was changing.

And so was the world beneath it.

Three nights after Einar awakened beneath Vahsravia, black snow began falling across the northern wastes.

Not ash.

Not ordinary snow.

Something darker.

The flakes descended silently from the heavens like burnt feathers drifting through the storm.

Where they touched the ground: frost spread unnaturally, fires extinguished instantly animals fled screaming into the wilderness.

Even monsters avoided it.

Entire settlements vanished beneath the black snowfall.

Those who survived spoke of whispers carried within the storm.

Voices beneath the wind.

Calling forgotten names.

Far across the frozen world, ancient things stirred uneasily.

Inside the ruins of Vahsravia, Einar stood atop the shattered Moon Cathedral watching the black snow descend across the dead kingdom.

His silver-white hair moved softly in the freezing wind while frost spread beneath his bare feet across the ancient stone tower.

The entire city below him had vanished beneath darkness and snow.

It looked less like a kingdom now

and more like a graveyard waiting to awaken.

Behind him, shadow crows gathered silently across broken gargoyles and ruined cathedral arches.

Thousands of black eyes stared toward the sky.

Watching.

Listening.

Afraid.

Tenji approached quietly through the storm.

For once

even the Fairy looked unsettled.

“The snow has begun farther south already,” he said softly.

“Entire caravans disappeared near the western ruins.”

Einar remained silent.

His pale eyes never left the moon.

“It’s earlier than before,” Tenji continued.

“That should not be possible.”

Finally, Einar spoke.

“What is it?”

The Fairy hesitated.

For the first time in centuries

he seemed uncertain.

“When the Black Veil opened during the First Age,” Tenji whispered, “the heavens did not simply descend.”

His silver eyes darkened slightly.

“Something answered from below as well.”

Lightning flickered faintly across the distant horizon.

Black lightning.

Einar turned toward him slowly.

“The Hollow Gods.”

Tenji nodded once.

“The Wardens were not the only horror sealed beneath reality.”

The crows shrieked violently around them.

“The ancient powers beneath Baalania were never destroyed.”

“Only buried.”

Far beneath the frozen tower, Mordecai stood motionless within the cathedral ruins below like a silent guardian carved from shadow and death.

Even the gigantic Reaper seemed restless tonight.

His crimson eyes glowed brighter whenever the black snow touched the cathedral walls.

Then suddenly

the bells rang.

Ancient cathedral bells echoed across Vahsravia without human hands touching them.

One deep metallic sound rolled across the dead kingdom.

Then another.

Then another.

Einar’s expression changed immediately.

The bells had not rung since the First Age.

Far below the city

something moved beneath the ruins.

The Frost Heir descended quickly through the shattered cathedral halls while snow and shadow followed him through the darkness.

Tenji moved beside him silently while Mordecai emerged behind them like a living nightmare.

The deeper they traveled beneath the ruins

the colder the air became.

Eventually they reached the oldest section of the buried catacombs.

Ancient doors of black stone stood partially open now.

Broken from the inside.

The bells continued tolling slowly above them.

Einar stepped forward carefully.

Beyond the doors stretched a forgotten chamber buried beneath centuries of ice and darkness.

And at the center

stood an ancient stone altar covered in frost.

Upon it rested a silver crown split cleanly through the center.

The Crown of Vahsravia.

Dragun’s crown.

Black snow had somehow reached even this place.

The flakes drifted silently downward through cracks in the ceiling despite the impossible depth beneath the earth.

Tenji stopped suddenly.

His silver eyes widened slightly.

“No…”

The chamber walls were covered in ancient celestial scripture glowing faintly beneath the darkness.

But something had changed.

New symbols had appeared across the stone.

Symbols not carved by human hands.

They pulsed slowly like breathing veins beneath the walls.

Alive.

Then the whispers began.

At first they sounded distant.

Almost impossible to understand.

But gradually the voices grew clearer throughout the chamber: hundreds, thousands and countless overlapping murmurs echoing beneath the earth.

Ancient voices speaking from somewhere deep below the world itself.

Mordecai stepped in front of Einar instantly.

The Reaper’s claws flexed violently while black smoke poured from his armor.

He recognized danger.

Then suddenly

the entire chamber shook.

A deafening sound echoed upward from the abyss beneath the catacombs.

Not an explosion.

Not collapsing stone.

Something striking metal.

From far below.

Once.

Silence followed.

Then

again.

LOUDER.

Einar’s icy eyes narrowed.

“What is beneath us?”

Tenji looked pale for the first time since the First Age.

“The kingdom was not built over these ruins by accident.”

Another impact thundered upward through the darkness below.

The entire cathedral trembled violently.

Dust and black snow fell from the ceiling.

Tenji whispered softly:

“The coffin.”

Far away beneath the cursed deserts of Baalania

beyond buried cathedrals and endless layers of black stone

the ancient abyss prison remained hidden beneath the earth.

The Black Coffin slept where the world had sealed it centuries ago.

Still chained.

Still buried.

Still forgotten.

But tonight

the sands above it had begun freezing solid.

Black snow fell across the deserts for the first time in history.

The storm clouds above Baalania spiraled unnaturally while ancient obsidian ruins emerged slowly from beneath the dunes like bones rising from a grave.

And deep below the sands

inside the eternal darkness of the abyss cathedral

the Black Coffin moved.

Very slightly.

A single metallic creak echoed through the buried kingdom.

Ancient chains tightened.

Dust fell from the ceiling.

And from inside the coffin

something breathed.