The Beginning Of The End

The sun sank low on the horizon, bleeding fire across the sky. Komodo Island’s jagged cliffs caught the last light like the edge of a blade, casting long, fractured shadows over the sea below. The brisk and salt-heavy wind howled between the rocks, stirring the sparse vegetation clinging to the cliffside.

David stood at the edge, the Dragon Crown cradled in both hands. Its surface shimmered—gold and obsidian scales woven into a shape that seemed alive even in stillness. The Crown pulsed faintly, as if echoing the slow rhythm of his heart—or perhaps the island’s.

His jaw tightened. The wind carried more than salt and chill tonight—it carried memory.

“Protection is not power—it is sacrifice.”

The voice came like a ghost. His father’s voice. Still so vivid in his mind after all these years, as if the cliffs themselves remembered.

David closed his eyes.