Chapter 2: Echoes of a Fallen Throne
A Kingdom of Forgotten Gods
The Ashen King moved forward, each step measured, his senses attuned to the weight of the Hollow Vale pressing against him.
It was more than ruins. More than a graveyard.
It was a threshold.
A place where the boundaries between past and present, forgotten and remembered, blurred.
The architecture, worn by the erosion of millennia, was wrong. The angles of the archways twisted in ways that defied natural perception. The symbols carved into the ancient pillars were not just letters, but concepts—fragments of a language older than the gods themselves.
He touched one of the sigils, and for an instant, something reached back.
A vision—fleeting, yet vivid.
The Hollow Vale, not as ruins, but as it once was.
A city of titanic spires, built from obsidian and celestial steel. A capital that had stood defiant against gods, mortals, and the Abyss alike.
And at its heart—
A throne.
A kingdom lost to time, erased from history.
His kingdom.
Then, the vision shattered. The weight of the present came crashing back, and the sigil beneath his palm burned, searing into his skin.
He did not flinch.
Instead, he whispered the words that had appeared before him.
⚜ The Throne of Ash Shall Rise Again. ⚜
At his voice, the ruins shuddered. The ground trembled beneath his feet.
And then, the air grew cold.
The darkness moved.
And the Sentinels of the Hollow Vale stepped forward.
---
The Sentinels of the Hollow Vale
The first warrior stood at the forefront, his presence towering. His armor, though dulled by time, bore no rust. A symbol long forgotten was etched across his chestplate—a sigil that pulsed faintly with a power that had no name.
But the Ashen King knew it.
He recognized it.
For it was the emblem of the Forgotten Order—his order.
The warrior removed his helmet, revealing a face untouched by decay, yet not quite alive. His eyes burned with an eerie silver light, remnants of a power that should not have endured the passage of time.
He exhaled, and his voice carried across the ruins like a whisper from the past.
"You are late, King of the Rift."
The Ashen King met his gaze. His fingers twitched at his side, not from fear, but from recognition.
"...And you are still here."
A silence stretched between them.
Then, a chuckle—low and knowing.
"The Throne of Ash is not yet claimed."
Behind him, two more warriors emerged from the shifting darkness.
The second figure was a woman, her form wreathed in the remnants of a power that crackled like dying embers. Her armor, once resplendent, was marred by scars that had never healed.
She carried a halberd, its edge humming with a resonance that pulsed in time with the Hollow Vale itself.
Her voice was softer, but no less sharp.
"The gods thought they had buried us." She tilted her head. "Perhaps they have."
The third warrior was silent, but his presence spoke louder than words. He was clad in blackened steel, his gauntlets still stained with the echoes of battles fought long ago.
He did not wield a weapon.
Because he was the weapon.
A walking storm of power, restrained only by the weight of time itself.
And in that moment, the Ashen King knew the truth.
They were not just remnants.
They were waiting for him.
---
A Throne Unclaimed
The Hollow Vale had been a kingdom.
A kingdom that had once stood against the gods themselves.
But history did not remember it.
Because the gods had ensured that it would be erased.
And now, as the Ashen King stood before the last three warriors of an age that had been forgotten, he understood.
The gods feared the Abyss. They feared the unholy, the aberrant, the chaotic.
But what they feared most…
…was what they could not erase.
And here, in this place that should not exist, stood the proof of their failure.
The legacy that they had tried to silence.
The Ashen King exhaled, his breath turning to mist in the frigid air.
"Why are you still here?" he asked.
The first warrior—once a general, once a king in his own right—studied him with eyes that saw beyond time.
"Because you are."
The weight of the words struck deep.
And in that moment, something shifted.
The Hollow Vale awoke.
---
The Ashen King's Power Unleashed
The sigils along the ruins began to glow, pulsing in time with his own heartbeat.
A resonance.
Not magic. Not divinity.
Something older.
Something that preceded even the gods themselves.
The Ashen King felt it rising within him—a power that had been sealed, buried, chained away by those who feared it.
And now, for the first time in an age, it recognized him.
The air cracked with tension. The ground beneath his feet splintered. The Hollow Vale trembled.
The three warriors stepped back, their expressions unreadable.
But the first warrior—the once-king—smiled.
"Ah," he murmured. "So you have begun to remember."
A memory surged forward—
Flashes of war.
A throne wreathed in flame, not in ruin, but in power.
And a name.
Not the one the gods had given him.
Not the one mortals feared.
But the true name that had been taken from him.
⚜ Vael'therion, Sovereign of the Forgotten. ⚜
The moment the name surfaced, the Hollow Vale reacted.
A pillar of energy erupted from the ground, ancient runes unraveling into tendrils of light. The Ashen King's vision blurred as the power surged through him—
Not the Abyss.
Not the Astral Arts.
Something else.
Something that did not bow to gods or darkness.
And in the distance, far beyond the ruins, in the celestial halls where the Eldren Lords still watched…
They felt it.
And for the first time since the dawn of their rule, the gods knew fear.