Chapter 23: The Letter in the Cupboard

The cold certainty of Lilith's words – "Then you will die" –still hung over the Citadel's broken porch like the sulfurous fog. Karnazul stood rigid, the restless energy that had fueled his confession momentarily frozen under the weight of her icy prediction. His crimson eyes stared into the ruined courtyard, not seeing the glowing fungi, but seeing Theodric's contemptuous back as he walked away, leaving him buried in shame.

Lilith watched him. The raw, desperate hunger in his voice, the sheer, consuming drive to become Theodric's rival… it wasn't just wounded pride anymore. It felt deeper, darker. More… familiar than she expected. Her sharp, purple eyes narrowed, cutting through the gloom.

"That fire in you, Ash Lord," she said, her voice losing its usual mocking edge, replaced by genuine, sharp curiosity. "It burns… specific. Obsessive. Why? Why stake your life, your oath, everything, on becoming the Dragon Knight's rival? Is it just the shame? Or is there something else gnawing at your demonic core?"

Karnazul didn't answer immediately. He turned slowly, his ash-grey face a mask of conflicted emotions – defiance warring with a strange, almost haunted intensity. He looked past Lilith, towards the shadowed archway leading deeper into the citadel's restored wing.

"Found something," he finally rumbled, his voice low and rough. "After they dug me out… years ago. In the rubble near what was left of my chambers. A cupboard, mostly crushed. Inside…" He reached into a pouch at his belt, not with his flesh hand, but with the sleek, black slime fingers of his prosthetic. They moved with unnerving silence as he pulled out a single, folded piece of parchment. It was ancient, brittle, stained with dark splotches that could be old blood or demonic ichor.

He didn't hand it to Lilith. He just held it, his crimson gaze fixed on it as if it were a live coal. "A letter. Addressed to me." He unfolded it carefully. The script was jagged, powerful, etched with dark ink that seemed to writhe slightly in the citadel's dim light. "From Krazak."

Lilith's breath hitched almost imperceptibly. Krazak. The Unyielding. One of the three Demon Lords Theodric had slain. Consumed by Taimat's fierce jaw.

Karnazul's voice, when he spoke again, wasn't his own angry growl. It was lower, flatter, reciting words burned into his memory:

"Karnazul," he began, the name sounding strange on his tongue, spoken with the weight of the dead. "This endless sparring bores me. Crushing your petty warlords? Meaningless. You cling to your 'Lord of Nine Blades' title like a child clings to a dull rock. You mistake strength for dominance. True power lies not in being the strongest, but in forging the greatest challenge. The ultimate whetstone."

Karnazul paused, his jaw tightening. He looked up, his eyes meeting Lilith's shocked purple gaze.

"I don't seek to be your equal, Karnazul," he continued, the ghost of Krazak's arrogant, brutal voice seeming to echo in the ruined stones. "I seek to be your rival. I will carve my name not just into your flesh, but into your legend. I will be the shadow that makes your fire burn brighter, the obstacle that forces you to shatter your own limits. Only then, when you stand bleeding but unbowed, having faced *me* at my most relentless… only then will you glimpse true power. And I will be there, Karnazul. Always. Your eternal rival. Until one of us is dust."

Karnazul lowered the letter. The silence that followed was thick, heavy with the arrogance of the dead lord and the chilling resonance of his words. Lilith stared, her mind racing. Krazak hadn't just challenged Karnazul; he had defined him. He had sought to forge him into something greater through relentless opposition, through the very rivalry he craved.

"He wanted…" Lilith started, her voice unusually quiet, "...to make you stronger. By being your nightmare."

"He wanted a legend," Karnazul corrected, his voice thick with a strange mix of fury and… reverence? "His own. And mine. Twisted together in blood and battle. He didn't just want to fight me. He wanted to shape me. To be the fire that tempered my steel." He crushed the brittle parchment slightly in his slime hand. "And then Theodric came. And turned him to sludge in a dragon's gullet."

He looked back towards the void arena spot, then at his new slime hand, flexing it. "Krazak saw something… a potential for greatness fueled by rivalry. He was arrogant, brutal… but he wasn't wrong about the fire it stokes. Theodric…" Karnazul's crimson eyes blazed anew, hotter than before, fueled now by the words of a dead rival. "Theodric didn't just beat me. He ignored me. He dismissed the fight Krazak saw worth having. He made me… irrelevant. Forgotten dust under his boot."

He slammed his slime fist against the obsidian railing. It didn't crack, but the impact resonated. "Krazak's letter… it burns in my head now. That hunger he wanted to awaken? It's awake. But not for him. For Theodric. He is the mountain now. The ultimate challenge. The whetstone Krazak talked about. To become what Krazak saw? To forge my legend? I need Theodric as my rival. I need to make him see me as more than an obstacle. I need to make him bleed for the shame, to earn every victory against me… until the day I take it from him!"

Lilith watched the raw, terrifying conviction solidify in him. It wasn't just vengeance anymore. It was a dark inheritance, a dead lord's philosophy taking root in the Ash Lord's wounded soul, directed towards the Dragon Knight. Krazak's ghost, it seemed, was far from gone. He was speaking through Karnazul's burning need, using Theodric as the anvil upon which to forge a rival worthy of his own twisted legacy.

"Krazak got his wish," Lilith murmured, her voice barely a whisper against the wind wailing through the broken spires. "A rival forged in fire. He just never lived to see it aimed at someone else." She looked at Karnazul, not with pity, but with a chilling understanding. The path he craved wasn't just dangerous; it was paved with the ambitions of the dead. And it smelled like oblivion.