Embers in the Shadows (Part I)
The stars over Vulcan were especially distant that night.
Cain stood at the highest balcony of the Siegfried stronghold, his black cloak whipping violently behind him. Lightning danced in slow, lazy arcs around his shoulders while a subtle trail of mist curled at his feet, the aftershocks of the power he had unleashed days earlier still clinging to him like smoke.
Behind him, the night murmured with rumors.
In every corner of the continent, something had shifted. Ancient beasts stirred in their lairs. Long-dead names resurfaced in scrolls and palaces. And far across the seas, three of the remaining Supremes had awakened from their slumber, disturbed not by an army, but by the pulse of a single tyrant's rise.
Cain Azaroth had entered the Immortal Stage. And the world would never sleep soundly again.
Laurifer's voice coiled from the shadow beside him, faintly amused.
> "They'll come for you soon. Sooner than you think."
"I want them to," Cain replied. "But I'll choose the battlefield."
He stepped down from the railing and turned inward, his thoughts focused—not on war, but foundation. Before he waged war against the Supremes, before the name Azaroth made the empires tremble again, he needed strength of a different kind.
He needed a faction.
---
Earlier that day – Mystic Falls Academy
Cain walked the outer perimeter of the academy's third tier district—a place most students rarely ventured. The ruins of an old battleground lay just beyond its boundary, encased in a dome of sealed glyphs and warding magic.
According to the Academy's records, it had once been a duel site for exiled warriors and cursed bloodlines, a place that now served as a danger zone, off-limits except to elite instructors. But Cain wasn't searching for permission.
He was following a pulse.
A voice.
Something... old.
His katana, strapped along his back, trembled lightly as he approached the seal. The runes flickered.
Then, unexpectedly, they opened.
Cain's eyes narrowed.
The dome shimmered aside, allowing him entrance.
Inside, mist clung to shattered pillars and collapsed arches. Statues of forgotten gods lay in ruin. Ancient bones crumbled underfoot. But through it all pulsed a presence—dark, immense, bound in silence.
Then came a whisper.
> "You are not the one."
Cain's steps halted.
The voice was not Laurifer's. It echoed from within the ground, deeper than thought, heavier than will.
Cain reached for his katana.
"I don't need to be 'the one.' I just need your strength."
The silence responded with laughter. Cold, low, and bitter.
> "Then step forward and bleed."
The earth cracked.
From beneath the rubble rose a figure, cloaked in chains, its face hidden beneath a silver mask. Dark tendrils writhed from its back like shadowy wings.
Cain's eyes sharpened.
A Revenant.
Laurifer's tone turned grim.
> "Careful, Cain. Revenants are remnants of fallen cultivators bound by chaos and unfinished oaths. They don't obey. They devour."
Cain didn't flinch.
"Then let's make a deal it can't refuse."
He stepped forward and slashed open his palm. His blood, thick with triple affinity essence, fell onto the ancient floor. The runes responded.
The Revenant paused.
It tilted its head, sniffing the blood through the mask.
Then it spoke, quieter now.
> "Azaroth..."
Chains rattled. The ground trembled. The creature bowed its head.
> "Command me."
Cain's eyes widened for a fraction of a second. Laurifer's laughter finally returned, sharp and impressed.
> "You've just done what should be impossible. You've subjugated a Revenant."
Cain stepped closer.
"What's your name?"
The creature lifted its gaze.
> "Once, I was called Kael. Kael the Ebon Warden."
Cain smiled.
"Now, Kael, you are mine."
---
Later that Night – Abandoned Academy Sublevels
Cain had transformed an old hidden vault into his sanctum—a place forgotten by even the Academy's most ancient registrars. There, beneath meters of stone, in a chamber ringed with runes, he stood with Kael beside him.
Beatrix knelt at the edge of the circle, her head bowed, metal aura steady and solemn.
Cain turned to them both.
"I need more than allies. I need believers. A shadow in the system. An unseen hand. While the world looks to the surface, we'll bloom beneath it."
He raised his hand.
"From this night forward, we are the Shadow Garden."
A pulse of dark essence surged from his palm, marking the walls with a sigil—a flower of black petals, rimmed with flame and lightning.
Kael's mask pulsed with light.
Beatrix raised her head, something fierce in her eyes.
Cain continued.
"Each of you will recruit one. No more. Only those whose souls are shattered, whose loyalty cannot be bought, only forged. We will not be many. But we will be absolute."
Kael bowed.
Beatrix grinned.
And above them, unseen by the academy or empire, the Shadow Garden bloomed for the first time.
Cain stepped back into the darkness, his aura withdrawing.
Tomorrow, the game would change.
And in the shadows, he would already be five steps ahead.
---