He was dreaming again.
Lidow stood in a sea of ash. No sky. No ground. Just weightless smoke and the scent of burned feathers. Ahead, two thrones: one of black stone veined with fire—his father's. The other, made of fractured crystal, bleeding golden light.
Between them stood a figure.
He was tall, faceless, but cloaked in wings—wings that flickered between dark and radiant. His voice was not a voice, but a whisper Lidow felt in his bones.
"You are not one of them. Not yet one of us. Choose."
Lidow reached for his sword—but it wasn't there. Just a flame in his chest. One he couldn't control.
He woke up with a jolt, soaked in sweat, heart racing. His hands trembled.
Valarie entered moments later. Her expression calm, but her eyes sharp. "The dreams again?"
He nodded. "They're stronger."
"Shadow should know."
Lidow looked away. "He feels it already."
Shadow sat in silence atop the obsidian throne, alone. His crown—if it could be called that—was forged from the shattered armor of the fallen archangels. He hadn't moved in hours.
When Valarie entered, he didn't look up. But he spoke.
"Lidow is changing."
"He's stronger than we thought," she said softly. "But something… calls to him. A presence beyond even your knowing."
Shadow's eyes narrowed. "There is no beyond me."
Valarie stepped closer. "Then what do you call the thing waking beneath the ruins of the first sky? The one whispering to Lidow? It is not heaven. It is not hell. It is older."
Silence.
Shadow finally rose. The temperature shifted, walls flickering with heat. He spoke with finality:
"Then we burn it too."
Far beyond Inferen, in the hollowed remains of the ancient cathedral of Thariel, something stirred.
Beneath cracked statues of gods long dead, a flame sparked to life—one not of shadow, nor of light, but of something forgotten. It grew slowly, feeding on time itself, until it took form:
A being without name.
A god without memory.
But its first word was clear.
"Lidow."
Back in Inferen, Lidow stood on the edge of the Black Gardens, training against conjured foes—shadow-specters that mimicked real battle. He moved swiftly now. Controlled. But when one of the specters looked like the faceless figure from his dreams, he faltered.
The flame in his chest erupted—and the entire garden was consumed in radiant-dark fire.
From the throne room, Shadow stood silently. Watching. Not angry.
Prepared.
Because whatever was coming… it wasn't a war.
It was a reckoning.
Lidow stood at the center of the Black Gardens, now scorched and broken from the blaze he had unleashed. His breathing was heavy, not from exhaustion, but confusion. He stared at his hands. Black veins of shadow twisted across one arm, golden flickers along the other.
"Light and shadow," he whispered. "But… this isn't either of them."
Behind him, footsteps. Calm, deliberate. It was not his father.
Valarie approached, dressed not in battle armor, but in a long obsidian robe. Her voice was quiet but firm. "You're starting to hear it more clearly now."
He turned to her, eyes uncertain. "The voice. The… thing. It's calling to me."
"It's been calling since before you were born," she said, brushing ashes from his shoulder. "Shadow doesn't talk about it. But he knows. There's a third force waking."
He stared. "You mean… not heaven. Not hell."
"No. Something forgotten. Something exiled."
Meanwhile, Shadow stood atop the Citadel Tower, looking out over the lands of Inferen. Black rivers flowed through red valleys, the sky eternally twilight. He had built this world again from nothing but vengeance and bones. And yet…
His eyes flared.
A tremor.
A soundless ripple in the realm's core.
He growled low. "It's begun."
Valgorr, one of his last surviving demon lords, appeared behind him.
"My King. Scouts have vanished from the edges of the Shardlands. Something ancient moves through the ruins of the Old War. Something that devours memory itself."
Shadow turned slowly. "Then send no more scouts. If it comes… it comes here."
"And your son?"
"He will stand beside me." Shadow's voice deepened. "Or not at all."
In the Temple of Quiet Flames, Lidow knelt before the shattered altar. He had never prayed. Not to heaven, nor to hell. But the pull now was undeniable. It wasn't words that came. It was fire.
Visions.
A war that predated the heavens.
A world that burned long before the first light or shadow.
A child born of that flame.
Him.
He gasped, falling back, eyes wide. The voice returned, now clearer.
"You are not their weapon."
"You are ours."
Night fell over Inferen, though there was no sun to set.
Shadow, now armored, entered the chamber where Lidow stood. Father and son locked eyes.
"You heard it," Shadow said.
"Yes."
"And do you believe it?"
Lidow hesitated. "I don't know what to believe."
Shadow stepped forward. "Then learn. Because what's coming won't care who you believe in. It will erase us all."
They stood in silence, and for the first time, Lidow did not feel like a child.
He felt like a warrior.
The storm came without warning. Not a storm of wind or rain, but a pressure, thick as blood, that rippled across the lands of Inferen. The sky cracked open in silence, revealing not stars, but shifting eyes—watching, blinking, then vanishing. Creatures of shadow and fire stilled. Even the winds dared not whisper.
Lidow stood at the edge of the Obsidian Plateau, overlooking the broken valley where the remnants of the Old War lay like twisted bones. Beside him, Valarie wrapped her cloak tighter, her eyes distant.
"They're watching," she said, barely above a whisper.
"Who?" Lidow asked, his voice firmer than before, though uncertainty still clung to it.
"The Forgotten Flame. The ones who existed before light and shadow."
"You mean the ones that called to me," Lidow said.
Valarie gave a slow nod. "They see you now. Not just as Shadow's son. Not just a vessel of both realms. You're a… spark."
"A spark of what?"
She didn't answer.
Back within the Black Citadel, Shadow met with his last remaining generals. Only two stood now—Valgorr, the ancient war demon, and Seren, a former lightbearer who had defected during the Second War.
"The boundaries are failing," Seren said, pacing with a sword of white flame resting across her shoulder. "Whatever was sealed behind the Wall of Silence is leaking into our world. We can't contain it."
"We were never meant to," Shadow said coldly. His voice was steady, but his eyes betrayed the weight he carried. "This realm was born from death. It will end in it too."
Valgorr grunted. "Then why build it again? Why create peace? Why raise a son?"
Shadow's gaze sharpened. "Because I thought I could end the cycle. Kill the gods, kill the past. Forge something beyond their reach."
"But something reached back," Seren said quietly.
Shadow didn't answer.
Later that night, Lidow wandered alone into the tomb-chambers beneath the Citadel. The halls were carved with runes so old, even the demons no longer spoke their names. At the very center lay the Hall of Chains, where the first kings of hell had once sealed away relics from the forgotten era.
He pressed his hand to the obsidian gate. It opened—not with force, but with recognition.
Inside, in the heart of the chamber, floated a single blade. It shimmered gold, but shadows clung to it like roots. Lidow stepped closer.
His breath caught.
A voice rose—not loud, but clear, and not from outside, but from within.
You are the Balance. You were not meant to exist. You were born to correct the world, or destroy it.
His hand hovered near the blade.
Then another voice—real, sharp.
"Don't touch it."
Shadow stood at the entrance.
Lidow didn't flinch. "You knew this was here."
"I sealed it myself."
"What is it?"
"A god-killer," Shadow said flatly. "Forged by beings older than your mother's light and my darkness combined. It doesn't serve a master. It ends them."
"Then maybe I need it."
Shadow stepped closer, the air around him pulsing with his power. "You're not ready. That blade doesn't choose sides. It cuts all."
Lidow's jaw clenched. "Maybe that's what the world needs."
Shadow didn't speak. Instead, he reached out—and with the gentlest gesture, forced the door closed once more. The blade faded from view.
The next morning, the sky turned red.
Not fire. Not war.
Warning.
Scouts from the northern Wastes returned screaming and blind. Entire legions vanished in silence. Seren dropped her sword the moment she returned from a vision she had sought in the Ash Mirrors.
"What did you see?" Shadow asked her.
"Not what," she whispered. "Who."
Shadow raised a brow.
"The one before thrones. The one they buried at the core of this world. It wakes. And it hates us all."
Shadow turned to Valgorr. "Prepare the final legions. No diplomacy. No defense. We strike first."
"And the boy?" Valgorr asked.
Shadow paused. "Let him decide who he is."
Lidow stood before the great gates of the Citadel, watching the armies prepare. Demon soldiers, lightbearer exiles, and monstrous beasts bound by pacts of blood.
Valarie stood beside him, dressed in armor he had never seen before—white and black, fused at the center with a red seal.
"You're going with them?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "You are not."
"I can fight."
"You're meant to do more than fight," she said. "This war… it isn't about thrones anymore. It's about what's next."
Lidow turned back toward the dark horizon, where the sky cracked like old glass.
"I think I know what I have to do."
Valarie smiled faintly. "Then do it. Don't wait for permission. Not from me. Not even from your father."
That night, Lidow stood alone on the tower's peak.
He lit a small flame in his hand—pure golden.
Then shadow danced around it, swirling into the shape of wings.
And somewhere beneath the world, something opened its eyes.