Ashborn screamed across the shattered battlefield, trailing fire and black smoke.
Behind them, the army of the Dead Kings thundered closer — a tidal wave of rot, steel, and sorcery.
Ahead, the ruins opened into a massive canyon:jagged stone walls, rivers of ash, broken monuments — and somewhere beyond it, the Heart Shrine.
Eve clutched Shadow's back tightly, shouting spells over her shoulder to slow their pursuers.
But it wasn't enough.
With a deafening roar, a War-Titan — a Dead King twice the size of the others — crashed through the canyon wall, blocking their path.Its rusted frame was stitched with black magic, its eyes burning like dying stars.
Ashborn skidded to a stop.Shadow leapt off the bike, drawing his blade.
The War-Titan lifted a massive hammer, carved from wreckage and bound with bone, and swung it down at them with apocalyptic force.
There was no time to dodge.
Shadow lifted his sword, roaring defiance —but the hammer smashed down, shattering the ground beneath him and swallowing him in darkness.
For a moment, there was nothing.
No sound.No pain.No light.
Shadow floated in endless black, suspended between life and death.
He saw flashes of memory —
The day he was captured.
The experiments.
The betrayal.
The fire.
And then he heard it.
A whisper.
Low. Ancient. Hungry.
"You are not yet broken.You are ours.Rise, rider of the Abyss."
In the void before him, a shape emerged:A shard — jagged, black, pulsing with terrible power — floating in midair.
Shadow reached out, instinct burning in his blood.
His fingers touched the Shard.
It exploded into his chest, flooding his body with unimaginable force.
The ruins shook violently.
From the crater where the War-Titan's hammer had struck, a black storm erupted —fire, shadow, and screams twisting into the sky.
The Dead Kings recoiled.
From the smoke stepped Shadow reborn —his armor now a living extension of darkness, his sword burning with Abyssfire, his eyes glowing a deep, unnatural crimson.
Ashborn revved wildly nearby, answering its master's transformation.
Eve stumbled back, eyes wide — both awed and terrified.
Shadow lifted his hand.
Void Chains erupted from the ground, wrapping the War-Titan's legs and yanking it downward with earth-shattering force.
With a single slash of his flaming blade, Shadow cleaved the Titan's head from its body — black ichor spraying the canyon walls.
The battlefield fell silent.
The Dead Kings hesitated.
And in that moment of fear, Shadow and Eve charged forward — toward the Heart Shrine, toward destiny, toward the end.