The voices overlapped—some deep and male, others sharp and female, others older than breath itself, rasping like wind scouring bone.
“You were thrown here to die. Severen lied to you. He told you to destroy us, but you cannot. For shadows cannot be killed. Every shadow you slay is reborn again, splitting, multiplying, rooting deeper inside you. Shadows never die. They only change and stay within you forever.”
I shuddered, bile burning hot in my throat.
“He sent you here not to ascend, but to feed him. You are feeding him now—every scream, every gasp, every pain crawling through your flesh pours into him like wine. Out there, he grows stronger while you are devoured. He knew you would not come out alive. He knew this was the end. When you are gone, when you are consumed, he will remain—the only Shadow Lord in the world.”
Their laughter swelled again—a storm of hollow throats, tearing through the air, splitting my skull with its weight.
“Then what do I do?” I roared, my voice raw and blood-thick. “Tell me! How do we get out of here? I cannot fester in this pit forever. I have to destroy Severen. I have to free my mother!”
The voices constricted, twisting tighter and tighter until the air went dead. The silence that followed was heavier than the noise—thick, suffocating, alive.
“There is only one way out of the shadows.”
The air curdled bitter. Every breath scalded my lungs.
“To escape, you must become a Shadow Lord. Carry us within you. Wear us. Feed on what we feed on. Embrace the ugliest, most depraved part of yourself… and wield it as power.”
The words dripped down my spine like venom. My pulse thundered until it bruised my ribs.
I clenched my fists, nails biting blood from my palms.
“Then make me a Shadow Lord,” I roared, my voice piercing through the darkness.
Their laughter rippled through the pit—hollow, rusted, the sound of chains dragged across stone, echoing so deep it rattled my bones.
“You foolish man, Salvatore. You must earn it first.If the shadows accept you, you will ascend to your rebirth. Only then will you become a Shadow Lord.”
My fists clenched until blood slicked my palms. “Then show me,” I hissed. “Show me how I can earn it. I’ve endured every trial, every lash, every breath of torment. What more do you want?”
The shadows surged closer. They slid across the walls as thick as tar, dripped into my ears, and crawled down my throat. The darkness became a living tide, and within it, their voices formed—a chorus of knives.
“All men suffer. All men bleed. That alone does not crown a lord.Your scars mean nothing. Your screams were only the first step.Suffering carves you open, but it does not make you worthy.If you would take us into your flesh, you must give more. You must prove that you are not merely broken—but that you can wield the brokenness as a weapon.”
The pit pulsed with their decree. Cold hands—unseen, innumerable—pressed through my chest, digging, searching for the thing I still clung to.
“Every ascension is different. Every aspirant is judged alone. Each must destroy the one thing that tethers them to being human. That is the price. That is the proof.”
The chorus fractured into a thousand overlapping voices, the sound grinding through my skull like stone on bone.
“For you, Salvatore… it is love.”
The words froze the air.
“That hunger that ruled you. That weakness that consumed you. You crave it, starve for it, kill for it.Tear it out. Rip your heart from your chest and burn it in the pit.Only then will you rise. Only then will we decide if you are worthy.”
My chest constricted until it felt like my ribs were splintering, my heart a raw wound waiting for the knife.
“We do not give crowns. We consume. We strip. We break. And when nothing remains, we decide.If we accept you, you ascend. If we do not, you will rot here forever, your soul another whisper in the dark.”
The pit shivered. Shadows writhed like a storm in flesh. Their final decree slammed through me, a sentence written in iron?—
“Earn it. Die for it. And if you rise, it will not be as a man, but as a monster with unimaginable power.”
The stone split open. The shadows peeled back like torn skin.
And there they stood before me—my ghosts, my hungers, every face and every sin I had ever tried to bury.
