"Sit... and the Shadow World shall be yours."

The mysterious voice continued to reverberate throughout the grand hall.

Surya stood frozen in front of the Ash Throne. The Ash King's Sword in his hand still emitted a faint black radiance, while the Soul Sigil on his palm pulsed at an escalating tempo.

Thud...

Thud...

Thud...

Every pulse felt like a second heartbeat.

The throne was calling to him. Not with a sound, but with something infinitely deeper. As though a fractured piece of his own soul was urging him to step forward. To sit. To accept everything.

Yet Surya clenched his fists instead. He squeezed his eyes shut.

And forced his mind to conjure a single memory: His mother.

...

No.

He could no longer picture his mother's face.

His father.

...

No.

Even his name was already gone.

His home. The road to his school. The laughter of his friends. Little by little, they had been stripped away by the curse.

Surya slowly opened his eyes.

"If I sit there..." he whispered softly. "What else will I lose?"

The mysterious voice answered instantly. "Everything."

Surya froze.

"In exchange..."

"You shall gain the entire Shadow World."

The Ash Throne flared with a blinding black light. Phantoms began to materialize around Surya. He saw himself draped in a long black cloak. Behind him knelt millions of mythical beasts and beings. Mountains bowed. Oceans parted. The sky opened its path. The entire world rested beneath his feet.

"You shall become the king."

"You shall never fall."

"You shall never die."

The voice was so convincing. So tender.

Yet for some reason... Surya felt an icy shiver crawl up the length of his spine.

The Relic finally spoke up. For the first time... its voice sounded panicked.

"Do not."

Surya raised his head. "Why?"

"Because that is not a gift."

"It is a prison."

The declaration hardened Surya's resolve. He drew a deep, steady breath, then fixed his gaze on the Ash Throne.

"If becoming a king means losing who I am..." Surya shook his head slowly. "Then..."

"I refuse."

The exact moment that final word left his lips... the entire hall plunged into absolute silence.

The Ash Throne ceased its glow. The Ash King's Sword trembled in response. The mysterious voice vanished entirely, leaving a vacuum of sound.

Several seconds passed without a single incident.

Outside the temple, Dimas and the others waited on edge. Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet convulsed.

Mr. Yusuf snapped upright. "An earthquake?"

Rina stared toward the temple entrance. "Surya's still inside!"

The tremors grew violent. The hill supporting the temple fractured. Boulders tumbled down its slopes.

The inhabitants of the Last City, who had remained prostrate until now, slowly raised their heads. Their faces were etched with raw panic.

"No..."

"He refused..."

"The Throne..."

"Has been rejected..."

The old woman who had guided Surya drained of color. "It's too late..."

Inside the hall...

Fractures began to spread across the surface of the Ash Throne.

Crack...

Crack...

The fissures multiplied, spiderwebbing across every inch of the massive seat.

Surya took several steps back. "What's happening?"

The Relic answered quietly, "No one has ever rejected it before."

The throne fractured further. And then—

BOOOM!!

The entire structure shattered into a billion pieces. An explosion of compressed black energy tore through the temple. Surya was blown backward several meters, dropping the Ash King's Sword from his grip.

Dust choked the chamber, obscuring everything in sight. Nothing could be seen save for falling debris.

And then... the sound of footsteps.

Clack...

Clack...

Clack...

Slow. Heavy. Yet every single step made the stone floor groan.

Surya scrambled to snatch up his sword, hauling himself to his feet. He raised his head. The dust cloud slowly drifted away.

In the exact center of the ruined Ash Throne... stood a figure.

Tall. Roughly two meters in height. Long black hair cascaded down to his waist. He wore a battle-cloak of dark, ashen gray, tattered and worn with age. Slung at his hip hung a sword nearly matching the height of a grown man.

The aura radiating from him eclipsed anything Surya had ever encountered. Even the twelve Ancient Wardens felt pale and insignificant by comparison.

The man slowly opened his eyes.

A pair of obsidian-black eyes. Devoid of whites. Devoid of light. Pure, absolute darkness.

The air in the chamber instantly turned suffocatingly heavy. The Relic vibrated wildly, and for the first time... Surya heard something akin to terror in its tone.

"...He has awakened."

Surya gripped his sword tighter. "Who is he?"

The Relic offered no immediate reply.

The gray-robed man stepped forward out of the rubble. Every footprint he left behind instantly withered the stone floor into ash. The black torches flared of their own accord. The temple ceiling fractured further.

And then... the man spoke. His voice was heavy. Yet remarkably calm.

"I..."

He looked down at his own palms. "...am still alive."

The sentence sounded more like a confused question than a definitive statement. He raised his chin, sweeping his gaze across the vast hall, moving as though waking from an agonizingly long slumber.

"How long..."

"...has it been?"

No one answered. Surya held his defensive stance, muscles coiled.

The man finally lowered his gaze, locking eyes with Surya.

For a beat... time ground to a halt.

The man's obsidian eyes widened slightly.

"Again?" he muttered softly. "There is still one more?"

Surya frowned. "What do you mean?"

The man didn't answer. Instead, he raised a hand slowly.

The Soul Sigil on Surya's palm flared on its own. The black crown emblem pulsed wildly. The Ash King's Sword thrummed violently in his grip.

The Relic whispered in a voice barely audible above the ringing in his ears:

"Surya... do not believe a single word he says."

Yet the gray-robed man merely offered a thin, cryptic smile. A strange smile—not that of an enemy, but of someone who had just stumbled upon their own reflection in a mirror.

He resumed his approach. Closer. Closer still.

As the man stepped into the torchlight, Surya finally made out his features clearly.

His heart slammed against his ribs and stopped dead. The sword nearly slipped from his fingers.

Because the man...

Shared the exact same eyebrows. The same jawline. The same eyes.

Even the tiny scar over the right eyebrow... matched down to the millimeter.

Surya froze solid. His lips parted, but no words came out.

While the man merely stared back at him with unshakeable calm, as though he had anticipated this exact reaction all along.

The Relic whispered a final, defeated breath, its tone drowning in absolute despair:

"The Ash King..."

"...has awakened."

Surya remained utterly paralyzed.

Because the face of the Ash King...

Was his own face.