Darkness. Absolute, heavy silence broken by the sluggish grind of the machinery that only he could hear. Kaelen drifted, half-aware, suspended in a space that had no ground and no sky. Yet, even in stasis, his mind was restless.

  He was back on the throne, but this time, Velen was an immense, towering figure whose righteous aura eclipsed the very shadows of the hall. The youth's simple tunic was blinding white, his voice a mighty storm that ravaged the innards of Kaelen’s mind.

  "Every word you say is filled with poison! You cannot comprehend the meaning of sacrifice or hope!" Velen’s voice roared inside his head.

  , Kaelen thought, though when he opened his mouth, no sound escaped his lips.

  “I will return the freedom you took from us, fiend!”

  Faces surfaced and vanished before he could fix them in place, like a cascade of autumn leaves caught in an unseen current. They did not arrive in the order he’d met them. There was no courtesy of chronology.

  “You wage endless wars against the innocents!” the voices yelled at him.

  They wouldn’t appreciate his grand design. The fools. They’d rather pray to their pathetic nonexistent gods than to him. These inferior minds had yet to learn: there were no heavenly firmaments. No gods. No fate. No eternal souls and no salvation, either.

  More faces followed after that. Wise mentors he’d stolen knowledge from, great knights he’d bested in duels, innocent lives he’d reduced to nothing. Kings who had knelt too late. Priests who had denounced their gods as they were being burned alive. Apprentices who had begged to be spared because they swore they could be useful.

  Some of them had been. Most had not.

  The faces began to fade, one by one, until only darkness remained. But their voices – their shrill, accusatory voices – stayed with Kaelen, twisting inside him like jagged knives. They overlapped, merging into a tuneless choir:

  He bared his teeth. “Enough.” But the voices continued, undeterred:

  “...alive.”

  Kaelen frowned. That last one didn’t sound right. Who said that?

  “...get here?”

  “Sleeping?”

  “How’d he even…”

  “…wake up…”

  “…no wait, don’t…”

  “Back away!”

  “…touch that and…”

  “…someone go and call…”

  “He’s moving!”

  “Gods above, he’s waking up!”

  The voices were breaking through the fog of Kaelen’s dream. Worse yet, they were becoming nearer and more annoying, like buzzing flies attracted to light.

  Before Kaelen knew it, the dream shattered around him like glass.

  Light stabbed at Kaelen’s eyes.

  He blinked rapidly, adjusting. His limbs felt stiff, rooted in the ground. He was lying on his back inside… something. A cylindrical chamber of crystal and metal.

  This bitter memory struck his head like an arrow, and it all came back to him in an instant.

  Around him stood a dozen people. A few were from other races, but all of them were dressed strangely — and none of them were his minions.

  “H-How did he get in there?” a woman’s voice demanded. “This exhibit has been sealed for decades!”

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  Another voice, younger: “Just a prankster, I bet. Or a drunk.”

  “He moved! Look, he’s breathing!”

  Kaelen stared upward at a semicircle of worried faces around him. Their attire was garish, if not to say ill-matched: bright fabrics, wild cuts, gaudy trinkets. It had all the fashion sense of hand-me-downs from older siblings.

  A little grey-skinned girl whispered, “Mommy, is he part of the show?”

  Kaelen slowly sat up. The crowd gasped and backed away. Whoever they were, they were intelligent enough to recognize true danger.

  A woman wearing a sash stepped forward. “Young man,” she said, planting her hands on her hips, “this area is restricted. That chamber is a delicate historical property, and you are absolutely not allowed inside it.”

  Kaelen stared. “Inside… what?”

  “The lavatory!” she snapped. “Do you have any idea how fragile this relic is? How did you even manage to get inside?”

  If Kaelen wasn’t so groggy, he would laugh These people mistook his rejuvenation chamber for a chamber pot.

  Meanwhile, the people were gawking at him stupidly, with fish-like empty eyes.

  “Step out carefully,” the woman ordered. “Do not touch anything or anyone.” She stepped towards him and immediately wrinkled her nose. “Oh, gods be good! You reek!”

  Kaelen ignored her and rose to his feet. His joints cracked from disuse, but his posture remained straight. He reached for his power, instinctively preparing an offensive spell.

  [Demonic—

  Pain exploded in his side before he could complete his spell. His hand twitched, and the magic fizzled.

  Kaelen sucked in a sharp breath. The wound the boy gave him — the shard of the Sun-Kissed Blade — still burned. The scar was as raw as back when he’d taken it. Was he woken up before his time? But then, who were these intruders?

  The woman gasped. “Oh gods, he’s bleeding. Someone get a healer!”

  Kaelen checked his palm. A streak of red glistened across it. The rejuvenation chamber should have mended the wound a hundred times over. And yet he could feel it, the foreign anchor lodged in his spirit.

  Kaelen forced himself upright. “What of the boy? Where are my generals? I need a report. Now!”

  The crowd stared blankly.

  “He’s delirious!”

  The woman said, “Sir, you’re clearly disoriented. You’re in a museum.”

  Kaelen’s head snapped toward her. “A what?”

  “A museum,” she repeated. “You are inside the Royal Historical Museum.”

  This was not the combination of words that he expected.

  Kaelen frowned. “Explain yourself.”

  A man piped in. “How hard have you hit your head? You’ve been inside this exhibit for too long. You should get some air.”

  Kaelen stared at him. These gawkers were… tourists?

  The man continued, helpfully: “You’re not supposed to be in there. It’s behind a barrier for a—”

  Kaelen opened his hand. For a single heartbeat, he intended to strike the man dead. These annoying mortals should know their place.

  [A Thousand Stri—

  His vision blurred. The scar in his side pulsed like a living thing, forcing him to his knees. Magic slipped through his fingers like water. He gritted his teeth. Sweat dripped from his brow. He could not muster even a basic attack. He was weakened. Humiliated.

  The tourists backed away, murmuring.

  “Is he sick?”

  “Is this some kind of performance?”

  “Should we help him?”

  Kaelen forced himself upright again. he decided, even if this thought alone was humiliating.

  A guide reached toward him. “Sir, please calm down. We will—”

  He slapped her hand away. He could accomplish that much, at least. The woman recoiled.

  His eyes flicked upward. High above the exhibit floor, a mage-lamp hung from a decorative chain. With a careless snap of his fingers, Kaelen sent a thin pulse of mana toward it. The lamp flared violently, sputtered, and burst with a sharp crack, plunging that side of the hall into dimness.

  Shouts followed, and people ducked instinctively. That was enough.

  While no one was looking in his direction, Kaelen crossed the floor in three quick steps and jumped into a shadowy corner, casting [Shadow Walk]. Darkness rippled under his feet, swallowing him whole. Moments later, gasps erupted from the crowd behind him, echoing through the exhibit hall.

  “Where did he go?!”

  “He just disappeared!”

  “I swear he was here just a moment ago!”

  Kaelen slipped through shadows like an eel through water. His current state made the movement difficult, but not impossible. He could only traverse through shadows for as long as he held his breath, which was plenty enough.

  He emerged behind a pillar near the exit of what was supposed to be his fortress. He made sure there were no witnesses, reformed his body, and pushed through the doors.

  Sunlight hit him like a slap. He staggered down three steps before stopping dead.

  The world he knew was gone.

  Doomgard — his proud fortress-capital — was unrecognizable. The black stone towers he had built were replaced with tall, elegant structures of pale stone and glass, connected by bridges suspended in midair.

  Crowds — actual crowds of people! — filled the streets, wearing colors he would have never allowed to be used in public. They were talking, screaming, and laughing. Laughing! Kaelen felt like it was him who was the butt of all their jokes.

  The Dark Lord stared. Wherever he was, this was not Doomgard. This was a festering tumor growing on its corpse.

  “Hey, friend, you lost?” It was some passerby who must have noticed him standing there with wide eyes.

  Kaelen stepped toward him. “What… year is this?”

  The man blinked. “Is this a joke? Are you alright?”

  “What. Year,” Kaelen demanded again.

  “Uh. Two-ninety-nine, and almost time for the festival.”

  Kaelen looked around him. If so, the architecture looked much more advanced than it was a thousand years ago.

  He turned to the man. “You spoke of the festival.”

  “Yeah,” the man shrugged. “Velen’s Day. It will be 300 ABD soon.”

  “ABD?”

  “After the Battle for Doomgard,” the man said slowly. “You know, the end of the Dark Age? The fall of the Scourge? Are you sure you’re alright?”

  Deep frown lines appeared on Kaelen’s forehead. “Where am I?”

  “Look, man, I don’t want any–”

  “The name of this city. Now.” Kaelen was losing patience.

  “New Velengard.”

  A dragon falling on top of Kaelen would have done less damage than these two simple words.

  What’s worse, the name itself suggested the existence ofVelengard, or maybe Old Velengard, somewhere out there.

  Kaelen said nothing. The man shrugged and walked away, leaving the Dark Lord standing there motionlessly, the world spinning around him.

  He’d been gone for nearly three centuries. Everything he had built — his empire, his armies, his legacy — had been completely dismantled and turned into tourist attractions.

  A mere child with a broken sword had done… . A prophecy Kaelen had mocked had done this. He touched his side. The wound still pulsed.

  Kaelen lowered his hand and stared at the bustling city in front of him.

  “Well… Hello there, stranger,” he murmured.

  Around him, people laughed and yelled and lived their peaceful little lives, completely unaware that the Scourge had returned. Kaelen exhaled slowly.

  His fingers tightened at his side. And with that, he pulled up his hood and stepped into the unfamiliar city.