The ancient black gate slowly began to open...
Creeeeak...
A long, eerie creaking sound emerged from its hinges, as though the gate had not moved for thousands of years, as though time itself were groaning with every inch it shifted.
The gate paused for a moment.
Then it continued opening, painfully slowly.
Beyond it lay a darkness so dense that it seemed unlike any ordinary darkness.
Even the light from the corridor outside appeared incapable of penetrating into the depths of the hall.
Everyone stopped before the gate.
No one dared to step forward.
No one even dared to make a sound.
Then...
A voice emerged from deep within the hall.
An ancient voice.
Deep.
Majestic.
It carried such overwhelming might and grandeur that even the air itself seemed to tremble beneath its presence.
"Enter."
The voice paused for a moment.
Then continued in a tone that allowed no room for refusal:
"This sovereign wishes you to stand before him."
The instant the voice resounded throughout the area...
Everything stopped.
Everyone's movements ceased.
Their breathing stopped.
Even the beating of their hearts seemed to weaken for a moment.
As for the Four Pillars of Humanity...
They froze where they stood.
Thorinn.
Valor.
Morgana.
Eleanor.
It was not merely the majesty of the voice that rendered them motionless.
Rather...
That voice was familiar to them.
So familiar that their very souls trembled.
It was a voice they had not heard for...
Five thousand years.
Five thousand years in their entirety.
Thorinn stared at the ancient black gate with widened eyes.
His lips moved unconsciously.
"No..."
Valor heard him.
He quickly turned toward him.
"Thorinn..."
But Thorinn did not answer.
He was listening to the echo of the voice still lingering in his ears.
That voice...
They had never forgotten it.
Not even after five thousand years.
It had been carved into the depths of their souls.
In an instant, the distant memories of the past returned to their minds.
The battlefields.
The blood-stained skies.
The endless armies.
The screams of their enemies.
The clash of weapons.
And the man who had once stood at the forefront of the human army, alone, against forces capable of annihilating entire civilizations.
The man whose orders no one had ever dared to disobey.
The man whose mere glance had been enough to make even the mightiest warriors lower their heads.
That voice...
It was his.
Morgana spoke in a trembling voice:
"It's..."
But the words became lodged in her throat.
As for Eleanor, she tightly closed her eyes, as though trying to convince herself that what she was hearing was not an illusion.
"It can't be..."
Valor slowly opened his eyes.
Tears had gathered at their corners.
"You're back..."
He whispered the words without even realizing it.
Meanwhile, the high-ranking officials standing behind the Four Pillars were trembling violently.
They possessed no memories like those of the four rulers.
They did not know the owner of that voice.
But they could feel its power.
That voice alone was enough to make their souls tremble.
One of the officials whispered:
"What... what is this?"
Another answered:
"I don't know."
"Did you feel that?"
"Yes..."
"Just his voice made me feel as though I were standing before a mountain whose peak I couldn't even look upon."
One of them swallowed with difficulty.
Then he asked:
"Who is the owner of this voice?"
No one answered.
Other thoughts continued to race through their minds.
"How powerful is he?!"
"How can merely hearing his voice make me feel this terrified?"
"Is he one of those ancient beings we know nothing about?"
Then another thought occurred to them.
A thought that shocked them even more than their fear.
"Why does he refer to himself as... 'this sovereign'?"
"Who is he to speak of himself with such arrogance?"
"Could he be one of those supreme existences whose names have been lost to history?"
None of them possessed the courage to voice those thoughts aloud.
Then...
Thorinn moved.
One step forward.
Valor followed.
Then Eleanor.
And Morgana.
Their steps were steady, but the burning excitement in their eyes was impossible to conceal.
They could no longer wait.
They had waited for this moment for five thousand years.
And now...
The voice they had believed they had lost forever was calling them.
Thorinn spoke in a low voice:
"Don't keep him waiting."
Valor nodded.
"Yes."
Then he looked toward the gate.
"We have waited long enough."
The four entered the hall.
After several moments of hesitation and fear...
The officials exchanged glances.
One of them asked:
"Should we follow them?"
Another replied:
"Wouldn't it be better to remain here?"
The oldest official among them looked toward the darkness beyond the gate with unease.
"If the Four Pillars entered without fear..."
He glanced into the darkness.
"...then I doubt staying here will make us any safer."
He swallowed hard.
"Follow them."
The group then moved after the four rulers.
The corridor inside the hall was unnaturally long.
Dark.
Silent.
Cold.
The ancient walls were covered in mysterious inscriptions, while darkness stretched endlessly into the depths, like an ocean without an end.
Their footsteps echoed through the corridor.
Step...
Step...
Step...
No one spoke.
Even the officials, who were accustomed to discussing the most dangerous matters in their meetings without restraint, did not dare utter so much as a whisper.
One of them spoke in a voice barely above a breath:
"I feel as though something is watching us."
The person beside him immediately replied:
"Don't speak."
"But..."
"I said don't speak."
Meanwhile, the Four Pillars walked silently at the front.
Yet their eyes carried entirely different emotions.
They knew this place.
Not merely as a hall...
But as a memory.
As a fragment of an era that had ended five thousand years ago.
Morgana spoke softly:
"I never imagined I would walk through this place again."
Thorinn smiled faintly.
"Neither did I."
Eleanor asked:
"Do you think he'll be angry that we took so long to return?"
Thorinn gave a quiet laugh.
"If it really is him..."
He paused.
"Then perhaps he'll be angry because we made him wait five thousand years."
For the first time, Valor smiled.
"Even if he is angry..."
He looked into the darkness ahead.
"...I don't think any of us will be afraid."
Silence fell.
Then Morgana said:
"You're right."
They continued forward.
Until they finally reached the end of the corridor.
And there...
Something enormous emerged from the darkness.
A throne.
A colossal throne that rose in the center of the hall like a black mountain.
And seated upon it...
Was someone.
But his features could not be seen.
The darkness surrounding him was unnaturally dense.
It was not merely the absence of light.
It seemed as though the darkness itself coiled around the man, concealing his existence from the world.
The officials stopped.
"There is someone there," one of them said.
Another replied:
"I can't see him."
"Neither can I."
They tried to look at him.
They focused their senses.
They expanded their perception.
Every one of them was an extraordinarily powerful cultivator.
Their senses were capable of seeing through the darkest places.
Some could even perceive the tiniest details across enormous distances.
And yet...
They could not see the face of the person seated upon the throne.
Not his features.
Not even the clear outline of his body.
All they could see was...
A shadow sitting upon a throne.
One of the officials murmured in disbelief:
"This is impossible..."
His companion asked:
"Can you see him?"
"No."
"Neither can I."
"But that's impossible! My senses can pierce through darkness even in the depths of space!"
"Lower your voice."
"Why?"
The man glanced nervously toward the throne.
"Because I don't want him to know we're trying to see him."
Silence descended once more.
Then...
The man seated upon the throne slowly raised one hand.
A simple movement.
Calm.
Unhurried.
Yet the moment his hand moved...
The torches hanging along the walls suddenly ignited.
Fwoosh!
Dark purple flames erupted.
One after another.
Then another.
And another.
Until the entire hall was illuminated by an eerie purple glow.
The darkness slowly receded.
And the features of the man seated upon the throne were revealed.
The instant his face became visible...
The officials froze.
Their eyes widened.
Their breaths stopped.
Shock.
Terror.
Fear.
The person sitting upon the throne...
Was an old man.
But the word old was nowhere near enough to describe his appearance.
He was horrifyingly withered.
His body was so thin that the outlines of his bones were clearly visible beneath his dry skin.
His skin was pale and desiccated, clinging tightly to the bones of his face.
His dry white hair hung lifelessly around his shoulders.
His face resembled that of a dried corpse that had remained buried inside an abandoned grave for thousands of years.
He did not move.
The only things that moved were his eyes.
Two completely black eyes.
Still.
Bottomless.
And terrifying beyond description.
One of the officials instinctively took half a step backward.
"What... is that?"
Another spoke with a trembling voice:
"Is that... a human?"
No one answered.
Even the strongest among them could not comprehend what they were seeing.
The officials could not determine whether they were looking at a human...
Or something else wearing the form of one.
But they did not dare move.
They did not dare speak.
They did not even dare raise their heads any higher.
Then...
The old man looked at them.
He did nothing.
He released no aura.
He said nothing.
He merely...
Looked.
Yet that single glance was enough to make the officials feel as though their souls had frozen.
The Four Pillars of Humanity, however...
Were completely different.
There was no fear upon their faces.
Quite the opposite.
Their expressions carried emotions the officials had never seen from them before.
Excitement.
Joy.
Longing.
And...
Reverence.
The four stepped forward at the same time.
Then...
They dropped to their knees.
Placing their hands upon the ground, they bowed deeply before the man seated upon the throne.
The officials' eyes widened.
"What?!"
"The Four Pillars..."
"They're kneeling?!"
Their minds struggled to comprehend the scene.
These were the Four Pillars of Humanity.
The highest rulers of the human race.
People who bowed before no one.
And yet...
They were now kneeling before an old man who looked as though he were on the verge of death.
The officials did not dare hesitate any longer.
They quickly dropped to their knees as well.
Their fear was not merely of angering the Four Pillars.
There was a greater fear.
The fear of angering...
That man.
Then Thorinn raised his head.
His eyes were red from overwhelming emotion.
He shouted with all his strength:
"Long live the True Sovereign of Humanity!"
The other three rulers followed him.
"Long live the True Sovereign of Humanity!"
Then the officials behind them shouted as well:
"Long live the True Sovereign of Humanity!"
The chant echoed throughout the hall.
But at the same time...
The officials' minds were being consumed by questions.
"The True Sovereign?!"
"Isn't that the title of the greatest human in history?!"
"The man who led humanity throughout the Primordial War?!"
"Is the Emperor... alive?!"
Their hearts trembled.
"My God..."
"Are we standing before the Supreme Emperor of Humanity right now?!"
As for Fafnir...
He watched them from atop the throne.
Indifferently.
His black eyes passed over the faces before him without much interest.
He did not recognize most of them.
And that was only natural.
The majority of these officials had been born after the end of the Primordial War.
They had not existed during that era.
He had never met them.
He did not know their names.
To him...
They were merely unfamiliar faces.
But...
His eyes eventually shifted toward the four people at the front.
His gaze stopped upon them.
These four...
Were different.
He knew them.
They were among the people who had fought alongside him during the Primordial War.
They had served under his command.
They had stood beside him on countless battlefields.
They had witnessed his victories.
And they had also witnessed the bloodiest days of the war.
Five thousand years later...
He could still recognize them.
Time could change appearances.
It could bury memories beneath the passing ages.
But it could not easily erase the faces of those who had fought beside you in a war that had stretched across the ages.
He continued watching them for several moments.
Then Fafnir opened his mouth.
His voice was calm, yet it carried the same majesty they had heard behind the gate.
"Rise."
The hearts of the four trembled upon hearing his voice.
That voice...
The very same voice they had preserved deep within their souls.
Thorinn slowly raised his head.
As for Valor, he remained motionless for a moment, seemingly unable to move.
Then Fafnir continued:
"Valor..."
The old man's body trembled.
Then:
"Thorinn..."
Thorinn closed his eyes for a moment.
"Eleanor..."
Eleanor let out a silent gasp.
Then:
"Morgana..."
Tears began gathering in Morgana's eyes.
Fafnir paused.
Then said:
"This sovereign is pleased to see you again after five thousand years."
The moment the four heard their names spoken by their master...
Their bodies trembled.
Their eyes widened.
Tears gathered at their corners.
They had waited for this moment...
For thousands of years.
As the centuries passed, they had even begun to lose hope.
They believed their master would never return.
They believed that the man who had led humanity to its greatest victories had become nothing more than a part of history.
A memory.
A legend.
A name they could do nothing but remember.
But now...
His voice was before them.
He was calling their names.
And he was telling them that he was pleased to see them.
This was no longer a memory.
No longer a legend.
He had returned.
Valor lowered his head slightly, and tears began streaming down his face.
He spoke in a choked voice:
"My lord..."
He tried to compose himself.
"We... have waited for you for so long."
Thorinn clenched his fists tightly, desperately trying to control his emotions.
But he failed.
His eyes were red, and tears streamed down his face without the slightest concern for hiding them.
"I thought you would never return..."
Morgana placed a hand against her chest.
She tried to suppress her sobs, but her voice came out trembling:
"Five thousand years..."
Then she smiled through her tears.
"And finally... we hear your voice again."
As for Eleanor...
She could no longer hide her tears.
She spoke in a faint voice:
"We missed you... my lord."
Fafnir continued staring at them in silence.
There was little emotion upon his face.
Yet his eyes remained fixed upon them for several moments.
Then he said:
"You have changed."
Thorinn smiled through his tears.
"Of course."
Then he gave a soft laugh.
"Five thousand years have passed, my lord."
Valor raised his head.
"But no matter how much else has changed..."
He placed a hand over his chest.
"Our loyalty to you has not."
Silence descended.
The officials stared at the Four Pillars in astonishment.
They had never seen these people like this before.
These individuals who represented the highest authority in all of humanity...
Were now speaking to the old man as though they were soldiers who had finally returned to their commander after an absence of thousands of years.
Everyone slowly rose to their feet.
Then they lifted their heads.
And looked toward the withered old man seated upon the throne.
The man who, at first glance, appeared to be nothing more than a corpse on the verge of collapse...
Yet behind that decaying body...
Sat the man who had once carried the fate of humanity upon his shoulders.
The True Sovereign of Humanity.
The Emperor whom the entire world had believed dead for five thousand years...
Was now standing before them.
Alive.
Seated upon his throne.
And the most terrifying truth of all...
Was that none of them yet knew...
That the man sitting before them was not the true Fafnir.
But an unknown soul that had awakened within his dead body...
A soul that had only just begun to discover the world it had inherited.
And deep within the darkened hall...
The beginning of a new era had already begun.