The thick, glowing black mud crawled out of the giant crater. It moved like a sticky, living shadow. It pulled itself up onto the pale white stone street behind Adam. Zero-Prime, the crazy older brother wearing the iron crown, took another step backward. His dead, gray hands shook. He looked at the giant wave of primordial mud rising behind Adam. "You are crazy!" Zero-Prime screamed. His voice cracked with panic. "You cannot control the raw matter! It has no mind! It will eat you!"On the street nearby, Marquis Valerius watched in absolute horror. The ancient monster was trapped inside his broken iron avatar. He dragged his heavy, ruined body across the stone. He stared at Adam’s back. "What is happening to him?" Valerius whispered, coughing up dark oil and blood. "His power... it is shifting."Inside Adam’s mind, the final changes began. The "Grave of Kings" protocol had always controlled him. It was a co

Prince Aurelius—Elias—threw his body directly into the boiling red fuel pipe. The giant Synthetic God screamed. It was a horrible, deafening sound. It sounded like thick metal tearing apart and raw meat cooking on a hot fire. Catherine covered her ears and pressed herself against the cold floor. Marquis Valerius, broken in his iron armor, watched in pure horror as his son was eaten alive by the eighty-foot machine. But Elias did not die. He merged with the machine. The giant monster began to violently mutate. The black wires twisted and snapped. The dark red soul-matter bubbled and grew. The monster’s faceless head suddenly pushed outward. It formed a massive, ugly face. It looked exactly like Elias, but it was twisted, huge, and demonic. The sick yellow light in the monster's chest mixed with Elias’s toxic purple magic. The Elias-God roared. The sound shook the entire mountain. "I

The blinding white halo in the sky began to move. The First King, the glowing god with six wings of sun-fire, looked down at the ruined Frost-Spire castle. "The sky is too empty," the First King whispered. His angelic voice was beautiful but completely evil. "To drain the girl’s frost, the ritual needs the ancient stones of the mountain."The First King waved his burning hand. The floating altar of light holding Catherine quickly sank back down through the torn clouds. It dropped through the broken roof and landed heavily in the center of the ruined Grand Throne Room. The surviving Royal Guards and corrupted nobles had gathered in the hall. They formed a wide circle around the altar. The First King pointed a finger at a pile of melted ice and gray ash on the floor. It was the remains of the High Frost-Mage that Adam had cut in half earlier. The bright holy light from the First King hit the ash. The ice instantly reform

The invisible wave of dark anti-magic did not stop inside the barracks. When Adam Cook inhaled the magic to stop the elite guards, the pitch-black Void-Essence rolled out of the room. It fell down the sides of the Frost-Spire mountain like a heavy, invisible waterfall. It swept over the entire valley. It washed across the deep forests and reached all the way to the edges of the Kingdom. The result was a total systemic collapse. At the base of the mountain, a second army of Royal Guards was marching to back up the castle. They wore heavy, advanced metal armor powered by bright blue mana-crystals. They rode on massive, floating magical wagons filled with weapons. Suddenly, the blue crystals on their chests violently flickered. The glowing blue light turned completely black. The giant, floating magical wagons instantly dropped from the air. They hit the snowy ground, shattering their wooden wheels. 

The solid black stone floor cracked wide open. Blinding, terrible golden light poured out from the deep hole. The heavy sound of dragging iron chains echoed from the bottom of the world. Adam Cook stood at the edge of the broken floor. His pitch-black obsidian skin reflected the golden light. His hollow mind processed the danger instantly. The central core of the Frost-Spire was not just a power source. It was a giant padlock. By destroying it, Adam had accidentally unlocked a prison. Something ancient and incredibly powerful was waking up down there in the dark. But Adam could not fight it right now. Catherine was still hiding in the upper levels of the castle. The Royal Army was still swarming the building. He had to secure the surface first. Adam turned his back on the glowing hole. He ran toward the heavy stone stairs. He moved with cold, silent speed. He climbed out of the deep basement and headed up into the main hallways of the Frost-Spire. As Adam reached the top of the s