SHADOW KING'S RETURN

Chapter 1

"The target is in sight."

A cold voice came through the earpiece, cutting through the howling night wind. On the roof of a towering skyscraper, with the moon behind them, several men in black cloaks stood in silence. The fabric of their cloaks fluttered gently in the high-altitude wind.

"Do we really have to keep an eye on such a pathetic man?" whispered one of them, looking down at the heavy traffic below.

Amid a sea of luxury cars and the glittering lights of Arcadia, their eyes were fixed on a single point a young man in a worn-out delivery jacket riding an old motorcycle.

"The prophecy is never wrong," replied the leader. His voice was flat and emotionless.

He held up a faded photograph. In the lower corner was a name plucked from ancient records:

[Kai Ashborn.]

"No matter how weak he may seem right now," he continued, scanning the figure below, "if the Shadow King truly awakens, it will all begin with that man. "If the Shadow King truly awakens, it will all begin with that man."

The red light at the intersection cast a deep red glow onto Kai’s scratched helmet visor. His old motorcycle shook violently between two brand-new sports cars. The throttle grip he held felt cold, piercing through his torn cloth gloves.

The young man driving the sports car next to him rolled down his window. He exhaled a puff of cigarette smoke and looked Kai’s motorcycle up and down before chuckling.

"In this day and age, are there still people riding a junk bike like this in Arcadia?" he asked his friend in the passenger seat. “Doesn’t this poor delivery guy feel ashamed riding through the main district?”

Kai didn’t turn his head. His fingers simply tightened their grip on the handlebars. His teeth clenched behind his helmet as he held back the bitterness that had become his daily reality.

The old cell phone mounted on the handlebars suddenly vibrated loudly. Its cracked screen displayed a notification for a new order.

"It's a priority order," Kai muttered softly. His voice sounded hoarse and weary. "The rate... is ridiculous."

"Hey, Courier! If you don’t have money for gas, just sell that ragged jacket of yours!” The man in the sports car laughed again as the light turned green. The car sped off, leaving behind a plume of exhaust fumes that stung Kai’s face.

Kai let out a long sigh. The night air filling his lungs felt suffocating. Ever since his parents passed away years ago, it seemed like the world had never given him room to breathe easily. Delivering packages from morning until late at night barely paid the rent for his cramped room and bought meager meals.

Ignoring the burning sensation in his chest, he twisted the throttle and steered his motorcycle toward the final delivery address.

Kai’s footsteps halted in front of a rusted iron gate. He stared at his phone screen repeatedly to make sure the location was correct.

“The Obsidian Building?” Kai whispered into the darkness before him.

The building in front of him was an old, vacant ruin. The paint on the walls was peeling, the windows were shattered, leaving black holes that looked like ghostly eyes, and weeds were growing around the concrete pillars.

"Who would order a package delivery to a place like this?" he muttered doubtfully.

His cell phone vibrated again. A text message appeared on the screen: "Take the package to the basement. Five times the payment has been sent."

Kai reached into his jacket pocket and clutched a small package wrapped in black cloth that felt strange to the touch. A warm sensation crept from the package into the palm of his hand. For the sake of this month’s rent, he pushed all his doubts aside.

He turned on his phone’s flashlight and stared at the stone stairs leading down into the darkness. The thin soles of his shoes pressed against the wet grass, creating a scraping sound that broke the night's silence. The smell of damp earth and rusty iron stung his nose as he stepped down.

With every step he took, the air around him felt colder. Kai’s breath began to condense into mist.

Suddenly, the flashlight on his phone began to flash rapidly.

Flicker.

"Wait, the battery's still full..."

Before he could finish, his phone’s screen went completely dark. The entire room was suddenly engulfed in pitch-black darkness. The noise of traffic from the highway above vanished instantly, replaced by an eerie silence.

Kai froze in his tracks. “Hello? Is anyone here?"

There was no answer. Only the echo of his voice bounced off the stone walls.

At the end of the underground passageway, a faint purple light slowly appeared. Guided by a strange sense of curiosity, Kai stepped forward cautiously. In the center of the dusty room stood a black stone altar engraved with symbols like grass he’d never seen before.

On top of the altar was a jet-black wooden chest bound with ancient chains.

Kai looked down at the package in his hands. The carvings on the cloth wrapping the package were exactly the same as those on the chest atop the altar.

"This... can't be," Kai whispered. His knees trembled slightly.

An invisible force seemed to compel his hand to move. Without realizing it, he stepped closer and placed the package next to the wooden chest.

Crash!

The moment the two objects touched, the wooden chest on the altar began to shake violently. The iron chains binding it snapped one by one and fell, shattering on the stone floor.

A pitch-black light burst from the cracks in the wood, filling the entire underground chamber. The air felt so heavy that Kai struggled to breathe.

"Finally..."

A deep, echoing voice, as if from a time corridor thousands of years ago, whispered right next to Kai’s ear.

Kai jerked backward until his back slammed into a stone pillar. "Who... who's there?!"

The coffin lid flew violently into the air and shattered upon striking the wall.

From inside the coffin, a black crystal the size of a fist floated out. Instead of shining brightly, the crystal absorbed all the light in the room, pulsing slowly as if it were a heart that had just begun to beat again.

The crystal's aura caused the concrete walls to crack. A faint rumbling echoed from deep within the earth.

"I have to get out of here," Kai whispered to himself. His legs trembled violently as he tried to turn and run toward the stairs leading out.

But before he could take his first step, the black crystal shot forward as fast as lightning.

"Hey...!"

Crash!

The crystal hit Kai right in the middle of his chest. No skin was torn. No blood dripped. The object pierced his clothes and chest as if his body were empty air.

He collapsed onto the wet floor. His back arched as he endured the excruciating pain coursing through his body. His head felt as if it had been struck by a sledgehammer. A burning heat radiated from within, spreading to the tips of his fingers and toes.

His vision blurred. Amid the suffocating pain, unfamiliar images suddenly flooded his mind.

He saw a vast battlefield stretching out beneath a blood-red sky. Millions of black-armored knights knelt amidst a field of monster corpses. The sounds of battle cries, swords clanging, and giant creatures’ wings flapping exploded in his head all at once.

In the midst of these visions stood a magnificent throne carved from shadow stone. A man sat on the throne, clutching a gigantic black sword from which blood was still dripping.

The man on the throne slowly raised his face. His glowing purple eyes stared straight at Kai.

The man’s face was sharply chiseled and cold. Yet it was identical in every way to Kai Ashborn’s.

An ancient voice echoed once more, engulfing Kai’s rapidly fading consciousness.

“Welcome back, my King.”

Kai’s eyes widened, and then his body slumped limply onto the cold stone floor.

At the same time, dozens of kilometers away from that old building...

On the top floor of the majestic Obsidian Tower, a dimly lit room was suddenly shaken by a wave of dense energy. The giant crystal sphere sitting on Lucien Voss’s desk suddenly cracked. Thick black smoke burst out, cutting off all power in the room.

The wine glass in Lucien’s hand slipped from his grasp and crashed onto the marble floor, shattering into pieces.

The heavily armored guards surrounding him immediately drew their weapons and stood at the ready.

"Lord Lucien!" one of them called out anxiously.

Lucien did not answer. His piercing gaze was fixed on the shards of the crystal orb, which now emitted a scent of ozone and death. His fingers, encased in leather gloves, trembled slightly.

"That seal..." Lucien whispered. His usually calm voice quivered as he struggled to withstand the supernatural pressure creeping toward them.

He looked out the window and directed his gaze toward a dark corner of the city.

"The Shadow King..." Lucien muttered, cutting himself off when he realized the ancient aura, dormant for ten years, was breathing again. "He's awake."