prologue
The sun hammered down on the desert floor like a blacksmith’s anvil, turning sand to glass beneath the hooves of the Dark Lord’s horse. Behind him, smoke still rose from what had been a village—a collection of modest dwellings clustered around a temple, home to monks who had foolishly believed their prayers could stop him.
The Dark Lord pulled his mount to a halt and reached into his saddlebag. His fingers, wrapped in black leather gloves worn thin at the knuckles, closed around a rolled parchment. The map. He’d waded through blood to claim it, cut through men who’d fought with surprising ferocity for scholars who spent their days in meditation.
He unrolled the map across his saddle horn. The parchment was old, edges brittle and yellowed, but the ink remained clear. A path wound across the page, marked with symbols in a language few still read. At the journey’s end: the Demon’s Temple. And within that temple, if the legends held true, lay Immortalus—the sword that would grant him what his stolen bodies never could.
True immortality.
The horse shifted beneath him, eager to move. The Dark Lord’s current body was strong, capable of great destruction, but he could feel it beginning to fail. A tremor in his left hand that hadn’t been there a month ago. A persistent ache in his joints each morning. This flesh, like all the others before it, was temporary.
He’d lived a thousand years by jumping from corpse to corpse, inhabiting the freshly dead and animating them with his undying soul. He’d accumulated wealth beyond measure, toppled kingdoms, watched empires crumble to dust. But always, always, the bodies wore out.
The sword would end that cycle.
Forged by gods, or so the stories claimed, Immortalus granted its wielder power beyond mortal comprehension. More importantly, it granted eternal life—not the half-life he’d endured for centuries, but true, unending existence in a body that would never decay.
The Dark Lord rolled the map and secured it in his saddlebag. The monks had died protecting this secret. Their sacrifice meant nothing now. He would follow this map to the Demon’s Temple, claim the sword, and take his rightful place among the divine.
He spurred his horse forward. The desert stretched endlessly before him, but he had time. He always had time.
Behind him, carrion birds began to circle the ruins of the nameless village.
1. The Warrior
