Prologue:- The Night the Sun Kingdom Vanished
The sky above the golden kingdom of Solaris burned crimson, not with the dying light of sunset, but with the fury of war.
Flames devoured towers that had stood for a thousand years. Thousands of souls gathered beneath the shining walls of the capital, their screams rising like a lamentation as the sacred banners of House Solaris—once bright as the sun—tore violently in the storm winds.
At the heart of the carnage stood the last king.
King Auron Solaris wore armor of shattered gold, stained black with blood and ash. In his hands, the sword Solflare still blazed with defiant radiance, a lone star refusing to be extinguished. Before him loomed the architect of oblivion.
Malakar.
A towering silhouette clad in blackened armor, his eyes glowing like dying embers beneath a crown of twisted obsidian. Shadows bled from his form like living smoke, poisoning the very ground he walked upon. Behind him marched the Voidborn—creatures of nightmare that no kingdom of men had ever witnessed.
“Look around you, Auron,” Malakar said, his voice calm and terrible amid the roar of collapsing stone. “This is what your precious light has wrought. Weak kings. Weak peace. Weak humanity.”
Auron’s grip tightened on Solflare until his gauntlets groaned.
“You were once one of us,” the king growled. “Kaelthar trusted you.”
At the name of the ancient emperor, Malakar’s expression darkened like a storm cloud.
“Kaelthar forged chains of false hope,” he replied. “And you kings wore them proudly.”
Lightning fractured the heavens.
From the palace steps, Queen Seraphina stumbled forward, clutching an infant wrapped in royal cloth—the Prince Aurelius, heir of Solaris. Her cry cut through the chaos.
“Auron!”
The king’s eyes widened for the first time that night.
Malakar smiled.
“You still cling to such fragile things.”
Darkness erupted.
Auron charged with a roar that shook the battlefield. Solflare ignited like a newborn sun as it collided with Malakar’s blade of pure shadow. The impact shattered the stone beneath their feet and made the entire city tremble. For one fleeting heartbeat, light pushed back the void.
Then Malakar caught the burning blade with a single armored hand.
Crack.
Golden fractures spider-webbed across Solflare.
Auron froze.
Malakar leaned closer, his ember eyes burning with contempt.
“You kings were never worthy of the Crown.”
A blade forged of pure void pierced the king’s chest.
The King of Solaris fell to his knees.
The battlefield fell deathly silent.
Seraphina’s scream tore through the night as Malakar slowly withdrew the blade, blood hissing where it touched the corrupted ground. Auron turned his fading gaze toward his wife and child one final time.
"Run…"
His last word was little more than a breath.
Before Seraphina could move, chains of black energy erupted from the earth, wrapping around her body like serpents. Malakar raised his hand.
“You will live,” he said coldly. “Not as queen… but as a reminder of what was lost.”
The curse sank into her soul like ink into parchment.
The infant prince slipped from her arms.
A bloodied hand caught him before he struck the ruined stone—Captain Vael, the old knight, wounded and broken, yet unbowed. He bowed his head before his dying king.
“I swear… he will live.”
Malakar turned, surprise flickering across his immortal features for the first time that night.
Vael smashed a Solaris relic against the ground.
A burst of ancient, blinding light exploded outward, swallowing the palace steps. When it faded, the child was gone—spirited away by forces older than Malakar’s darkness.
Silence claimed the ruins.
Malakar walked slowly to Auron’s fallen body and placed a hand upon the dead king’s crown. Black flames roared into the sky.
Across the world, history itself began to unravel.
Ancient records burned to ash. Kingdom archives turned blank. Maps rewrote themselves in quiet horror.
And from that night onward, the world no longer remembered the Kingdom of Solaris.
There were only Nine Kingdoms.
Only Malakar remembered the truth.
Far away, beyond the ancient forests of Kaelwood, a child with eyes of living gold opened them beneath the cold rain.
The last prince of Solaris had survived.
And the world had no idea what it had lost.
