NOVEL WEB Chapter 75: Shadow King
Thunder rolled in the distance as storm clouds gathered like vultures above the Capital Tombs. Valerian stood motionless before the shattered monolith, its runes glowing faintly beneath layers of blood and ash. The stench of death choked the air—this was no ordinary ruin anymore. It was awakening.
Behind him, Kael grunted, his greatsword slung over his shoulder and his expression grim. "That wasn't the last Wraith, was it?"
"No," Valerian murmured, eyes narrowing. "That was only its shadow."
Selene and Seraphina exchanged glances, both their hands still crackling with residual mana. The battle had drained them more than they cared to admit, and the weight of what they'd just witnessed hung heavy in the air. Lira stood near the edge of the platform, her eyes locked on the swirling pit that had opened after the battle. It looked bottomless, but something pulsed down there. A heartbeat that wasn't theirs—ancient, rhythmic, and utterly alien.
"System," Valerian muttered, "give me a scan."
> [Analyzing...]
> [Warning: Unstable Dimensional Core Detected Below.]
> [Multiple Signatures Identified: One matches Umbra. Others... Unknown.]
> [Temporal Distortion Fields Present]
> [Recommendation: Immediate Retreat]
"Umbra's here," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Kael's eyes burned with barely contained fury. "You sure?"
"I feel him. He's calling." Valerian's scarred hands trembled slightly. The connection between them had always been there, lurking beneath the surface of his consciousness like a parasite waiting to emerge.
Without waiting for protest or planning, Valerian stepped into the pit.
The others hesitated only a second before leaping after him, their loyalty overriding their survival instincts.
They fell through shadows—gravity twisting sideways, reality bending around them like liquid glass—before landing hard on an obsidian dais ringed in ancient statues. Each statue was cracked, weeping black ichor that pooled and steamed on the crystalline floor. The air itself felt thick, oppressive, laden with the weight of eons. The floor hummed beneath them, carved in a rune language none of them recognized, though something deep in Valerian's mind whispered that he should understand it.
At the center, a throne rose—twisted iron, thorns, and bone fused together in impossible geometries. A throne made for something that had never been human.
Selene's eyes widened, her breath catching. "This place... it's a fragment of the Abyss Realm."
Seraphina drew her blade, the steel singing as it left its sheath. "No. It's worse. This was Umbra's throne." Her voice carried the weight of recognition, of memories she'd tried to bury.
> [System Alert: Origin Point of Forbidden Authority Located]
> [Caution: Engaging with the core entity may trigger Endgame Protocol]
> [Warning: Reality Anchor Points Failing]
Valerian took a step forward, his boots echoing against the obsidian. The thorns of the throne twitched, sensing his presence like a living thing awakening from slumber.
Then it spoke.
"You return to the seat of your origin, false god."
A voice ancient and layered echoed through the chamber—not one voice, but a chorus of the damned, each word dripping with malevolent knowledge. From behind the throne, a figure rose—tall, impossibly tall, robed in writhing shadows that moved independently of any wind. A halo of decaying light crowned its head, pulsing with sickly luminescence. It wasn't Umbra, but it knew him intimately.
Kael stepped forward, his massive frame dwarfed by the entity's presence. "Who the hell are you?"
"I am Kareth. Keeper of the Throne. Guardian of the First Seal. And you are trespassers on the sacred ground of the Forgotten Sovereigns." The figure's voice resonated with authority that predated civilization itself.
Valerian narrowed his eyes, fighting against the growing pressure in his skull. "We came for Umbra."
Kareth raised one skeletal arm, and the throne responded to his will. The twisted metal groaned and shifted, and from its depths, a massive dark crystal was pulled forth, hovering above his palm like a captured star. Inside it, bound in thick chains of abyssal steel that pulsed with their own malevolent life, floated Umbra's body—his true body, no longer just a summon or projection.
But he was changing. Growing. Mutating. Wings of shadow sprouted from his back, and his face had begun to elongate into something predatory and inhuman.
"He's ascending," Seraphina whispered, her voice thick with horror.
"No," Kareth corrected, his attention never leaving Valerian. "He is becoming. Transforming into what he was always meant to be. And his vessel must be broken to complete the transition. You, Valerian, were always the knife meant to cut the final bond."
Valerian's heart stopped, ice flooding his veins.
"What?"
"The system was not made for you, child. It was made from you. A splinter of your own divine soul, cast adrift through time and space, repurposed and refined. You were not chosen by fate—you were divided by necessity."
> [System Error Detected]
> [Warning: Suppressed Memories Surfacing]
> [Core Identity Protocols Compromised]
Valerian clutched his head as pain lanced through his skull like molten iron. Visions flickered behind his eyes with brutal clarity:
A throne among the stars, wreathed in cosmic fire. A hand—his hand—reaching into the primordial Void. A voice that sounded like his own, laughing with the madness of absolute power as galaxies burned.
"Stop," he growled through gritted teeth.
Kareth stepped forward, each footfall sending ripples through reality. "You are the Endbringer. The Catalyst of the Final Convergence. And Umbra is the Key that will unlock the door between worlds." M|V|LEM*PYR is the home of this chapter
Lira suddenly screamed, her voice raw with terror. The runes around the room flared to life—not with the cold light of the system, but with something older, hungrier. Chains erupted from the ground like striking serpents, wrapping around each of them with crushing force.
Kael roared, his massive sword carving through the air, but the chains regenerated instantly, growing thicker with each attempt to break them.
"Valerian!" Selene cried, ice magic crackling from her fingertips only to be absorbed by the binding chains. "They're not just holding us—they're draining our mana, our life force!"
Valerian tried to move, but the chains wrapped his arms and legs, forcing him to his knees on the cold obsidian. Kareth's footsteps echoed closer, each one a death knell.
"It ends here," Kareth intoned with the finality of judgment. "You die, your essence returns to Umbra, and the Great Convergence begins."
A blade of void-light formed in Kareth's hand, longer than any mortal sword, its edge crackling with the power to sever souls from reality itself. It descended slowly toward Valerian's chest, savoring the moment.
> [Override: Forbidden Authority Unleashed]
> [System Core Detachment Initiated]
> [WARNING: REALITY BREACH IMMINENT]
Time froze.
Then shattered like glass.
Valerian's eyes turned black—not the metaphorical darkness of anger, but a complete absence of light that seemed to devour photons themselves. The chains disintegrated, the floor cracked in geometric patterns, and a ripple of pure space-time exploded outward from his body. He stood slowly, power radiating from him in visible waves that distorted the air itself. A swirling crown of data and magic formed behind his head like a digital halo, casting impossible shadows that moved independently.
"You think you're the only one who knows the truth?" Valerian's voice was deeper now, resonating with harmonics that human throats shouldn't produce. "Let me show you mine."
He raised his hand—and the throne exploded.
Not with fire or force, but with the pure negation of existence. The twisted metal simply ceased, unmaking itself at a fundamental level.
Kareth staggered backward, his form flickering between solid and shadow. "Impossible—"
"Too late," Valerian said.
Kael broke free from his dissolving chains and charged, his war cry shaking dust from the ceiling as he slammed into Kareth with the fury of a berserker god. Selene and Seraphina moved in perfect synchronization, their magic no longer separate but unified—fire and shadow coiling together to form a spiraling dragon of pure destruction that slammed into Kareth's chest, launching him into the weeping statues.
Valerian stepped forward through the chaos, his movements fluid and purposeful. He reached the suspended crystal holding Umbra, and as his fingers touched the surface, every scar on his body lit up like brands, telling the story of battles fought across dimensions.
> [Sync Initiated: Umbra Core Merging]
> [WARNING: This action cannot be undone]
"Don't do it!" Seraphina shouted, recognizing the magnitude of what was about to happen. "You'll lose yourself!"
But he already had.
The crystal burst with the sound of reality tearing, and Umbra's essence flowed into Valerian like a black river of liquid night—roaring, burning, tearing at the fabric of his soul. The others were flung back by the shockwave as Valerian floated midair, surrounded by fragments of Umbra's armor and soul that orbited him like dark planets around a dying star.
> [System Updated: Umbra Protocol Fully Integrated]
> [New Title Acquired: Shadow King]
> [Warning: Dual Consciousness Detected]
Kareth rose from the rubble, half of his ancient face melted away, exposing bone and sinew beneath. "You fool," he rasped, ichor dripping from his wounds. "You've unleashed something that will devour everything—"
Valerian appeared in front of him in a blink, moving faster than thought itself.
"No," he said with terrible certainty. "I've become it."
His hand plunged into Kareth's chest—not seeking flesh or bone, but something deeper, more fundamental. He gripped the entity's essence, the core of its eternal existence, and with a sound like the universe screaming, ripped it free.
Kareth's death was not quick. His scream shattered the remaining statues as he dissolved into ash and static, his very existence unraveling across multiple dimensions.
Silence fell like a shroud.
Then Valerian dropped to the ground, breathing heavily, each exhale creating small storms in the air around him. The dark aura around him slowly receded, revealing the others staring in a mixture of horror and awe at what their friend had become.
Kael broke the silence, his voice hoarse. "Val... what the hell are you now?"
Valerian looked at his hands, flexing fingers that could now reshape reality itself. Shadows danced between them like living things, eager to serve their new master. His reflection in the obsidian floor showed someone fundamentally changed—power radiating from every pore, eyes that held depths of knowledge accumulated across eons. He could feel Umbra's memories, his power, his terrible purpose, all woven into his own consciousness like threads in a tapestry of darkness.
"I don't know," he whispered, his voice carrying undertones of cosmic authority. "But I think the final game just started."
The chamber trembled violently. Cracks spread across the walls like spider webs as reality itself groaned under the weight of what had just occurred. Dust and debris rained down, and somewhere in the vast distance beyond the ruins, a sound like the world itself breaking echoed through dimensions.
But before anyone could speak again—
A red glyph appeared in the air.
It wasn't part of the system. The symbol pulsed with alien energy that made the air itself burn, casting shadows that moved against the light. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in an instant, and a low hum filled the chamber—not heard, but felt in their bones.
> [Message Incoming: "Hello, me."]
The glyph cracked like an egg, reality splitting along its edges, and from the tear in space-time stepped a mirror image of Valerian. But this version was dressed in pristine white and gold, his armor unmarked by battle, his face bearing a smile that belonged on a devil. Where Valerian had absorbed darkness and chaos, this counterpart radiated a light that felt somehow more dangerous than any shadow—pure, absolute, and utterly without mercy.
"I told you I'd see you soon, brother," the other Valerian said, his voice carrying echoes of cosmic authority that made the chamber walls resonate. "Now let's finish what we started all those eons ago."