Chapter 2774: Story 2775: The Prisoner Beneath Creation

The colossal figure’s laughter shook the staircase.

Chunks of stone broke from the walls and tumbled into the abyss, disappearing before they reached the bottom. The golden chains stretched tight around the prisoner’s body, each link carved with symbols that burned whenever he moved.

Ronan stepped toward the opening.

“Cael! Hold on!”

His brother reached for him, but golden sparks streamed from his fingertips. The crown-shaped mark on his forehead widened, revealing a dark hole beneath his skin.

“Don’t come closer,” Cael gasped. “The chains aren’t pulling me down. They’re pulling something out of me.”

Ronan seized his wrist anyway.

A freezing shock raced through his arm.

Suddenly, he saw Cael’s memories.

A kingdom without sunlight. Thousands of kneeling figures. A throne made from the bones of forgotten gods. And a faceless king standing before a young Cael, offering him a choice between eternal service and the destruction of everyone he loved.

Then came the memory Cael had hidden for centuries.

The Nameless King had once possessed a face.

It was Ronan’s.

But older, crowned with living bone, and marked by a golden wound across the forehead.

Ronan released Cael in horror.

“That face...”

Cael nodded weakly. “You have worn it before.”

The forgotten child rushed between them.

“No! That wasn’t Ronan. It was the first shape the darkness gave itself. The King stole it because he wanted to become the son he could never control.”

Below them, the colossal prisoner stopped laughing.

His empty eyes fixed on Ronan.

“Little heart,” he rumbled. “You have told him too much.”

The child’s red heart suddenly dimmed.

Black veins spread across his neck, and he collapsed. Ronan caught him before he struck the stone.

“Who is that thing?” Lyra demanded, drawing an arrow and aiming into the abyss.

The child struggled to breathe.

“He is the one who existed before the King. Before the Firstborn. Before the first name.”

“Then why was he imprisoned?” Aren asked.

The child stared at the chains.

“Because he tried to destroy the thing he created.”

Aren’s silver barrier flickered. Elias tightened his black chains around the staircase railing while Darian’s violet flames illuminated the descending path.

Ronan looked toward the prisoner.

“Did you create the Nameless King?”

The colossal figure lowered his head.

“No, First Son. I created the possibility of him.”

The chains shuddered.

“One of my children learned to name the darkness. Another learned to command it. The third tried to give it a heart.”

His empty gaze settled on the forgotten child.

“And the last stole my heart to keep me alive.”

Ronan felt the ancient heartbeat inside his own chest answer.

The prisoner’s restraints began breaking, one link at a time.

Cael screamed as the golden crown on his forehead tore free, dragging a stream of memories from his body.

Lyra released her arrow.

It struck the crown midair, splitting it in two.

For one heartbeat, everything stopped.

Then a golden door appeared behind the prisoner.

Ronan recognized it immediately.

His mother was chained to its other side.

And she was pounding desperately against the metal.

“RONAN!” she screamed. “DO NOT LET HIM REMEMBER HIS FACE!”

The prisoner smiled.

For the first time, his empty eyes filled with golden light.

“Too late,” he whispered.

Ronan’s reflection appeared across the black stone beneath his feet.

It was smiling back at him.

And it wore a crown.