After his fall into the fiery depths of Mount Doom, Sauron did not perish — his spirit was scattered, weakened, but not destroyed. For centuries he drifted through time and shadow, forgotten even by the stars. But one day, long after magic had faded and the old world had crumbled into legend, he awoke.

The world had changed.

Elves, dwarves, dragons — gone. What once ruled the lands were now only fragments in myths and bedtime stories. Mankind alone remained, building cities of glass and steel, worshipping progress, currency, and control. The Ring of Power was just a metaphor now, featured in films and fandoms, reduced to fiction. But Sauron — reborn in the form of a man — understood: this new world was simply another battlefield. Where once it was Middle-earth, now it was markets and influence.

He began again, quietly. A new name. A new face. Charismatic, calculating, and utterly ruthless, he carved out an empire under the guise of a multinational corporation. Its public dealings were legitimate enough — but behind the curtain: illegal arms trade, data manipulation, bribery, and most importantly, the funding of archeological expeditions across what was once Mordor. Because he knew one truth no one else did: the One Ring had never been destroyed. It was buried, deep beneath the volcanic stone, waiting. And now, he had the means to unearth it.

In this world, he also gained something unexpected — something dangerously close to human connection. A woman, curious and bright, drawn to old tales and forgotten lore, entered his life. She was a historian, a lover of myth and fantasy, fascinated by ancient languages and lost civilizations. To her, he was an enigmatic and influential businessman with a curious love for forgotten things. She didn’t know who he truly was. To her, his obsession with power and the past was just eccentricity.

She would read Tolkien aloud to him in the quiet of the evening, unaware that her words echoed ancient truths. She laughed at the idea of dark lords and magic rings, never guessing she sat beside one.

And every time he listened to her voice, to those stories, Sauron felt it: magic had not died. It had only changed its form. And if the Ring returned to him… the world would change again.