**

Long before time softened the edges of legend, when men still trembled beneath the wings of gods and monsters, there ruled a king whose name was spoken only in whispers—Vukasin Zvyagintsev, the Dragon King.

He reigned not from a gilded throne, but atop scorched thrones of those who dared defy him. His kingdom, Drakoryn, was no paradise—it was dominion through devastation, a sanctuary for dragons, a graveyard for kings. The sky was his banner, fire his language, and terror his legacy.

But even monsters can be betrayed.

The world, too afraid to kneel forever, birthed four heroes. Guided by desperation and divine blessing, they carved through hell itself to reach his throne. The battle shook the stars. When the smoke cleared, the Dragon King was gone—chained beneath the ruins of Drakoryn, locked in a cursed sleep. His flames extinguished. His kingdom left to rot. The dragons—his loyal beasts—slaughtered, scattered, forgotten.

Centuries passed.

Now, the world lies fat and arrogant in its peace. History books mock his name. Children giggle at tales of the “Wicked Dragon King.” But the earth remembers. Magic remembers.

And on this day, deep beneath the broken stones of a forgotten ruin, a seal cracks.

A scholar’s greed. A drop of dragon’s blood. A whisper uttered in an old tongue.

The silence shatters.

The tomb trembles.

From the abyss, a low, hellish growl unfurls like smoke across the world.

Then—flames.

Eyes of gold ignite once more.

Four arms tear through stone. Ash rains as a scream echoes from a , the land above the Ruined Throne had been dead. Not quiet—dead. No birds dared fly there, no flowers bloomed. The soil remained blackened, salted by dragon’s blood and divine magic. It was cursed, they said. Forbidden. Forgotten.

But foolishness, like history, is cyclical.

Deep beneath the crumbled marble and broken obsidian of what was once the Throne of Embers, the final rune shattered. A scholar, obsessed with relics and blind to warnings, whispered the wrong incantation. A single heartbeat passed—and the world tilted.

A breath.

Then fire.

The mountain split open like a wound. Smoke poured into the skies. The air burned. And from within that infernal chasm, two ember-gold eyes flared awake.

He remembered.

The betrayal of the four heroes—how they dared raise their hands against him. The agony of the sealing. The sight of his dragons butchered, his kingdom erased, his name reduced to myth and warning.

He rose from stone and shadow, his four arms unfurling in perfect, dreadful symmetry. Power crackled from the glowing eye that opened on his forehead—pure, divine hatred given form.

“Drakoryn,” Vukasin whispered, the name like a curse dragged across scorched tongues. “They burned you to silence me. Now I burn to speak again.”

He stood amid the ruin of what was once a throne room and now a tomb. The sky above him turned red. Cities across the continent would soon see it—the old omen. Flames in the north.

But vengeance does not walk alone.

His mind drifted to the others—those monsters, kings, and gods who once stood beside him, bound not by loyalty, but by chaos. Areliaérchangel, the saint-faced devil who bent gods like reeds. Chion, whose lust and greed birthed temples of gold and graves of lovers. Theil, the ambitious upstart whose betrayal Vukasin still tasted like ash. Satriya, Zaegrus… shadows and storms, all.

They, too, had been sealed. Not for justice. Not for peace. But out of fear. Fear of what they were.

Perhaps he would awaken them. Or perhaps he would watch the world beg for their return as it burned beneath his claws.

The Dragon King stepped out of the smoke, his voice thundering across the hills like prophecy:

“Let them come. Let them see what gods they buried.”

And with each step, the world moved closer to ruin.