Chapter 1655: Birth of a Nightmare Knight
Layer Two of the Abyssal World.
The forest was dim, choking on a putrid fog. Black frost clung to the thorny undergrowth. Kronos leaned heavily against a rotting trunk, gasping for breath. He hunched over, casting desperate glances over his shoulder.
Something moved in the mist. Hunting him.
I have to get out, he thought, coughing up dark blood. Get out, then find a way to save Rolan. Pushing off the dead wood, he plunged deeper into the gloom.
Run! Keep going!
Rolan’s final screams echoed in his mind. Survive! He had turned back to face the enemy, buying Kronos the precious seconds he needed to escape.
They had failed.
Kronos and Rolan had meant to lead a clan of giants through the Realm Barrier. Their destination was Vigil’s Rest on the second layer of the Abyssal World—the territory of the Stoneheart Horde, and their only hope.
But as they breached the Realm Barrier, they collided with a contingent of Nightmare Knights marching into the deeper abyss.
Even with their strength to rival an Arch Lord, they were nothing against a demigod.
If Rolan hadn’t burned the demigod phantom Orion had left him, Kronos would have been slaughtered on the spot. Instead, he ran, and Rolan fell into their clutches.
Click. Clack.
The rhythmic thud of hooves approached the forest edge. Two dozen pairs of tracks materialized in the soil, halting just past the tree line.
"A powerful presence lies ahead, concealed," a raspy voice grated. "Turn back. We have no time to waste hunting a slave-breed. The Realm Barrier opens soon. Our path lies elsewhere."
Pale blue flames erupted from the tracks. Shadows coalesced into the armored forms of the Nightmare Knights, their outlines flickering and distorting like heat mirages. The lead Knight spurred his undead mount, wheeling away and abandoning the hunt.
Blinded by panic, Kronos had no idea he had just skirted death. Or that he had stumbled straight into the domain of an entirely different ancient evil.
Miles away, the Nightmare Knights made camp. The clearing was dead silent, save for the crackle of pale blue flames dancing across the hooves of their mounts.
They formed a perimeter around their fresh catch: the slave-breeds. Giants, succubi, imps, and horned demons—a collection of the first layer’s most common denizens. Here, they were not just slaves. They were seeds.
A demigod Nightmare Knight paced among the captives. With every step he took, a glowing sigil branded itself into the foreheads of the chained creatures.
As the brand set, blue fire spread over them. Flesh necrotized and sloughed away in seconds. Bones shrank, compressing into hardened steel.
From the ashes of their life force, new souls splintered and took shape: their mounts. The Nightmare Beasts. Once the beast solidified, the slave was reborn as a Nightmare Knight.
Roar!
A jarring, furious bellow shattered the silence.
Rolan. He had manifested his true form—a Stoneheart Titan with three heads and six arms. Muscles bulged beneath his ashen skin, veins pulsing like coiled serpents as he fought the necrotic power bleeding from the sigil on his brow.
His massive frame convulsed. Fueled by his Stoneheart Titan bloodline, he was actually pushing the brand out.
The anomaly drew the demigod’s eye. He stalked over, looming over the flailing, multi-limbed creature.
"Giant blood," the demigod mused. "Yet three heads. Six arms. No mere giant. A mutation, perhaps? Some offshoot of an abyssal ghoul?"
He didn’t recognize Rolan’s species, but in the infinite, chaotic expanse of the Abyssal World, new aberrations spawned daily. Rolan was just another strange, weak giant to him.
"Settle." The demigod channeled a surge of divine power into the brand.
Rolan’s convulsions ceased instantly. He went limp, allowing the blue flames to consume his flesh.
"A prime specimen. Monitor his progress. Once he turns, draft him into my personal guard."
Dismissing him, the demigod moved on, leaving a trail of burning bodies in his wake.
Deep within Rolan’s mindscape, his consciousness was collapsing.
His inner world had taken the shape of his home: the Stoneheart Horde, nestled within Moonshadow Valley, right down to the grounds where Orion’s Chieftain Tent stood.
Now, Moonshadow Valley was a raging inferno of spectral blue fire. In the courtyard outside the tent, a younger version of Rolan rolled across the ground, shrieking in agony as the flames devoured him.
Master, help me! Help!
Phantoms of Nightmare Knights stepped from the blaze. They brought hammers down on him, bound his six arms in heavy chains, impaled him with lances, and drove iron spikes through his ankles.
Rolan screamed, the sound tearing through every corner of the dying valley.
This fire didn’t just burn flesh; it incinerated the soul. It was scouring his old identity away, leaving nothing but fertile ash for a new, loyal Nightmare Knight to take root.
"Come inside."
Orion’s voice echoed softly. The command slipped past the phantom knights, entirely undetected by the demigod outside.
Rolan’s soul vanished from the courtyard, leaving the illusions to strike at empty air, as if he had burned to nothing.
The mental projection of Moonshadow Valley shattered. Only the Chieftain Tent remained, drifting alone into the darkest, most hidden depths of his mindscape.
Furs, a crackling hearth, the familiar tridents—it was the tent he knew intimately, the place he had sought shelter and food as a child. But Orion and Lilith weren’t here.
His only sanctuary was a looming Stoneheart Titan Divine Idol, carved with four heads and eight arms.
The moment the Divine Idol pulled him inside, it went dormant, stiff as ordinary stone.
Broken and bleeding, Rolan slumped against the idol’s base, whispering into the dark.
"Master... I thought I was dead. Master... Kronos got away. He’s strong enough. He’ll survive. Master... Mother..."
In his darkest hour, he had only a stone carving for company. But faint pulses of divine power bled from the Divine Idol, slowly stitching his fractured soul back together. Without it, the abyss would have claimed him for good.
In the physical world, Rolan’s flesh melted like wax. His peerless Stoneheart Titan physique acted as a catalyst, accelerating his transformation into a Nightmare Knight at a terrifying pace.
Metal ground against bone. Something vile writhed within the shadows pooling beneath him, emitting a shrill, piercing cackle.
Demon horns crowned its head. Blue flames erupted from its hooves and its barbed scorpion tail, crackling with arcs of lightning. Rolan’s Nightmare Beast was born. Simultaneously, his towering Stoneheart Titan frame shriveled, condensing until he stood shorter than an average human.
Miraculously, he retained his three heads and six arms.
Rolan stared blankly ahead, his mind wiped smooth. Instinctively, he reached out to stroke his new mount. The beast’s fiery mane flared. Lightning arced, and six tridents, wreathed in fire and lightning, shot from the flames directly into his six waiting hands.
Roar!
Rolan threw his heads back and unleashed a deafening battle cry. The Nightmare Knight had arrived.
"You. With me," a commanding Nightmare Knight barked, stepping forward to claim him for his unit.
"Rolan," he rasped.
The knight paused. "What?"
"Rolan!" he bellowed.
The recruiter stared, unnerved. A newborn Knight remembering a name was unheard of.
"It is his name. His anchor," another senior Knight murmured from the shadows. "Every great Nightmare Knight harbors a lingering obsession. Take him in. He will make a fearsome weapon."
