The throne room wasn't made of gold or marble, but of obsidian and bone. Hidden deep within the Hollow Spire — a fortress thought lost to time — the true architect of the Crown of Shadows sat with his back to the world. Behind him, massive stained-glass windows depicted scenes of ruin and domination: the fall of kingdoms, the rise of tyrants, and at the center of it all, the Crown.
The man turned slowly, revealing a face both regal and terrifying. His eyes, one black as pitch, the other burning red, studied the chessboard in front of him. A single king stood alone.
"Check," he muttered, moving a pawn.
They called him Magnar the Sovereign — once a scholar of ancient lore, now the self-declared "Shadow King." He was not a warrior like those Raizen had faced before. He was something worse.
A master of plans.
Far across the sea, aboard the Spectral Wind, Raizen sat with his crew in stunned silence as the artifact's echo faded. The shard he had kept — the last piece of the shattered Crown — had just revealed a vision. A man, seated on a throne of death, smiling.
"Magnar…" Raizen muttered. "He's the one behind it all."
"And he knows we're coming," Kael added grimly.
"Not just coming," said Lyra, stepping forward. "He wants us to come. He's inviting us into his game."
Raizen looked down at the carved chess piece now resting in his hand — a king piece, left within the shard as a message.
"A game where we're already behind."
Days later, under the guise of a noble summit, Raizen and Lyra entered the Grand Spire of Avalen — a neutral city-state caught between empires. Hidden within the city's noble courts was the only known entry to the Hollow Spire. But Magnar had turned it into a trap.
Raizen wasn't here to fight — not yet.
He came to play.
And Magnar, seated at the far end of a darkened banquet hall, welcomed him with open arms.
"Welcome, my young adversary," he said with a smile. "I've followed your rise. Quite… entertaining."
"You've destroyed cities. Twisted minds. Killed people I cared about," Raizen said coldly. "I didn't come to be flattered."
"No," Magnar said, sipping wine. "You came because you think you can win."
He gestured to a circular table in the center of the room. Upon it, a chessboard — no pieces, just squares of shifting light and shadow.
"Let's test that, shall we?"
As they sat, Raizen felt it — the board wasn't just a game. It was alive. With each move they made, illusions conjured scenes from past battles, real decisions Raizen had made — and mistakes.
"This board remembers," Magnar said. "Every choice, every sacrifice. Tell me, Raizen: how many pawns have you sacrificed for your own power?"
Raizen didn't answer. He advanced his knight, and the image of Kael nearly dying in the Velmora battle flashed into view.
"You play well," Magnar admitted, "but you don't see the whole board. You think this is about power, crowns, kingdoms. But this… is about evolution. The weak cling to light. The strong master the dark. And the strongest rule both."
Raizen pushed his queen across the board. Shadows flared, and Magnar's bishop was engulfed.
"You're not the strongest," Raizen said. "You're the most afraid. You hide behind schemes because you can't bear the thought of losing control."
A small tremor passed through the room. The board glowed brighter.
"Check," Raizen said.
Magnar stared at the board for a long time.
Then smiled.
And tipped over his king.
"Well played," he said.
Then he stood.
The room began to dissolve, revealing it had never been real — a grand illusion. The real Spire lay beneath, and as the world reformed around them, dozens of figures in shadow cloaks emerged. Every one of them bearing the mark of the Crown.
"You passed my test," Magnar said, his voice now cold. "But the game was never just about you, Raizen. The world moves whether you play or not."
He gestured to the guards.
"Let's begin the real game."
Fighting erupted. Lyra drew her twin sabers, Kael charged through the wall from below, Rook struck from the ceiling beams — it had all been planned. Raizen wasn't walking into a trap.
He was dismantling it from within.
But as the battle raged, Raizen saw Magnar retreat deeper into the Spire, calm and unbothered.
"I let you have this piece," Magnar called back, "because I already moved my queen."
Suddenly, all of Avalen shook.
A massive ship — not just a battleship, but a floating fortress — rose from the harbor, cloaked in black mist. Onboard: thousands of shadow-bound soldiers, and a glowing sphere mounted on its prow — another fragment of the Crown.
Raizen stared.
This wasn't a battle. It was a declaration.
The world war for the Crown of Shadows had begun.
End of Chapter 13: The King's Gambit