The ruins of Azarath still whispered with the energy of the Resurrection.
But beneath the surface, something rotten stirred.
Max felt it first — not in his body, but in his mind.
At night, when the others slept around the broken temples, Max stayed awake.
Listening.
Watching.
Waiting.
The Phantoms — Fire, Stone, Wind, and Forest — no longer obeyed him blindly.
They... murmured.
Soft, ghostly voices at the edge of hearing.
Sometimes calling.
Sometimes warning.
Sometimes threatening.
The others trained fiercely during the day, testing their reborn powers.
Aria could summon sunfire capable of burning through mountains. Sylas could shift entire valleys with a single punch. Luna could ride the wind as if it were a living creature. Dante's lightning storms darkened the skies for miles. Mira flooded entire canyons with a flick of her wrist. Kaela wove forests in minutes where there was once only stone.
And Max?
Max didn't just use his elements anymore.
He commanded them.
With terrifying ease.
It unnerved the others sometimes.
How Max could summon all five forces together, fusing them into weapons, shields, beasts of frost and flame.
How the ground itself bent when he walked.
How the wind whispered his name without permission.
Aria tried to laugh it off.
"Guess dying made us stronger," she joked one afternoon, wiping sweat from her brow.
Sylas chuckled.
Luna rolled her eyes playfully.
Only Talon didn't smile.
Only Talon kept his hand close to his sword when Max passed by.
That night, as the ruins slept under a shattered moon, Max stood alone before the Heart of Azarath.
The broken Seventh Door still pulsed faintly under the earth — a heartbeat out of sync with the world.
Max knelt before it.
Closed his eyes.
And listened.
At first, there was nothing.
Then —
A voice.
No words. Just hunger.
A deep, endless hunger.
It wasn't calling Max.
It was growing inside him.
He recoiled, staggering back.
Ice spread from his fingers without command — frosting the ancient stones, freezing the very air around him.
He clenched his fists, breathing hard.
Control it. Control it.
But deep down, he knew.
He wasn't just stronger than before.
He was different.
Something had changed the moment he broke the Seventh Door.
Something had entered him.
Not corruption.
Not possession.
Something... older.
Something that had been waiting.
The next morning, Talon confronted him.
They stood atop the broken ziggurat, overlooking the endless plains of Azarath.
"You've changed," Talon said without pretense.
Max said nothing.
"You don't just hold the power of the Doors now," Talon continued.
"You've become the Key itself."
Max narrowed his eyes.
"Meaning?"
Talon's voice was cold.
"Meaning if you fall," he said, "everything falls with you."
The tension between them was thick.
The others sensed it.
Aria, trying to stay cheerful, suggested missions — scouting ruins, hunting corrupted beasts — anything to keep the group moving.
And so they traveled, for days, across the broken world.
Rebuilding alliances.
Crushing small pockets of the Oblivion King's spawn.
Restoring what little hope remained among the surviving tribes.
Max led them.
And every battle was easier than the last.
Not because the enemies grew weaker.
Because Max grew stronger.
Far too strong.
At the ruins of Vel'Shar, they fought a warbeast the size of a fortress.
It took Aria's fire, Luna's wind, Mira's tides, and Dante's storms just to wound it.
Max killed it with one strike.
A single word of ice and stone and flame —
and the warbeast froze, shattered, and blew away like dust.
The surviving villagers knelt to him afterward.
Called him "The Herald."
"The Frozen King."
"The Doorwalker."
Max hated it.
But a part of him...
A part of him thrilled at it.
And that terrified him more than any enemy.
That night, as the warriors camped by the fallen beast's bones, Max sat apart.
Staring at his hands.
His reflection in a pool of melted ice showed eyes not fully human anymore — a faint silver-blue glow deep in his pupils.
He barely recognized himself.
What am I becoming?
he wondered.
The Phantoms whispered at the edge of hearing.
The Doors pulsed under the earth.
The broken sky watched.
And the hunger inside him... waited.
Not devouring him.
Waiting to be unleashed.
Max knew then.
If he kept growing like this...
He would surpass even the Seven.
He would surpass gods.
And if he ever lost control — even for a second —
there would be no one left who could stop him.
Not Talon.
Not Aria.
Not anyone.
The real battle had never been outside.
The real battle was inside him.
A battle he could not afford to lose.
[End of Chapter 6]