The Rusted Sword of Mount Ashen
No one believed the prophecy of the rusted sword on the Northern Mountain... until the day a thirteen-year-old shepherd boy pulled it free by accident, awakening every ancient magical circle across the kingdom at once.
King Aldric gripped the arms of his throne so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
"Impossible..."
The royal court fell silent. Only the oldest scholars understood the terror in the king's eyes.
The blade was Calamity.
The legendary sword once wielded by the Demon King Azrael, the conqueror who had plunged half the world into ruin a thousand years ago.
"Summon every Holy Knight!" the king shouted. "Find that boy before it's too late!"
Meanwhile, atop Mount Ashen, Eren stood frozen in disbelief.
"You must have the wrong person," he stammered. "I'm just a shepherd."
The sword glowed with crimson light.
"No."
The ancient voice echoed inside his mind.
"I have never been wrong."
The mountain trembled.
One by one, glowing red runes ignited across the blade's surface.
Suddenly, visions flooded Eren's mind.
A battlefield covered in countless corpses.
Black dragons darkening the sky.
A king clad in crimson armor standing amid an ocean of flames, holding the very same sword.
The king's eyes were identical to Eren's.
Terrified, Eren released the hilt.
But the sword did not fall.
Instead, it hovered in the air before him.
"You are the final heir."
"Heir to whom?" Eren whispered.
"To the king history betrayed."
A colossal bolt of lightning struck the mountain.
BOOM!
The storm clouds above split apart.
A massive magical circle appeared in the heavens, so vast it stretched across the entire kingdom of Eldoria.
Then a second circle emerged.
Then a third.
Soon, hundreds of ancient seals awakened simultaneously.
Deep beneath the earth, forgotten gates sealed for a thousand years began to open.
Far to the south, inside a hidden crystal tomb, a silver-haired woman suddenly opened her eyes.
"At last..."
A faint smile touched her lips.
"You have returned, my king."
In the depths of the Eastern Ocean, an ancient dragon larger than any mountain slowly rose from its endless slumber.
Its golden eyes opened for the first time in a thousand years.
"Master..."
Back on Mount Ashen, Eren had no idea that the entire world had begun to move because of him.
He simply stared at the floating sword and asked the most ordinary question imaginable.
"So... what am I supposed to do now?"
The sword remained silent for several seconds.
Then it answered.
"Run."
"What?"
"Because they have already arrived."
At the foot of the mountain, thousands of royal cavalry were charging upward like a tidal wave of steel.
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And high above the storm clouds...
A gigantic crimson eye was slowly opening in the sky.
