Adrien hit the ground hard, blood spraying from his mouth. The prisoner stood over him, chains rattling, eyes burning with cruel joy.
"You call this strength?" he growled. "You can't even protect yourself… let alone this world."
Nyarixis staggered forward, body flickering between shadow and flesh. "Stay away from him!" it snarled.
The prisoner didn't even flinch. His backhand strike sent the cub crashing into the wall, leaving cracks in the stone.
Adrien pushed himself up, but his arms shook. His vision blurred. Every breath felt like fire in his chest. He could see Nyarixis trying to rise again—tiny legs trembling, eyes wide with stubborn defiance.
And then it hit him—beneath all the sharp wit and knowledge, Nyarixis was still just a cub. A cub he had freed from that dungeon cage… a cub that had followed him ever since. Not because it had to. But because it wanted to.
The prisoner sneered. "Pathetic. The both of you." He stepped forward, chains scraping the floor.
The prisoner's chains rattled, the violet veins in the walls pulsing like a beating heart.
Adrien's grip tightened around his shadowforged blade, its dark edge quivering in the oppressive air.
From the corner, Nyxaris lunged at the prisoner's whip-like tendril, teeth sinking deep. The impact sent the small wolf sprawling against the wall. For a heartbeat, it didn't get up.
Then—
Its crimson eyes flickered, the mist around its body surging. In its mind, the dungeon cage flashed back—cold stone, iron bars, and the hopeless dark before Adrien's shadow split the lock.
Nyxaris's growl wasn't just rage. It was fear.
Fear of losing the one who had reached into its prison and pulled it into the light.
The intelligent, almost regal tone it often carried melted away.
What was left was just… a cub.
A cub who would die before letting that darkness swallow Adrien again.
Adrien's eyes widened as the shadows wrapped around his arms and chest, sinking into his skin. Heat. Strength. Clarity. He could feel Nyarixis' will—raw, desperate, and unbreakable.
The prisoner frowned. "What is this?"
Adrien stood, rolling his shoulders. Blood still dripped from his lip, but the fire in his eyes had returned. His heart pounded like a war drum. "You're about to find out."
Shadows curled around his fists, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. Nyarixis stood beside him now, no longer flickering—its form solid, eyes blazing red like twin fires.
The bond between them had changed. No, it had evolved.
It threw itself forward with reckless speed, intercepting another strike meant for Adrien's chest. The blow hit like a hammer, but Nyxaris bit down harder, snarling in raw defiance.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
Shadowbond Resonance Achieved – Emotional synchronization between Host and Companion has peaked.
Temporary Buff Granted: Shadowbond Surge (+40% Strength, +30% Agility, +20% Reflex for 60 seconds)
Effect: Host and Companion attack as one. Damage output increases with proximity.
Adrien felt the pulse of power rip through him—Nyxaris's heartbeat matching his own. His vision sharpened. The prisoner's movements slowed to a crawl in his eyes.
"You're done," Adrien growled.
The shadowforged blade hummed, hungry for the final strike. The ground cracked under Adrien's dash as he closed in—Nyxaris at his side, their shadows fusing into a single jagged silhouette.
The prisoner roared, chains writhing, but Adrien met it head-on. The blade carved through the blacksteel bindings with a single sweep, Nyxaris snapping at its heels to drive it back.
Adrien's eyes locked on its chest.
One chance. One strike.
He moved.
Adrien hit the ground running, the weight of his wounds drowned beneath the tidal rush of Guardian's Oath.
Every muscle felt sharper, lighter—alive. Shadows curled from his boots, gripping the stone with each step like coiled springs, launching him forward.
The prisoner's chains lashed out, blurring through the air. Adrien didn't dodge—he slipped between the strikes, his body moving before thought could catch up, guided by the pulse of Nyxaris' bond inside his mind.
Left.
Adrien pivoted, the chain screaming past his ear.
High strike.
He ducked low, shadow trailing like smoke.
Nyxaris darted in from the side, its form half-solid, half-mist. It slammed into the prisoner's leg, horn carving a jagged gash in the blackstone shackle around its ankle. Sparks of violet energy spat out from the wound in the restraint, the prisoner's hiss echoing through the chamber.
Adrien closed in. The shadowforged blade flared with black fire, each flicker devouring the faint light around it.
He drove it upward in a brutal arc—
Clang!
The blade struck the prisoner's wrist, sending a shockwave through the chamber. Black ichor sprayed across the dais, sizzling against the stone.
The prisoner staggered, one chain dragging uselessly now, shattered at the link.
"You—" it growled, voice rumbling like a landslide. "You carry the scent of the Abyss… but you are no demi-god."
Adrien grinned, shadows spilling from his eyes.
"Good. I'd hate to be mistaken for one of you."
The buff's timer burned in the edge of his vision—[0 : 28]. No time to waste.
He surged forward again, Nyxaris right beside him, both moving in perfect, savage rhythm.
Got it — I'll carry this from the brutal finishing sequence straight into the shard handoff.
.....
The seal's air burns with violet static. Adrien's boots grind against the fractured stone as he and Nyxaris move in perfect sync, their bond now thrumming like a war drum in his veins.
The prisoner's chains rattle as they lift a trembling arm, shadow-mist boiling from their wounds to form a massive scythe of pure abyssal energy.
Adrien twirls his shadowforged blade, the edge drinking the dim light. This ends now.
Nyxaris lunges first, not as the composed guardian it pretends to be, but as the cub Adrien had freed from the dungeon cage — eyes wide with desperate fear of losing him again. It barrels into the prisoner's knee, horn glowing in violent arcs, snarling like a storm given flesh.
The prisoner stumbles — just enough. Adrien steps in.
Step. Pivot. Drive.
The shadowforged blade punches through the prisoner's chest, ripping a shockwave of darkness through the chamber. Cracks splinter across the walls, violet veins flaring once before dying out. The prisoner coughs, the sound wet and hollow.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
Temporary Buff Expiring Soon
Shadowbond Surge: +40% Strength, +30% Agility, +20% Reflex— 00:00:09 remaining.
Adrien twists the blade and drags it upward, bisecting the chains that had bound the prisoner's arms. The man — or what remained of him — slumps forward, the darkness bleeding out of his eyes.
With a trembling, skeletal hand, the prisoner clutches Adrien's wrist and presses something cold and jagged into his palm — a shard of black glass swirling with faint silver motes.
"You… must see… before… you walk… my road…" the prisoner whispers, voice like ashes in the wind.
The shard pulses once — and the prisoner's body disintegrates into drifting embers, fading into the Maw's silence.
Adrien stares at the shard in his palm, its edges humming like a distant heartbeat. He feels the pull of a memory not his own… a story clawing its way to the surface.
The chamber seems to lean inward, shadows stretching as if eager to witness.
.....
A young boy sat alone on a high rock. Around him, everything was broken—old ruins, dead trees, cracked ground. He wore no shoes. His clothes were torn. His eyes, dark like a cloudy sky, stared at his own hands.
They were shaking.
From far off, someone shouted.
"Freak!"
The boy didn't move.
"Go back to the dark where you came from!"
Still, he didn't respond.
He looked up instead—at the sky. No sun. No stars. Just grey. Lifeless grey.
Later, he walked through an empty field. His shadow stretched behind him like it wanted to crawl away. From a distance, two guards watched him pass. They didn't speak, but one of them made a sign over his chest—some prayer, or curse.
The boy kept walking.
He passed a mirror, cracked and old. He stopped and stared at his reflection. For a moment, he reached out to touch it. Then he lowered his hand. Slowly, a tear slid down his cheek—but his face stayed calm.
He turned.
And at the end of the path, standing under a bare tree, was a girl. She looked maybe his age. Her face was kind, but sad. She didn't say anything.
She just… smiled.
And for the first time, the boy smiled back.