The Phantom's roar tore through the mist like thunder. It was more than sound; it was a wave of pure psychic pressure, laced with the agony of a hundred souls. It pressed against Shlok's chest, threatening to crush his lungs, and filled his mind with the echoes of their pain. His knees buckled, his vision swimming in static. Beside him, Ananya cried out, stumbling as if struck by a physical blow.
"Don't fall."
The hooded figure's voice cut through the pressure like a blade. The lantern in their hand flared, a beacon of defiant white fire, and the suffocating weight receded just enough for Shlok to breathe. The stranger's flame-sword hummed with a steady, calming pulse.
Shlok forced air into his lungs. His body screamed to run, to hide, to cease to exist, but his feet were rooted to the cracked stone. The Phantom loomed above them, a grotesque mountain of flesh. Its many faces, stolen from its victims, writhed and wailed soundlessly, their eyes wide with perpetual horror.
The stranger didn't wait. They surged forward, a gray wraith moving with impossible speed. The flame-sword carved a brilliant white arc through the gloom, slashing across the Phantom's arm. Where it touched, the grotesque flesh didn't just burn; it dissolved into black smoke with a sibilant hiss. The creature bellowed, a dissonant chorus of pain, and its free arm thrashed wildly.
"Move!" the stranger barked over their shoulder.
Shlok grabbed Ananya's arm and scrambled sideways as the ground split open. One of the Phantom's colossal fists slammed down where they had just stood, shattering the stone. The shockwave hurled them against a crumbled wall. Pain lanced up Shlok's spine, and his head cracked against the unyielding rock.
His trembling hand brushed against his pocket. The shard.
The Fragment of Dread pulsed violently, eagerly, a hungry thing waking in his blood. As his pain and terror spiked, the shard flared with cold heat. Shadows bled from his pores, clinging to his skin like oil. His vision warped, the edges darkening. His palm itched—and then split open with a wet tear. Black, glassy obsidian poured from the wound, coalescing once more into the jagged, hungry blade he had conjured before.
It felt heavier this time, more real, and in its rhythmic pulse, he felt his own terror twisting into something sharper, something vicious.
The Phantom's many faces swiveled, their collective gaze locking onto him. They saw the new weapon. They smelled the fresh dread.
"Not me," Shlok whispered, his throat dry. "Please, not me…"
But his dread was a beacon, and the monster was a moth drawn to his terrified flame. It lunged.
Ananya screamed a warning. Shlok, acting on pure instinct, swung the shadow blade in a desperate, clumsy arc. He felt a sickening resistance as it bit into one of the monster's reaching limbs, like striking cold, waterlogged meat. Then, black smoke exploded outward. The limb recoiled, the faces on it shrieking.
He had hurt it.
Adrenaline, cold and sharp, flooded his veins. He struck again, wild and desperate. The blade answered every tremor of fear, lengthening, sharpening, feeding on his panic. But the Phantom didn't fall back. It pressed closer, its massive bulk blotting out the lantern's glow, plunging them into near-total darkness. From the writhing flesh, voices began to whisper—his father's disappointed tone, the sound of his own name being called by paramedics, every forgotten failure and fear given voice.
The hooded figure appeared beside him in a blur of motion, their flame-sword a searing comet in the dark. It carved another gash into the Phantom's torso. They seized Shlok's shoulder, their grip like iron, their voice low but unshakable.
"Listen to me. That shard isn't just a rock. It's a Fragment, an anchor for your power. It resonates with your dread. That's why you can fight."
"I don't— I don't know how to—" Shlok stammered, batting away a grasping hand that sprouted from the Phantom's chest.
"You don't need to know how. You just need to focus it! Don't let it spill everywhere. Shape it!"
The stranger shoved him aside and raised their lantern high. White fire bloomed into a blinding flare, a miniature sun that forced the Phantom to reel back, its stitched faces screeching at the pure light. In that brief moment of respite, the hooded figure turned to Shlok, their voice cutting through the chaos.
"Remember this. Fear is power here. Let it break you, you die. You shape it—" Their flame slashed again, searing through the Phantom's chest as it recovered. Smoke and ash burst outward. "—and you live."
Shlok's blade pulsed violently, as if in agreement. His body shook, but for the first time, something flickered beneath the terror. Not calm. Not courage. Raw, cornered-animal desperation.
He screamed, a wordless sound of rage and terror, and lunged forward, driving the shadow weapon deep into the Phantom's writhing flesh. The lantern-flame followed an instant later, plunging into the same wound. Together, shard and fire, shadow and light, split the abomination apart from the inside.
The Phantom wailed, its many mouths shrieking in a final, deafening unison. Its form destabilized, convulsing before collapsing into a maelstrom of black smoke and fading whispers. The mist swallowed it whole, leaving only a profound silence and the faint, steady glow of the lantern.
Shlok fell to his knees, gasping for air that wouldn't come. The shadow blade shattered, dissolving back into nothing, leaving his hand throbbing and bleeding from the wound it had created.
The hooded figure stood above him, their lantern steady. Ananya rushed to his side, her face pale. "Shlok, are you okay? Your hand…"
Slowly, the figure pulled back their hood. A woman's face, stark and severe, stared down at him. A jagged, silvery scar ran from her temple to her jaw, pulling at the corner of one eye. Her eyes themselves were pale and cold as the lantern's flame.
"You lived," she said simply, her tone one of clinical observation.
Shlok coughed, forcing the words out. "What… what was that thing?"
Her expression didn't soften. "A Phantom. One step above a Whisper." She crouched, her gaze locking onto his, completely ignoring Ananya. "And one step closer to the truth of what hunts in this world." The lantern flame flickered, casting shadows that curled around them like waiting predators.
"Welcome to the Shroud, Awakened," she said, her voice dropping, leaving no room for argument. "From now on, your fear is no longer your own. It belongs to it."