Inside the cavernous heart of the cathedral, darkness reigned like a tyrant—thick, oppressive, and utterly unchallenged. It oozed across the ancient stones, clung like pitch to the soaring columns, and pooled in the hollows of the vaulted ceiling. Only a few narrow shafts of light managed to slip through the slender, timeworn windows high above. But rather than dispel the gloom, those pale beams merely emphasized how deep and unnatural the blackness truly was.
Then, six humans crossed the threshold of the sacred hall—small, fragile figures swallowed by the gloom. The soft glow of their lantern Memories barely pushed back the shadow, their light dulled and smothered before it could reach the floor. Around them, the silence was complete—profound and suffocating.
Until a sharp voice cut through it like a blade:
"Now!"
A tall young woman stepped forward, her silver hair catching the dim light like strands of moonlight spun into silk. Her striking grey eyes, calm and resolute, fixed on the darkness ahead as she raised her sword.
Then came the blaze.
Brilliant, searing light burst forth from the blade in her hand—radiant white and pure, like the first dawn after a long, accursed night. It swept across the cathedral in a tidal wave, banishing shadow in an instant. The abyss recoiled, forced back into the farthest, deepest corners of the ancient temple.
And there—at the very center of where the darkness had once stood impenetrable—he was revealed.
A towering figure in blackened steel, forged like a nightmare, loomed before them. The Black Knight. His massive greatsword was already in motion, falling from above like a guillotine cast by the gods themselves. It looked less like a blade and more like a rend in the fabric of reality, a vertical wound through which the void itself bled.
What could hope to stop such a monstrous strike?
…Perhaps two colossal beasts with the bodies of gorillas and the armor of insects.
With a thunderous roar, the twin creatures surged forward. Their massive arms—scaled, muscular, and cruelly reinforced—rose in unison to meet the descending death. The impact was cataclysmic. Steel met scaled sinew in a deafening clash, the sheer force of it ringing through the cathedral like a bell of war. The echo rolled along the stone walls, growing louder as it reflected, multiplied.
Beneath the force of the blow, the very floor cracked and groaned, deep fissures tearing through the ancient tiles.
The Black Knight held still for a moment, caught in the shock of the sudden loss of his shrouding darkness. The divine radiance that had pierced his veil seemed to momentarily stagger even him.
But it did not last.
The hesitation was fleeting—less than a heartbeat. Then the devil moved again, impossibly fast for his size. He twisted, stepped back, and drove his sword forward in a brutal thrust, striking one of the twin beasts squarely in the chest. The blow sent the creature hurtling back with a howl, a shower of shattered scales flying through the air.
But before the Black Knight could press his advantage, a new force entered the fray.
A boulder—massive and jagged, easily the size of a grown man—came screaming through the air like a meteor. It slammed into the armored colossus with bone-rattling force. The devil only had time to shift his stance and absorb the impact with his shoulder.
The stone exploded into fragments, scattering like shrapnel.
When the dust settled, the one who had thrown it emerged—calm, silent, and inexorable.
She moved like a statue carved from war itself, unhurried and perfectly balanced. From behind the visor of her helmet, two red flames glowed with unwavering resolve.
The Stone Saint had arrived.
'*'
The Stone Saint advanced with unwavering calm, her stride neither hurried nor hesitant. Every step echoed with the weight of inevitability. Around her, the darkness recoiled and twisted, drawn toward her like the cloak of a sovereign returning to her rightful throne. Ghostly tendrils of grey mist coiled around her stonelike armor, wreathing her in a spectral shroud. That armor, elegant and ancient, seemed less forged than sculpted—every curve imbued with grace and purpose. And behind her visor, two ruby flames blazed, not with rage, but with a cold, imperious certainty.
Across the hall, the devil waited. The Black Knight's monstrous figure loomed like a tower of dread, his black steel armor devouring what little light remained. The incandescent brilliance of Changing Star had banished the veil of dark he once hid behind, but in doing so, it had only deepened the gloom that lingered beyond its reach. Now those shadows writhed restlessly, as though alive—reaching for the Saint, yearning to settle on her shoulders like a funeral mantle.
With his four shadows enhancing her she would be able to match the fallen devil in strength if not speed .
She would not fall.
Without breaking stride, the Stone Saint lifted her shield and struck it twice with the flat of her blade. The ringing clangor reverberated through the cathedral like a formal challenge—a sound older than words.
Now, standing opposite one another, the resemblance between the two titans became undeniable. Their silhouettes, though vastly different in size, echoed one another. There was symmetry in the lines of their armor, an echo of shared design. But where the Black Knight's indestructible plate was brutal and unrefined—like a fortress carved from hate—the Saint's was sublime, a masterpiece of strength and artistry.
In comparison, he looked like a grim parody. A crude imitation.
Sunny, watching from the fringe of the chaos, felt the truth settle in his bones like falling snow. That flicker of emotion—barely perceptible—passed through the otherwise impassive figure of the Stone Saint. Not fear. Not awe. But something colder.
Contempt.
She looked upon the Fallen Devil not with trepidation, but disdain—as though offended by the sight of something meant to reflect her... and failing.
All of this Sunny grasped in less than a second.
In the next heartbeat, the cathedral exploded into motion.
Steel crashed against steel as the two knights collided in a storm of violence, their weapons shrieking in fury. The sound rolled like thunder through the hallowed space, and the ground beneath them quaked with each blow.
This was no fair duel. Sunny didn't believe in those.
The twin insectoid gorillas—grotesque titans of carapace and sinew—joined the fray with savage urgency. One of them, newly risen from the floor, barreled forward while the other latched its mandibles onto the Black Knight's knee with a crunch of cracking scale and splintering armor.
All around them, the cohort surged to act.
Kai raised his bow, the familiar string-song of his weapon followed by emerald explosions. Arcane fire bloomed in the air like falling stars as his arrows found their mark.
Then, the devil retaliated.
Without ceremony, the Black Knight released the hilt of his blade with one hand and backhanded the Stone Saint with an impact that cracked the very air. It was a blow that could have pulped bone and shattered organs—had she been flesh. Instead, the living statue was sent flying, her body tumbling like a discarded marionette across the marble.
Even before she landed, the knight turned, relentless. His blade rose—taller than a man—and fell toward Nephis with terrifying speed.
"I was right," Sunny whispered.
A feral grin split his face.
Twin blades gleamed in his hands as he surged forward, yelling into the chaos:
"Plan C!"
Plan C was as simple as it was brutal. It had been born of intuition—Sunny's hunch that Nephis, the one person immune to the Black Knight's living darkness, would become his highest priority. She was the countermeasure to his greatest weapon.
Which meant she was also the perfect bait.
She would be fine, Sunny told himself. Her light was far too bright to be snuffed out by something like him.
The obsidian greatsword screamed through the air, missing Nephis by a whisper. She twisted and flipped, her body a blur of perfect motion. With the grace of a master acrobat, she rolled, then launched herself into a handspring that carried her high above the blade. She landed in a crouch, sliding across the floor like a dancer on glass, her silver hair catching the lamplight as she braced for the next attack.
But the Black Knight was already on her—fast. Faster than anything that size should have been. His greatsword lunged forward to impale her.
She shifted—just enough—and sprinted along the flat of the blade itself, her own sword trailing a flash of brilliance. It struck the devil's vambrace with a shriek, carving a vicious groove into the armored plate.
Still, the fight was moving too fast for the others to intervene. The Stone Saint had only just slammed into the floor and was rising slowly, her balance regathering. Effie was charging, but still meters away.
For now, it was Sunny and the monsters. That was all.
Fortunately, Sunny had one trick left.
The greatsword was monstrous—unstoppable, yes. But not invincible.
Despite the devil's strength and uncanny skill, physics still applied. The blade's size made it difficult to wield in tight quarters. That was the key. Sunny's gambit had always been to stay close—so close the blade's reach worked against its master.
As the Black Knight twisted to deliver a sweeping horizontal arc meant to cleave through Nephis, Sunny broke into a dead sprint. He activated the enchantment of [Nevermore's Embrace], shadows coiling around him like a storm.
Then he leapt—vaulting up the back of one of the charging insectoids.
He didn't aim for the armor itself. That would be a fool's gamble.
Instead, as he sprang past the knight's pauldron, Sunny drove one of his swords into the narrow slit of the shoulder joint—a weak point, exposed in motion.
The blade sank deep with a metallic crunch.
Sunny didn't stay to admire his handiwork.
He ran. Hard.
Behind him, the clash of steel and monsters rose to a crescendo once more.
And the battle raged on.
The devil turned—abandoning the Stone Saint with the blind confidence of a brute who had never needed to finish what he started.
His crimson gaze found Nephis again.
She was light incarnate in the gloom of the cathedral. A pale silhouette, backlit by fire, hair a silver blaze, the embers of her soul spilling behind her like a comet's tail. He lunged after her, driven by singular purpose.
To extinguish her flame.
Changing Star did not stand her ground.
She ran.
Boots slapping the marble, her cloak trailing behind her in tatters of light, Nephis turned her back to the Black Knight and sprinted deeper into the cathedral. Through shattered pews and silent archways, past broken columns and empty shrines, she fled toward the heart of the ancient temple.
And the devil followed.
Each step he took cracked the stone beneath him. Each breath was a furnace. The monstrous blade he carried sheared through ruined benches and flung debris aside like straw. His pursuit was merciless, inevitable, and fast—so fast. Faster than a monster that size should ever move.
But Nephis didn't falter.
Her path led her beneath the towering statue of the Sun Goddess, the stone colossus that loomed above the central hall. The figure's face was pristine , its expression never touched by the ravages of time—but even blind, it gazed down upon her with silent judgment.
Nephis skidded to a stop beneath its outstretched hands.
Light pooled around her.
It wasn't real sunlight—it was her flames , the glow of her incandescent soul blazing against the darkness. Her skin shimmered like silver glass, veins of pale fire dancing beneath it.
The Black Knight reached her.
His sword fell.
She didn't block.
Instead, she ducked low, the edge of the black blade missing her by less than an inch. The power of it tore a trench through the marble floor, a ragged scar that erupted into shards and smoke. She exploded upward in a burst of silver light, twisting her body mid-air, using the recoil of her roll to propel herself behind the statue's pedestal.
The Black Knight didn't slow. He cleaved the sun goddess's shattered altar in two.
The temple shook.
He stepped forward again, raising his sword—
And was tackled by nearly half a ton of scaled, clawed insectoid fury.
One of the twin gorillas slammed into him from the side, crashing the two of them through the remains of the altar. The second monster arrived a heartbeat later, leaping from a column and colliding with the knight's back, its claws scraping against the devil's armor with shrieking force.
Sunny saw it all from afar, heart pounding, the Honorbound in both hands.
But his eyes weren't on the devil anymore.
They were on her.
The Stone Saint was moving again.
She didn't sprint. She didn't lunge. She *advanced*—shoulders squared, shield raised, gait measured and lethal. Her ruby eyes didn't leave the knight even for a moment.
Nephis had done her part. She had baited the monster into overcommitting.
Now it was the Saint's turn to finish the duel.
Even with two gorillas pinning him down, the knight fought like a thing unchained. He slammed an armored elbow backward, shattering one of the insectoid's mandibles. He spun in place, flinging the other aside like a doll, and began to rise again—
Just in time to meet her.
The Stone Saint struck like a guillotine.
Her sword came down not with brute force, but the full weight of her form and technique. The tip of her blade met the edge of the devil's pauldron, and for the first time in the entire battle… something gave.
A crack spiderwebbed through the black steel.
The knight reeled, stepping back. He raised his sword to retaliate—but she was already past it. She slipped under his guard, struck twice into the same weak point, and retreated with inhuman grace.
The crack widened.
He turned on her with a roar, his blade a blur.
She moved.
Her shield caught the blow not with resistance, but redirection—sliding it away, stepping to the side, letting his own power unbalance him again.
And then her sword stabbed forward—into the joint behind his knee, where the plates did not quite align.
This time, the scream was not silent.
A hollow, metallic wail echoed through the cathedral, more vibration than sound, a dissonant groan that set teeth on edge.
The knight staggered, and the gorillas pounced again.
Nephis, beneath the ruined statue, gathered her strength. Her flames surged anew, brighter than before.
From the shadows, Sunny grinned.
They had him.
Now came the killing blow.
'*'
Pain pulsed through Sunny's body like a war drum. His skin blistered, joints cracked, muscles tore themselves apart with every breathless stride. Two of his four shadows were bound into the [Nevermore's Embrace], the armor now humming with raw force—too much force for a human frame. It was tearing him apart from the inside, but he didn't stop. He couldn't.
Not yet.
Behind him, the Stone Saint battled without complaint, now supported by only two shadows instead of four. It made a difference. But she'd survive. She *had* to.
Sunny's breath came in ragged bursts as he barreled toward a broken section of the temple—toward a single, towering column of ancient stone that loomed beside the central hall.
Unlike the others, this pillar was wounded.
It stood crooked, veined with hairline fractures, its base marred by age and violence. An old injury that had never healed. And Sunny knew it well. He had memorized the cathedral's every scar and fault like a thief memorizing the creaks in the floorboards of a rich man's house. That knowledge had birthed Plan C.
It hadn't just been about baiting the Black Knight toward Nephis.
It had always been about *this*.
He collided with the base of the pillar shoulder-first, one sword discarded to free both hands. The [Nevermore's Embrace] flared with corrupted power, shadows howling against the stone. His gauntleted fingers found purchase in a cracked seam, and then he pushed—heaved with all the fury his broken body could summon.
Stone groaned like a dying god.
A net of fractures spread across the ancient column like a spider's web of doom. One second. Two. The cracks bloomed wide. Chunks of marble sheared off, raining down like white meteors. The pressure from Sunny's blow exploded outward, and the entire column trembled.
And then it moved.
The first shift was subtle. Almost gentle. Like a sigh from something colossal.
But that illusion was shattered in an instant.
The pillar tore free of its wounded base with a thunderous *crack*, and the sound echoed through the temple like a war cry from the ruins themselves. It began to fall.
Not slowly. Not gracefully.
Like judgment.
In the vast hall, mid-swing, the Black Knight faltered.
A single breath. A slight pause.
The sound reached him—splintering stone and rumbling doom. He turned his helmeted head toward it, toward the falling shadow rushing down from the heights above.
…A moment too late.
Nephis, silver fire trailing behind her, darted away in a blur of light.
The Stone Saint disengaged with mechanical precision, her shield raised reflexively to guard against the storm of debris she already knew would follow.
And then the pillar fell.
The ancient column came down like the hammer of a god, the weight of countless tons collapsing in a heartbeat. Marble shattered upon impact. Dust exploded outward. Shards of stone whirled through the air like a storm of razors. And beneath it all, buried in the cataclysm…
The Black Knight was crushed.
The ground trembled.
A silence followed—a deep, reverent silence, as though even the broken temple dared not breathe.
Sunny stood motionless, chest heaving, one arm hanging uselessly at his side. Blood dripped from the edges of the [Nevermore's Embrace], evaporating in the heat. His shadow flickered at his feet, dim but triumphant.
He let out a rasping breath.
"…That'll slow him down."
'*'
The dust had not yet settled when Sunny's sharp eyes caught it—an impossible sight rising from the heart of the devastation.
The pillar… it wasn't resting on shattered stone or cracked marble. It was *floating*, suspended above the floor by sheer force and defiance. A massive, ruined mass of carved marble teetered on the shoulder of the steel devil, held aloft not by magic, but by monstrous strength alone. The Black Knight stood beneath it, one knee half-bent, his immense frame bowed under the crushing weight—like Atlas condemned to hold up the sky.
But the cost of that defiance was evident.
The polished surface of his once-impervious breastplate had fractured, deep fissures running through the steel like veins of ruin. The shoulder that had taken the brunt of the blow was obliterated—its pauldron torn away, the limb beneath bent at a grotesque angle, twitching with unnatural spasms. Crimson light bled from the broken armor in sickly pulses, leaking out through the hairline cracks of his helm like blood from a wound.
And inside that ruined armor, there was no flesh. No bone.
Only living darkness—writhing, unknowable, and vast.
The Black Knight still stood.
But he did not look invincible anymore.
Sunny exhaled, his lungs burning, then barked a command into the din:
"*Now!*"
The twin gorillas surged forward like cannonballs, slamming into the base of the pillar with earth-shaking force. Their hulking, scaled forms pressed down on the ancient stone, pinning the Black Knight in place, anchoring him beneath the pillar's crushing weight.
And then, from above, Sunless dropped like a shadow, twin blades gleaming with obsidian menace.
He landed lightly beside the others, [the Honor Bound] already drawn, their hungry edges whispering for blood. On his left, Nephis walked through the dust cloud like an avenging flame, incandescent light licking across her armor. On his right, the Stone Saint advanced with measured steps, her shield raised, the tip of her gleaming sword low and steady.
The three of them closed in.
A final assault.
The devil roared—not with sound, but with pressure, a psychic scream of rage and hatred that clawed at the inside of their skulls. With a violent heave, he shifted his legs, tried to rise. The greatsword, impossibly long and wide, lifted from the dust.
He swung.
The blade carved through the air like a guillotine. Nephis met it with a parry, her sword bursting with white light. Sparks exploded as the weapons met—she twisted her body at the last second, narrowly escaping a fatal blow, and retaliated with a series of blistering slashes that scorched across the Knight's damaged armor.
Sunny darted in from the side, low and quick as a serpent. One blade slashed across the devil's thigh joint, the other raked along the wrist of his ruined arm, seeking weak points in the plate. Every movement was coordinated, deliberate—death by a thousand cuts.
But it was the Saint who stole the tempo of the battle.
She advanced without hesitation, unshaken by the monstrous aura pressing down around the Black Knight like a suffocating cloak. Her shield intercepted his next strike with a clang that rang through the temple like a bell tolling doom. Sliding in close, she swept her blade upward in a clean, perfect arc—a strike that bypassed strength entirely in favor of surgical precision.
The Black Knight staggered.
He retaliated with the full might of his remaining arm, raising the greatsword high above his head in a desperate, vengeful arc. The blade came down like a falling star, aimed not at Saint's head, but to cleave her straight in two.
And she caught it.
The Saint planted her feet, raised her shield—and *caught* the colossal blade against its reinforced rim. The impact sent a shockwave through the chamber, dislodging dust from the rafters.
Time slowed.
With a final step forward, the Stone Saint twisted her sword in her grasp and, with a movement so clean it was almost lazy, brought it crashing down on the dark blade.
Her sword met the greatsword of the Black Knight—
—and *shattered it*.
Not in halves. Not in pieces.
As the shards of the shattered greatsword clattered across the ancient stone floor like hail, the Stone Saint dropped to one knee in silence, her blade still humming with residual force. A low tremor ran through the devil's broken form, subtle at first—then stronger. The twisted, mangled shell of the Black Knight convulsed once, and from the deep hollows of the ruined cathedral, the darkness itself stirred.
It boiled. It *lunged*.
Shadow surged forward in a tide of unnatural hunger, a wave of ink-black malice rising like a tsunami from every crack and crevice of the ruined temple.
But not a single tendril reached him.
The seething tide met the brilliance of Nephis's radiance—and was *annihilated*. Changing Star stood behind the Saint like a celestial bulwark, her luminous white armor etched with runes that shimmered like frost in moonlight. The light did not burn. It *unmade*. The shadows recoiled and burned to nothing in its presence.
And then… the devil froze.
There was something strange in the stillness of the Black Knight—his gauntlets dangling at his sides, head bowed, spine twisted under the fallen pillar. He resembled not a warrior, but a broken marionette. His armor—once immaculate and impervious—was rusting before their eyes. The proud black sheen dulled to a sickly brown. The steel grew brittle, softening like dead bark left to rot in the sun.
With a sound like ancient metal grinding on bone, the devil raised his head.
Slowly. Laboriously.
He turned it—not toward them, but toward the hollow gaze of the nameless goddess. Her weathered statue towered silently above the ruined hall, her face serene and unknowable, as if watching all of this with judgment beyond mortal comprehension.
The light in the Black Knight's eyes flickered. Faded.
And then—
It *ignited*.
A furious red blaze erupted behind the cracks in his shattered helm, like hellfire pouring through broken glass. A roar that wasn't sound, but a *presence*, surged through the temple. The rusted armor split and came apart, as if peeled from within by invisible hands. What rose in its place was *worse*.
The darkness was no longer contained.
It poured upward in coils of writhing shadow, vast and impossible. Pieces of the sundered armor floated in the swirling mass, giving the specter a vaguely humanoid form. But there was no doubt—it was not a man. Not a warrior.
It was a *curse given form*.
A ghostly colossus, made of shadows and rusted steel, loomed above the kneeling Saint. Its body towered, stretching toward the vaulted ceiling like a nightmare born from the cathedral itself. Twin infernos blazed where eyes should be, and a third flame—a gaping, mouth-shaped smear of fire—cracked open beneath them.
And then, the beast *screamed*.
The roar shattered what was left of the silence. Columns trembled. Dust cascaded like rain from the cracked stone dome. Sunny flinched, a jolt of primal terror slamming through him like ice water. For the briefest moment, his legs wanted to run.
But he forced himself to look.
Nephis stood behind the Stone Saint, her armor dimming, the radiance receding like breath held too long. She hesitated—only for a second. Their eyes met.
No words passed between them.
She nodded once and slowly began to retreat, step by step, never turning her back to the monster that had once worn a knight's shell.
What came next was not for mortals to endure.
The creature of darkness struck.
It surged downward with cataclysmic force, its massive claws sweeping through the air like scythes. They closed around the Stone Saint's neck and lifted her off the ground with contemptuous ease. Her feet left the marble floor, stone dust falling from her body like ash. The twisted fingers of shadow tightened.
The Saint's armor groaned.
Cracks spiderwebbed across her chest and shoulders. Chunks of broken stone rained down, a silent scream of strain echoing through the stillness.
But the Saint… did not flinch.
Her expression remained eerily placid, carved into her face like marble: no fear, no pain.
Only the faintest flicker of emotion sparked in her eyes—deep red gems staring into the creature's soulless blaze.
Not fear.
Not desperation.
*Disdain*.
She let go of her shield.
With both hands, she reached up and seized the creature's arms—its makeshift vambraces of rusted metal and rotting steel. Fingers closed like vices. And then, with a sickening crack, she *shattered them*.
The beast shrieked in agony, reeling back. In the same instant, the Saint twisted in midair, used the force of the recoil to drop to the ground with inhuman grace. The second her feet touched stone, she moved—blurring beneath the towering devil.
And struck.
Her ruby eyes flashed. She surged forward with a single, flawless step—and drove her gauntleted fist into the creature's chest.
It sank *deep*.
Stone cracked. Shadow shrieked. Her arm pierced the broken chestplate and disappeared into the seething black, striking not flesh, but something darker—deeper.
A soul.
An instant later, the fire in the devil's eyes detonated. Blinding, furious red light flooded the cathedral—
—then vanished.
The colossus of darkness let out one final, gurgling howl… and *dissolved*. Its form unraveled like smoke in the wind. The shadow dispersed. The rusted armor collapsed, empty, into a pile of useless scrap.
The devil was dead.
Silence returned.
Sunny threw back his head and laughed—a raw, vengeful sound echoing from the broken dome above.
"*Die!*" he shouted. "*Die, you bastard! Die and go to hell—forever!*"
God, it felt good.
In the silence that followed, the voice of the Spell whispered gently into his ear:
[You have slain a Fallen Devil, Forsaken Knight.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
Sunny grinned. His voice was low, almost playful:
"Anything else? A Memory? An… Echo, maybe?"
But then, something *changed*.
He fell silent.
A chill ran down his spine, chasing away all satisfaction. His smile faded.
Because the Stone Saint still stood frozen—her hand raised mid-strike, embedded in the space where the devil's core had once been.
And in her grasp…
Sunny blinked.
"…What the hell *is* that thing?"
'*'
Grasped tightly in the Stone Saint's gauntlet was an object unlike anything Sunny had ever seen—a gem strange, hauntingly beautiful, and ominous in the most primal sense of the word.
It was utterly black.
Not merely dark, but *consumed* by darkness, as though it had been hewn from the heart of some bottomless void. The surface was flawlessly smooth and glossy, yet gave off no glint or gleam—only hunger. It devoured light. Every ray that touched it simply vanished, drawn inward and swallowed whole. In its presence, the vast cathedral seemed to dim further, the shadows thickening until the world felt submerged in ink.
And within that perfect darkness… something burned.
Crimson flames churned slowly at the core of the gem, their glow subdued but malevolent, like embers banked in ancient coals. The light pulsed in a slow, disturbing rhythm—too slow, too heavy—as if the gem were *breathing*. And in that light, everything took on a grisly hue. The Stone Saint stood drenched in it, her alabaster armor stained red. The blood-hued glow made the gem look like a freshly torn heart, still beating in her palm.
It was… beautiful, in the way a deadly thing is beautiful. Like a rose made of thorns. Like a funeral dirge sung in a flawless voice.
Sunny stared, an instinctive chill crawling down his spine.
*'What in all hells is this thing?'*
It resembled a soul shard, perhaps—but it wasn't. He'd seen countless shards before. None had ever looked like this. None had been *black*. None had pulsed with such a concentrated, sinister glow. It didn't feel fractured, either. Not a piece of something broken.
It felt *whole*.
*'A soul core? No… that's not it. Not quite.'*
His gaze sharpened, narrowing on the crimson flames burning at the gem's center. One… two… three… four. Four flames. Four cores.
Realization dawned like a blade pressed to his throat.
*'That's not a shard. That's… the Black Knight's soul.'*
Or at least, some crystallized essence of it. But how had it taken physical form? He had never heard of such a thing happening. It defied every rule he understood.
And if that mystery wasn't enough… how had it come to be in the Stone Saint's hand?
Had she done this?
And if so—*why*?
Sunny took a step forward, barely breathing. He and Nephis stood frozen in place, stunned, wordless, transfixed by the motionless figure of the Shadow. Then, the Stone Saint *moved*.
She lifted the black gem slowly, deliberately, bringing it close to her face. Her eerie, inhuman features betrayed no emotion—but her eyes…
In her ruby eyes, something flickered. A trace of dark, arcane sentiment. Not triumph. Not pride.
Something older. More primal. Something that sent another chill through Sunny's bones.
And then…
She opened her mouth.
Sunny's breath caught.
The Saint leaned in, bit into the glistening crystal—and *swallowed it* whole.
Like a predator consuming the heart of its prey.
The red glow died at once, snuffed out. The bloody light vanished. The cathedral returned to its natural gloom.
And a heartbeat later, the Stone Saint fell into the shadows and disappeared without a sound.
Sunny blinked, dumbfounded.
"…What?"
He stared at the empty space she had just occupied, disbelief written across his face. His mind reeled, trying to catch up with what he had just witnessed.
The soul of a Fallen Devil, devoured without hesitation.
The last time something like this had happened was when he had fed her a Memory—a gift that had catalyzed her evolution into a demon. But this… this was different. There had been no whisper from the Spell, no triumphant declaration. No confirmation at all.
And that scared him.
A current of mingled excitement and unease surged through him.
Beside him, Nephis remained silent for a long moment, her brows drawn together. Then, finally, she turned and looked at him, confusion etched plainly on her pale face.
"…What just happened?" she asked, her voice low. "What did she do?"
Sunny hesitated. For once, he didn't bother to lie.
He shrugged, almost sheepishly.
"I don't really know. But something like this happened once before… when she evolved. She should be back soon. Stronger, too."
With a sigh, he turned and walked over to the remains of the Black Knight. All that was left now was a scattered pile of rusted steel, crumbling like ancient relics. He nudged the remnants with the toe of his boot, lips curling downward.
"…No shards. It's empty."
Nephis remained still. Then, after a few heartbeats, she frowned slightly.
Her voice was quiet. Almost thoughtful.
"…Your Echo is very peculiar."
Sunny chuckled dryly, still staring at the place where his Shadow had vanished.
"You don't know the half of it."