The first shadow-creature hit like a hurricane of claws and teeth. Rein barely got his sword up in time, steel screeching as something impossibly cold slammed into it. The force of the impact drove him back three steps, boots scraping against fractured stone.
It wasn't just fast, it was wrong. Its movements were fluid and broken at the same time, like watching a human body move without bones. Where light from the torches touched it, the edges of its form wavered, as though reality itself couldn't decide what it was looking at.
[Error: No combat profile available.]
[Warning: System tracking unstable.]
The System's monotone was clipped, almost glitching. Rein had never heard it sound like that before, and that alone was enough to make his blood run cold.
A second one darted past him toward Sylvara. She twisted away on instinct, one dagger coming up to slash its side, but her blade passed straight through like she'd cut smoke. It solidified a heartbeat later, lashing out and catching her shoulder. She grunted in pain, spinning away before it could bite down.
Lyra's staff flared, arcs of pale light lancing into another creature. The magic struck true, but the thing absorbed it, its black surface rippling with stolen energy before it sprang toward her with terrifying speed.
Rein was already moving, his body still half-amped from the Protocol. He slammed his sword into the creature's flank, feeling actual resistance this time. The blade carved deep, and the thing shrieked, a noise that made the air vibrate like a plucked string.
"Focus!" he barked. "These things shift, wait for them to go solid before you strike!"
Sylvara spat blood and gave him a curt nod, her eyes locked on the one circling her. Lyra gritted her teeth and shifted her stance, the light in her staff pulsing in tight, controlled bursts rather than wide arcs.
The ground under them rumbled again. From the fissures, more shadows began to rise, dozens, maybe hundreds, forming a black tide that stretched toward the horizon. The east gate was a fading memory now; the battle had shifted into something else entirely.
[Advisory: Reinforcement probability — 0%. Survival probability — 18%.]
"Love the optimism," Rein muttered. He lunged forward, sidestepping a slash from the first shadow, and drove his sword through its chest. The creature convulsed, its form breaking apart into streams of dark mist that fled back into the cracks.
One down.
The victory was short-lived. The mist didn't disperse, it slithered toward another shadow, merging with it, and the new creature swelled in size, its movements sharper, faster.
"They're… combining?" Lyra's voice was tinged with disbelief.
"Apparently," Rein said, teeth gritted. "Don't let them."
The fight devolved into chaos. Shadows darted between them, attacking from angles no normal creature could manage. Rein's body screamed from the Protocol's strain, every movement chewing through what little stamina he had left. Sylvara fought like a whirlwind, her daggers flashing in surgical precision, but even she was starting to slow. Lyra's magic was still landing, but the creatures adapted, feinting away from her light and attacking when she was forced to recharge.
And then the largest fissure split wide.
From it, a figure emerged, taller than the rest, its form sharper, more defined. It wore something like armor, though it looked grown rather than forged, bone-white plates etched with symbols that hurt to look at. In its hand was a blade made of the same darkness as the others, but denser, more absolute.
[Entity Detected: ???]
[Designation: "Herald"]
[Threat Level: Unknown | Combat Recommendation: Avoidance]
The "Herald" stepped forward, each stride making the air feel heavier. The lesser shadows seemed to recoil from it, circling at a respectful distance. Its gaze, two pits of pale fire, locked on Rein.
And it spoke.
"Chosen."
The word was deep, guttural, like stone grinding against stone. It wasn't loud, but it thrummed in Rein's bones.
"You are not of this cycle. You should not be here."
Rein swallowed hard, tightening his grip on the sword. "Yeah? You're not exactly on my guest list either."
The Herald tilted its head, as if studying him. Then it raised its blade. "Then we remove the anomaly."
It moved faster than anything that size should. Rein barely dodged the first swing, the black sword slicing through a nearby wall like paper. The shockwave from the cut blasted dust and splinters into the air.
Sylvara darted in to flank it, her daggers aiming for the seams in its armor, but the Herald simply backhanded her, the blow sending her skidding across the cobblestones. She coughed hard, blood splattering the ground.
Lyra's magic flared again, a concentrated spear of light slamming into the Herald's side. This time, it reacted, the armor there cracking, a hiss of dark vapor escaping. But it turned toward her immediately, the pale fire in its eyes flaring.
Rein didn't think—he moved. He intercepted the Herald's next swing, steel meeting darkness with a deafening clang. The impact numbed his arms, but he held.
For a second, their faces were inches apart, his breath ragged, its eyes like a void staring into him.
Then it spoke again.
"I see why it watches you."
Before Rein could ask what it meant, the Herald's free hand shot out, grabbing him by the throat. The darkness crawled from its fingers, cold as death, and the System's voice cut in, urgent, unsteady:
[Warning: Unknown corruption detected. System integrity at risk.]
Rein's vision blurred at the edges. He could feel the Protocol burning out, his muscles trembling from exhaustion.
And then, light.
Not from Lyra. Not from Sylvara. From above.
Something tore through the clouds, a column of blinding, golden radiance that slammed into the Herald with the force of a meteor. The shockwave blasted the lesser shadows into vapor, the fissures sealing in its wake. The Herald staggered back, armor cracked, the pale fire in its eyes dimming.
It looked at Rein one last time. "Not yet."
And then it dissolved into black mist, vanishing into the night.
Rein collapsed to one knee, gasping for air, his sword still in hand. Sylvara limped over, bruised and bleeding, while Lyra's eyes were fixed upward, at the fading trace of golden light.
"Rein…" she whispered. "I think… someone else just joined the game."
The last fragments of black mist curled away into nothing, leaving behind only the smell of ozone and the faint shimmer of golden motes still drifting down from the night sky. Rein's ears rang from the impact of whatever had struck, but the silence that followed was heavier than the battle itself.
He tried to stand, but his legs felt like they belonged to someone else, someone older, someone who'd just run three marathons through a storm. His chest still burned where the Herald's grip had seared into him, and under the pain, there was something else.
A residue.
Cold. Hungry.
[Integrity Warning: Foreign essence detected.]
[Attempting containment…]
The System's voice was thin, strained. Rein could feel it, like a faint buzz in the back of his skull, working overtime to keep whatever the Herald had left behind from spreading.
Sylvara crouched beside him, her face pale and jaw tight. "You're hurt worse than you're letting on."
"Nothing new there," he muttered, though the effort it took to sound casual nearly broke his voice.
Lyra hadn't moved from where she stood, her eyes fixed on the sky. The gold light was gone now, but its presence still clung to the air—clean, warm, yet somehow sharp, like sunlight reflected off a blade.
"That wasn't a spell I know," she said quietly. "It wasn't any magic I know."
Sylvara followed her gaze upward, frowning. "If it wanted to kill us, it could have. If it wanted to help…" She let the thought trail off, but the implication was clear. Whoever had intervened had done so for their own reasons, not out of mercy.
Rein pushed himself upright, his sword still in his hand though the fight was long over. His instincts were screaming—not in the way they had during the battle, but in the way they did when a game was being played and he didn't know the rules yet.
He didn't like that feeling.
"What do you think it meant?" Lyra asked suddenly.
Rein turned to her. "What?"
"When the Herald said, 'I see why it watches you.' What was it talking about?"
He didn't answer right away. In truth, he'd been replaying those words in his mind since they were spoken, like a splinter he couldn't pull out. There was only one "it" he could think of—the presence he'd felt in moments when the Protocol activated, the one the System never acknowledged but never denied either.
And now the Herald had seen it too.
"I don't know," he lied. "But I'm guessing we'll find out soon enough."
Sylvara straightened, scanning the ruined street around them. "We shouldn't stay here. If more of those things are out there, this place isn't safe."
Rein nodded, though he kept his eyes on the direction the golden light had come from. "We move. But we keep our eyes open. Whoever, or whatever, that was, they just put themselves on the board."
The three of them started toward the still-standing section of the east road, the distant glow of the city walls barely visible through the haze. Every step Rein took, he could feel the faint pulse of that foreign essence under his skin, like a clock ticking down to something inevitable.
Somewhere behind them, in the places the light hadn't touched, the shadows shifted again, just for a moment, before going still.