The rain in the 8th Realm fell in cold, unforgiving sheets. It hammered against the ancient cobblestones of the Grand Plaza, washing away the blood of a dozen fallen guards. Thunder, a deep, guttural growl, echoed off the towering spires of the capital city.
In the center of the storm, a lone figure stood.
He was cloaked in black, tattered fabric clinging to a lean, scarred frame. His left eye was a jagged, empty socket. His right, a pinpoint of chilling clarity, reflected the flashes of lightning.
His name was Kael. And he faced a Myth-Engraved.
Lord Valerius, draped in crimson armor, his body rippling with controlled arcane energy, sneered. "A primitive from the Abyss," he spat, his voice booming over the storm. "You truly think you can challenge me? A powerless creature from the dust of Dirtspire?"
Valerius radiated power. The air around him shimmered, crackled with raw force. He was a beacon of Ascendancy, a monument of cultivated might.
Kael said nothing. He just stood there. A rusted blade, chipped and ancient, clutched in his grip. It wasn't even a true weapon by their standards. More a shard of broken iron.
"Come then, worm," Valerius challenged, a flicker of lightning illuminating his triumphant grin. "Show me the legendary 'Void Pressure' of the 9th Realm."
Kael moved. Not with the blurring speed of an Aspectual, nor the graceful dance of an Arcanian. He simply walked forward. One deliberate step after another. Through the driving rain.
And then, something shifted.
It began subtly. A faint hum, barely perceptible beneath the thunder. The air around Kael began to vibrate. Not with the crackle of energy, but with a deep, unsettling resonance.
Valerius felt it first as a prickle on his skin. Then, a strange pressure in his chest. Like an invisible hand tightening around his heart.
His sneer faltered.
Kael kept walking. The hum intensified. The very ground seemed to tremble. The rain, instead of washing Kael clean, seemed to cling to his cloak, making his silhouette darker, more defined against the stormy sky.
The shadows. They began to elongate around Kael. Stretching out, reaching, distorting into grotesque forms that writhed and pulsed with an unseen malice. They weren't just shadows of the environment. They were shadows of Kael himself.
Valerius's eyes, once full of contempt, widened. He felt a cold dread seep into his bones. This wasn't Arcane. It wasn't Aspectual. It was something else. Something primal. Something terrifyingly wrong.
The ancient, iron lampposts lining the plaza began to hum. Their metal trembling, groaning under an unseen stress. The air around Kael grew heavy. Thick. Suffocating.
It wasn't magic. It was will. Raw. Lethal. Absolute.
Kael's right eye, the one still gleaming, burned with an unholy indifference. He didn't radiate power. He radiated negation. A promise of utter, inescapable finality.
Valerius, a Myth-Engraved Lord, a being who had felled mountains and shattered armies, felt his knees buckle. His immense power, his cultivated energy, coiled in his gut, but it wouldn't move. His breath hitched. His mind screamed.
Fear. It wasn't just his fear. It was a wave, emanating from Kael, twisting his own deepest terrors into a tangible, suffocating force. It was the Reaper's Echo. The ultimate weapon of a man who could not die.
The blade in Kael's hand, rusted and broken, seemed to vibrate with a hungry anticipation. It didn't need to be sharp. It didn't need to be clean. It just needed to connect.
Valerius collapsed onto one knee. His eyes wide, his face a mask of utter horror. He clutched at his throat, gasping, but the air wouldn't fill his lungs. He was drowning in his own fear.
This was no contest of power. This was a judgment.
Kael raised his rusted blade. It didn't glow. It didn't hum with energy. It simply caught the dull, grey light of the stormy sky, a silent, deadly promise.
"Burn," Kael rasped, his voice a low, gravelly whisper. "More than those bodies."
The blade descended. A whisper in the storm.
And the silence that followed was absolute.