Somewhere deeper in the city, where the screams had thinned into distant echoes, a boy stood alone facing an alley drowned in shadow.
The flames from nearby streets barely reached here, casting only faint orange glows that twisted against the brick walls.
He smiled faintly, as if the chaos behind him was none of his concern. His chocolate-brown eyes glimmered with amusement, a sharp contrast to the carnage choking the city. Black hair framed his face, short yet untamed, almost brushing the edges of his ears and neck.
From the darkness ahead, something stirred.
A tendon, slick and black as tar, slithered into view. It swayed lazily in the air, a serpent testing the air, as though it were measuring him, sniffing his confidence, tasting his heartbeat. The sound it made was a faint squelch… stretch… squelch, wet and deliberate.
The young man was Kevastine, though most called him simply Kevas. His smile sharpened, his tone almost mocking as he muttered toward the shifting appendage.
"Oh… finally. You come out of hiding. I've been waiting here for almost two hours—"
But the words never finished.
Something colder than ice stabbed through him from behind.
A tendon, thinner, and faster had risen silently from his own shadow, stretching upward like a black spear. It drove through his back with a sickening schlkkk! before jutting from his chest, the tip glistening wet under the faint light.
His smile faltered. His breath caught, a wet gasp rattling in his throat. For the first time, the alley seemed to breathe with him, as if the shadows themselves had been waiting for this exact moment.
He froze, eyes widening as though caught, yet instead of fear, a smile curled along his lips. His body unraveled in the air, dissolving into a swirl of drifting wind.
A soft murmur drifted down from above. Kevas now stood balanced along the jagged roofline of the alley, his voice low, and mocking.
"Oh… it seems that wasn't my real body." His eyes narrowed, faint amusement flickering like embers. "You're only a fifth-grade evil spirit. So weak for me."
The shadows below rippled. Another tendon shot upward, black and jagged, lancing through his torso. But once more, his form dissolved, this time into smoke and dust that shredded into the night air. Nothing real, nothing solid.
The alley seemed to groan in response.
Then the spirit's true form emerged.
It filled the space like a tumor swelling in darkness, its body unfurling until it nearly scraped both walls. A Malged spirit, monstrous, and massive, almost blotting out the faint firelight bleeding from the streets.
Its body released a sickly golden energy, radiating in pulses that made the air warp like heat waves. But its shape was wrong: Misshapen, distorted, and grotesque.
What might have once been limbs twisted into grotesque knots, bending at impossible angles. The flesh shifted like melting wax, unable to decide where the head began or the stomach ended. Faces or fragments of faces seemed to push against the surface of its skin, only to sink back into the formless mass.
Its presence choked the alley, pressing in with the weight of a nightmare. The sound it made was not a roar nor a cry, just a low, continuous gurgling, like the death rattle of something that should not breathe at all.
Behind the hulking creature, cloaked in its own darkness, Kevastine's real body stood waiting. His lips barely moved, his words slipping out in a whisper so faint it was almost part of the night.
"That wasn't my real body either."
A grin unfurled across his face, sharp and deliberate, as though he'd been savoring this moment. His chocolate eyes glimmered with cruel amusement as he tilted his chin down, voice dropping lower.
"Shadow Dweller."
The alley split open.
From the trembling stone, a head erupted; colossal, and grotesque, its skin a shifting mass of black, purple, and sickly white. The thing was malformed, a nightmare given shape, its bulk stretching beyond the width of the alley. Its mouth unhinged, round and cavernous, lined with a thousand jagged teeth that jutted like rib bones torn from a giant's corpse.
The Malged evil spirit had no time to scream.
The head lunged upward, swallowing it whole in one violent gulp. The golden energy of the spirit flared, thrashing wildly against the creature's maw, but it was no use. The sound it made was a deafening GRROOHHHHH – like a beast imprisoned deep underground, roaring through stone.
And then, as quickly as it had come, the monstrous head sank back into the earth. Shadows folded over the ground, sealing the alley in silence. Nothing remained of the Malged but a faint smear of gold dissolving into the night.
Kevas stood unmoved, his grin still cutting across his face. He muttered, almost playfully:
"While you move in the shadows…" His eyes glowed faintly as he lifted his blade. "…I am a master of shadows."
Kevastine walked out of the alley at an unhurried pace, his boots barely whispering against the blood-slick stone. The night air was thick, carrying the smoke of fires and the faint iron tang of gore, but his steps remained calm as if none of it reached him.
As he neared the open street, a voice rang out.
"Kevas!"
Someone was running toward him from the right, their voice urgent, relief mixed with strain. He didn't move, he simply stood there, waiting, eyes half-lidded, listening to the footsteps close the distance.
Then another voice slid in from behind.
"Huh? Using tricks to kill your opponent?" The words carried a lazy sneer. "As tricky as a devil. And still feeding Shadow Dweller with evil spirits."
Kevastine's eyes narrowed as he turned slowly, a groan of irritation slipping from his throat.
Behind him stood a figure with long pink hair, strands cascading loosely over his shoulders and framing a face far too relaxed for the chaos around them. His stance was casual, one hand resting at his side, the other forming a hole around his left eye, his gaze scanning the sky, as though looking for something only he could see. But the air around him thrummed with latent power.
This was his assigned partner – Reen Claw. An onai, born of the fourth generation, a master of molten earth. A third-grade Exo-hunter, year three. His reputation alone was enough to command respect, though his mocking tone suggested he reserved none for Kevas.
Kevastine's lips curled, his voice sharp, and dismissive.
"And do you have a problem with that?"
The shadows at his feet flickered as though in response to his irritation, stretching unnaturally long across the cobblestones.
Reen didn't answer. He pretended he hadn't heard a word, his expression flat, his gaze lifting higher to the sky above. Smoke rolled across the clouds in restless waves, blotting out the stars. The faint orange glow of burning streets painted his hair in streaks of firelight, but he stood unmoved, ignoring Kevastine the way he always did.
Kevastine's grin thinned, but he didn't press. The silence between them was its own game, one they'd played before.
He was no ordinary student. Kevastine was a kavai, bloodline-twisted with both First and Sixth generation abilities. He commanded the chill of ice and the darkness of shadow, a rare duality. Officially, he was only a fourth-grade, second-year Exo-hunter student. But what made him more dangerous and feared was the thing bound to him.
He tames a prime-grade evil spirit.
That was not supposed to be possible. Not for a student, or anyone who valued sanity.
A new voice cut through the smoldering quiet.
"Kevastine!"
The boy, Kevin who had been calling him finally reached the street, stumbling to a halt. His breath came ragged, chest heaving as though the smoke itself was suffocating him. Sweat streaked his face, mixing with soot. He opened his mouth, words tumbling out in fragments, each syllable gasped out between sharp inhales.
He bent forward, hands on his knees, breath ragged as if every word scraped his throat raw. His voice cracked as he forced the news out.
"The other side of the city… it's ruined. They say the ground won't stop splitting, land is cracking wider open, magma flooding through the streets." His eyes darted between them, pupils wide, face pale. "And there are… things, clawing out of those cracks."
Kevastine didn't move, his expression unreadable. Reen, meanwhile, raised his head lazily, rolling his shoulders back. His hands slid deeper into his pockets, muscles visibly loosening, as if the boy's panic barely reached him.
"We already know that part, Kevin." Reen said, his tone low, and dismissive, muttered more like an afterthought than an answer. "Tell us something else."
The younger student's throat bobbed. He hadn't even caught his breath, but the words kept spilling out, desperate and trembling.
"They believe… maybe someone's opened the below nether. That's why the creatures are crawling out. And it's not just them." He swallowed, his voice breaking into a rasp. "Something's happening to the Malgeds too. They're not hiding anymore, they've started crawling the streets… in the open."
The silence that followed pressed heavily. The words seemed to hang in the air like smoke, thicker, darker, and impossible to clear away.
Behind them, the faint crack… crack… crack of stone splitting echoed from somewhere in the distance, as if to confirm Kevin's story.
To Reen, everything Kevin said was just noise. His pink hair caught the firelight as he turned, already walking away, uninterested in the panic. His boots crunched over shattered glass, his body language so casual it bordered on insulting.
Kevin's voice cracked louder, forcing him to stop.
"But… I was told to tell you someone from the academy needs you there. Immediately."
That made Kevastine's grin flicker. His head tilted, eyes narrowing.
"Who… and what for?"
Kevin's chest rose and fell, still unsteady. His gaze dropped to the stones at his feet as if saying it aloud might invite something worse.
"They say… something about a woman called Lady Elunara. And… releasing a spirit." His words trembled as they left him. "They need an evil spirit, your Shadow Dweller… to curse the container."
The air around Kevastine seemed to thicken, shadows rippling faintly at his feet like black smoke tugging at his legs. His voice was sharp, and incredulous:
"What? But I'm not on that level yet. I'm just a fourth grade Exo-hunter, and that needs a special grade."
Kevin swallowed hard, shaking his head. "Well… I guess you'll have to tell them yourself. But—" His voice cracked again. "Are you forgetting the story? Shadow Dweller's story."
A silence followed, the kind of silence that made even the fire and screams outside feel distant. The name hung between them like a curse, pressing against the walls of the ruined street.
Reen lingered a step behind Kevastine, his gaze turned off to the side as if none of this mattered. Yet, when Kevin spoke, Reen's eyes flicked toward his partner, catching the subtle shift in his expression.
For just an instant, a darkness passed over Kevastine's face, something sharp and unsettling, like a shadow too quick to grasp. Then, just as swiftly, he smoothed it away, the grin sliding back into place.
"Fine, then." His voice was clipped, and edged. "Where is my ride?"
Kevin straightened, his breathing steadier now, though his face was still pale. "I'm afraid… you don't have a ride. Not with the roads like this." His tone was firmer and less trembling.
Kevastine's jaw tightened. "What? They expect me to fly there?" His words dripped with frustration, echoing off the ruined walls around them.
Kevin's answer came bluntly, almost naïve in its logic. "You're a master of shadows. You can vanish from one shadow to another."
Kevastine's eyes flared, and the shadows at his feet shivered like restless smoke. He snapped, his voice sharp enough to cut.
"That is not how my shadow mastery works, idiot."
Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel, boots crunching over broken glass and debris as he strode away. The darkness seemed to lean with him, stretching unnaturally as if eager to follow.
"Instructor Ms. Reyna has called for every student to gather at the city square!" Kevin shouted after him, his voice straining to rise above the distant chaos. "She said she'll teleport you once you're there, you'll meet her at the square!"
His words carried into the night as he and Reen peeled off down a side street, their silhouettes swallowed quickly by smoke and fire. They had taken it upon themselves to warn the others scattered across the ruins.
Reen glanced back once more, just over his shoulder.
Kevastine trailed behind in silence, his head bowed, his shoulders heavy. The grin he wore so often was gone, his eyes hidden beneath his fringe.
The mention of Shadow Dweller's story had stirred something deep, something he would rather have left buried. A memory or a truth that clawed at the edges of his mind.
The wind pressed through the ruined streets, carrying the distant sounds of screams and bone snapping under monstrous weight.
The city square… Was it really the safe place? Or was it only the center of the slaughter?