.The only thing worse than having massacred the only family that had ever raised her was the profane silence that followed.
Lilith could no longer hear Priest Elara's breathing, nor that of the four Luminous Novices who had assisted him in the ritual. They all lay within the Sealing Chamber, bathed in the cold gleam of shattered Ether Crystals. The silence, once unthinkable, had become a veil of terror. Now, she could only hear the hoarse, satisfied chuckle echoing from the darkest corner of her mind.
She was kneeling on the damp marble, her hands trembling and stained with mystical blood. Before her, the bodies of the Priests lay torn apart by the Unbound Shadow Blade — a weapon forged of pure antimatter, now nothing more than a freezing pain seared into her forearm. The Black Mark, which Priest Elara had always called her "Corruption," pulsed visibly beneath the skin of her arm, like a stolen heart beating in revelry.
"Wasn't it fun, Sentinel?"
Lilith clenched her teeth so hard her jaw ached. The sound was new, powerful — and it came from within. No longer the faint hum Elara had taught her to ignore. It was a commanding voice, forged of malice and steel.
Her curse. You were cursed to contain the Shadow of Chaos. Elara always insisted on that. Be strong.
But the being within her was no shapeless shadow. It was a General of War — a parasite with a will of its own. And it had just killed five people in the name of freedom.
She pushed the thought into the abyss, but the echo of its satisfaction lingered — a feast of consumed power.
Lilith finally managed to free herself from the marble. The ground seemed to vibrate with the residual energy of the attack. She saw the destruction with dry, cold eyes — a horror her mind was already trying to block. The containment runes drawn by Elara were scorched, and the great Sealing Basin at the center of the chamber was cracked, its sacred water dripping away like dirty tears.
She remembered the exact moment. Priest Elara, his brow furrowed in concentration, murmuring the Chants of Light, forcing the power. The unbearable pain, the fever rising — and then the black thread bursting from her Mark, defying her will.
No… I don't want to hurt anyone! she had screamed inside her mind.
"But I do," Malus had replied, for the first time with absolute clarity, before the Shadow did its work.
Elara's death was proof: she was too weak to contain the creature and too strong to be contained. The guilt made her stagger, but Malus's voice kept her alert.
"You're soft. What will you do now? Cry? Or survive?"
Lilith moved instinctively toward one of the secret shelves Elara used for his studies. She ignored the weight of grief and focused on what was practical. Money — silver and gold coins — a dark cloak for disguise, and most importantly, a Transition Map.
This map, marked in red ink, revealed the secret route to the Arcane Academy — the refuge of the Luminaries, a beacon of mystical knowledge. Elara had always said that if anything happened, she should go there. The Academy was vast and anonymous; no one would know who she was.
The Arcane Academy. The last words Elara had managed to whisper — a desperate breath of hope. A place to hide. A place to learn to control the War General she had become.
"Arcana… a nest of arrogant insects. You'll be bored, child. Or better yet, you'll accidentally set me free in a library full of mages. What a delicious tragedy."
"I won't set you free," Lilith thought, her mental voice trembling but firm. "I'll master you."
"That's the best joke I've heard in centuries," Malus laughed — a sound that made Lilith's head throb.
The eighteen-year-old girl, burdened with the weight of an ancestral curse, took the Traveler's Cloak and wrapped herself in it. The escape had to happen now.
If the Order of Luminaries discovered that the Corruption had escaped and massacred five priests in their own sanctuary… they would hunt her until she was destroyed. She was living proof that her parents' last hope had failed. And the clock of her damnation had just begun to tick.
Lilith turned her back on the corpses and ran, never once looking back. The Contained Shadow was on the move.