A low, commanding voice cut through the silence.
"Hanzo of the Everfall… you're cornered."
The speaker stepped forward from the Lunar Sect's formation a woman draped in white, her face veiled beneath a layer of sacred silk. Holy symbols glowed faintly around her like over-enthusiastic fireflies.
Hanzo exhaled as if reading the last line of a very boring play. His hand pressed against his chest; dark blood seeped through his robes.
Only now, under that pious light, did everyone realize the thing they'd been ignoring: he'd been wounded the entire time.
"Stupid Holy Essence," he muttered, wincing. "Burns worse than betrayal. And the aftertaste? Terrible."
The woman raised her hand. Light swirled around her palm with all the decorum of a particularly smug lantern. "You have nowhere to run, Nightmare King. Surrender the Eternal Essence and meet your end with dignity."
Hanzo's lips twitched into a smirk. "Dignity? You people treat that like a free upgrade."
"If you ever truly sought forgiveness," the woman said, voice steady but with a tremor hiding underneath like a skipped heartbeat, "I would grant you a painless death."
Hanzo paused, then let out a laugh that started like a cough and finished like a confession. It sounded wrong in the nicest way. Even the devout adjusted their faces, uncertain if offense was due.
"I knew you'd say that… Lara."
The hall froze. The Lunar Sect's precise lines hiccupped. Someone's prayer beads slipped and clattered embarrassingly on marble.
A soft click slipped from beneath her veil the sound of a woman scolding fate. For a beat she simply breathed, then asked, very practically, "Don't use that name with me?" she said with venom in her tongue
Hanzo tilted his head, smile sharpening like someone polishing a joke. "Oh, come on. The Great Lara of the Lunar Sect doesn't want me to use her name?."
Lara bristled, voice rising with the righteousness of a religious pamphlet. "No matter if you expose my identity it'll just mean we have to kill everyone present here. And their bloods will be in your hands." she said coldly without an once of kindness in her voice. The other people backed off and the emperor.
He was pale as hell. They were practically drowning in the overwhelming Aura the Lunar sect people were showing. They knew if those people wanted they could very well wipe them out without blinking with all the rumors he's heard about them.
"Is that so Lara Scornfeld?" The man said mockingly
"YOU FUCKER SHUT UP!!" The emperor shouted as he plucked his ears with his fingers
"L.A.R.A."
The emperor cried tears and he knew, they're all dead now.
Even if her face was covered behind the veil he could tell she was pissed and he enjoyed every moment of it. After all, this woman took everything away from Hanzo.
"If you expect for forgiveness, I'll grant you a painless death instead You should know better than anyone what comes next. Hand over the Eternal Essence."
Hanzo's smile thinned. He looked down at the plant in his hand ridiculous and delicate, like a houseplant that accidentally inherited the world. Its tiny leaves glowed as if embarrassed to be noticed.
"All this destruction," he whispered, voice soft enough to make someone feel guilty for their haircut, "just for this tiny thing."
He coughed. Blood smeared his lip, and his knees threatened to narrate their own tragic subplot. The wound in his chest pulsed like an old clock on its last chime.
"Hanzo… please," Lara said, the compassion in her voice sounding suspiciously like an aftercare brochure. "Hand it over. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."
For a long moment he stared at her. His eyes were heavy with sorrow, with regret, and if you looked closely with the mild disappointment of someone whose favorite show got cancelled mid-season.
Then, as if in a tragic opt-out clause, he extended the plant.
Lara stepped forward, fingertips trembling. She could feel the faint warmth of the Essence between them, and for a foolish second thought, maybe this will be the boring, neat ending we all dreamed of at Sunday school.
But then-"Just kidding, L.A.R.A."
Her shoulders went rigid enough to make the nearest official check his posture. The tone was wrong in all the delicious ways: low, cruel, gleeful like the punchline to a plague-themed joke.
She looked up. That smile. The one that had ruined reputations and redecorated kingdoms.
"Y-you—"
"You see," Hanzo said, voice finding momentum like a train with purpose, "I knew all along. I Knew everything about you".... 'and yet I still didn't care'..... "and your precious sect"..... 'all i cared about was you…'" you've been dancing to my tune this entire time. Charming choreography, terrible music selection."
'And this is what i got in return huh Lara?' Hanzo thought to himself quietly.
He laughed a wild, triumphant sound that would have been magnificent if the building hadn't just collapsed around them. "And now," he said, lifting the plant like it was a rotten award, dark energy winding around him like theatrics on a budget, "you fools led me straight to the Eternal Essence."
Panic spread like a rumor. The Lunar Sect's formation dissolved into organized chaos, robes flapping like white flags that had signed their own surrender.
Even the emperor, who had been saving his breath for a dramatic faint, took two steps back and looked very committed to not being where the future was happening.
"W-What are you saying!?" Lara demanded.
Hanzo's grin widened, as if he'd just revealed the twist of the season. "This is your fault as much as mine."
The court did not feel reassured.
The emperor, pale and trembling, finally found his voice. "W-who… who is this man?" he stammered, gripping the armrest of his throne as if it could protect him.
The room fell into a tense hush. One of the Lunar Sect disciples, still catching her breath, stepped forward. Her voice quivered as she spoke:
"The Nightmare King… of the Everfall Syndicate."
The words echoed through the ruined court like a funeral bell. Every surviving noble froze, eyes wide with disbelief. Even the shadows seemed to pause.
Then
...
...
...
"Who?" the emperor blurted out, blinking.
Hanzo froze mid-pose, his hand still dramatically outstretched. Slowly, painfully, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Oh, for the love of-.." he muttered. "I told Maya to stop deleting my records."
He sighed, lowering his hand with the defeated grace of a man whose reputation just got assassinated harder than his enemies.
"Great. Years of work, and the first thing they remember is nothing."
"Hanzo, you're still dying either way so surrender now!" Lara said, her voice trembling through the veil.
He chuckled softly, blood dripping down his chin. "Yes," he admitted, smiling wide enough for the corners of his mouth to glisten red. "But if I'm going down…"
His smile turned feral. "I'm taking everyone with me HAHAHAHA."
The air shifted first a flicker, then a pulse. The temperature plummeted, and the torches lining the throne room began to sputter out one by one. Shadows rippled beneath Hanzo's boots, writhing like living things eager to be set free. The marble beneath him cracked, dark veins spreading outward as if the floor itself was bleeding.
Lara's eyes widened in horror. "No… no, he's activating it—!"
The Lunar Sect disciples immediately formed their circle, chanting defensive incantations as beams of white light flared around them. But even their holy essence dimmed under the crushing weight of Hanzo's essence.
"Stop him!" Lara shouted, her voice breaking through the rising hum of power.
The Lunar Sect raised their hands as one, summoning a barrier of radiant light that enclosed the hall in a blinding glow. Holy sigils flared across the floor. The court mages joined in desperation, their voices overlapping in divine chants.
But it was too late.
Hanzo laughed. Not a mortal sound, but the laughter of something far beyond human a sound of satisfaction, finality, and madness.
Hanzo's laughter echoed through the collapsing hall. "You should've killed me when you had the chance."
Then, the shadows surged.
The floor cracked open like glass, and the light began to dim overwhelmed by a vast wave of darkness that swallowed everything.
"Let there be death," Hanzo whispered.
A single heartbeat passed.
Then—boom.
The world exploded.
A blinding, consuming burst of dark light swallowed the royal court whole. The explosion ripped through stone, glass, and magic alike tearing half the castle apart in a storm of black brilliance.
From outside, in the war-torn capital, soldiers and citizens alike froze mid-battle as they saw it: a colossal, beautiful wave of shadow and light spiraling into the heavens, painting the night sky in shades of black and silver.
"The… Nightmare Eclipse?…" a mage in the street whispered, awestruck and terrified. What they were seeing now, was something impossible. Something no human could create yet it was there and it was engulfing the sky piercing a hole through the clouds.
When the black light finally faded, there was nothing left of the grand court only ruin, ash, and silence. The destructive spell had taken everything.
Amid the rubble lay two figures Hanzo and Lara, side by side. She was gone. Her veil had burned away, revealing a beautiful pale face as calm as moonlight… and tears streaking her cheeks.
Hanzo stared at her in confusion, a soft, broken laugh escaping his lips. "You… even now, you cry for me?"
He sighed, his breathing shallow as he reached out with his hand for her. "You were always too bound by light, Lara. Too pure for a world like this."
The wound in his chest pulsed one final time, blood soaking the cracked marble beneath him. He smiled faintly as his vision blurred, his body growing light.
"The Eternal Essence…" he whispered, turning his head slightly.
Where the sacred plant once lay, there was now only an empty vase, faintly humming with residual energy. The essence had vanished its power consumed or escaped, none could tell.
Hanzo looked back at Lara, his voice little more than a whisper.
"This time…" he murmured, his eyes softening, "I'll make no mistakes. This time I'll do better. This time I'll… rule the world properly and be a proper villain."
A faint laugh left his lips half-delirious, half-sincere. Light engulfed his body.
And just like that, the Nightmare King of the Everfall Syndicate was gone.
--------
Then a heavy knocking sound of metal hitting metal rang in his ears. A loud annoying knock
"Oi Harian you bastard you better not be sleeping" someone shouted
The man opened his eyes slowly and saw a blinding light.
A man dressed in silver armor was shouting at him from the distant behind iron bars. As the man finally fully opened his eyes. He heard the guard shouting at him saying how he'll need another beating.
"Oh? A familiar scene huh..." Harian whispered to himself. Followed by a slow ominous chuckled that made the other prisoners near him shudder.
"The Nightmare King, has returned"