The first thing she remembered was darkness.
It was not merely the absence of light, but a feeling, a presence: thick, smothering, and vast. It pressed against her from all sides, like a creature trying to suffocate her with its existence alone.
She had been made in a hollow beneath a chain of mountains so old their roots had forgotten the sky. Within that hollow, darkness was an eternal companion. It swallowed sound, bent distance, and made time feel sluggish and uncertain. In that place, even her thoughts felt distant and foreign.
Along with many of her sisters and brothers, she was made by those who preceded her.
They were arranged in long, silent rows upon the stone, identical forms emerging one after another in a rhythm that never faltered. No voices marked their arrival. No ceremony acknowledged their completion. She remembered their closeness; they were packed so tightly together she was not even sure where she ended and her brethren began.
Even now, the memory stirred something almost fond within her, though it also carried a bitter edge. They had been together, yes, but together only because none of them were meant to stand alone. They were part of a whole, never meant to be anything more than expendable resources.
None of them even had a name of their own.
Faint as the memory may be, she could still recall the face of the one who completed her making. It was hard not to, considering their faces were identical.
The face of her mother -if she could even call her that- hovered over her as the final work was done, her features unnervingly familiar even in that first moment of awareness. It was like staring into a future she had never chosen, or a reflection that did not belong to her. She had the disturbing sense that this would be the last time those eyes would look at her.
She would always remember them nonetheless. Dull. Lifeless. Utterly and completely indifferent to her very existence.
Those eyes did not see her. They measured alignment, function, and readiness. When her mother's gaze passed over her, it carried the same care one might give to a sharpened blade before placing it back among countless others. In that moment, something cold settled within her, a quiet understanding that would never leave.
She had not been born, but made. Manufactured. She was meant to serve one purpose and one purpose only: to serve. As long as she fulfilled that role, her mother could not care less about her condition or survival.
Training began almost immediately; she did not even have time to gather her bearings before she was marched off to their next destination. She and her siblings were driven through the cavern's endless corridors, their footsteps echoing in distorted, overlapping patterns that made it impossible to tell where one ended and another began.
They were issued commands in flat, emotionless directives that cut through the darkness like knives. Commands they were required to follow with absolute precision. And for those who made mistakes, there was no correction. They were simply removed.
Then came the fighting. Every day, every hour, every second, they fought one another relentlessly, learning how to fight, how to survive, how to kill.
She remembered the first time she recognized herself in an opponent's movements. The way their blows mirrored hers with unsettling precision. The fear that shone in their eyes, just as brightly as it did in her own. The sheer desperation to live that reflected hers.
And still, she crushed them all the same. There was no room for hesitation. No mercy. Compassion was treated as a flaw, an error in their making that could only be corrected with a swift end.
Above it all, above the fear, the exhausting training, and the endless drills of combat, loomed the purpose for which they were being honed: war.
She heard it in the whispers of those who had preceded her, the rare survivors of the first generation's war.
Their ancestor, the maker of the first generation, was preparing for another war.
Bloodier this time, they whispered in hushed tones, fear creeping through their normally dull voices.
They were to serve once more in the army of her creator's creator, a distant and ineffable being whose will permeated the cavern like a crushing pressure that could not be ignored. That exalted being had once waged war against the Goddess of the Dark Skies and had lost.
The bitterness of that ancient defeat still hung in the air, unspoken but ever present, like a festering wound that refused to heal.
Now, with their aid and that of his equally sinister siblings, he intended to try again.
-------------------------------------------
She remembered that day with perfect, uncanny clarity, each moment preserved so precisely that it felt as though it had happened mere moments ago.
Alongside her siblings, she had been patrolling the dark hollows of their home, hunting the defiled that haunted the caverns.
One heartbeat, everything was normal.
Next, her breath lodged in her throat and refused to move.
Something vast pressed in from all sides. The air thickened, heavy with presences so immense that the darkness itself seemed to cower.
They arrived one by one.
First came a woman split down the middle by contradiction. One half of her was drowned in a darkness so absolute it made the darkness native to her home recoil, stripped bare by comparison. The other half burned with blinding radiance, a light so violent that the gloom which had shaped her entire existence shrank back as if wounded.
The paradox walked past them without a glance. Watching her move felt like witnessing art in motion. And yet, every step churned her stomach, bile creeping up her throat, revulsion interjoining with awe until the two became indistinguishable.
In her wake trailed a crushing tide of emotion. It clawed at her mind, threatening to shatter it, barreling without pause past defenses that were supposed to be immutable. Immunity meant nothing in the face of that.
Another followed.
The silence left behind by the paradoxical woman did not last. It ruptured into a low whisper, soft and intimate, reaching all of them at once.
One of her sisters froze. Terror flared bright in her eyes, raw and unbridled, then vanished, snuffed out by something ancient and immeasurable.
Like a doll whose strings had been jerked taut, her sister straightened. Her posture no longer matched the body she wore. What walked away moments later only resembled her in shape, moving with borrowed confidence, footsteps following the direction in which the paradoxical woman had gone.
Behind that thing lingered voices. Sweet. Insistent. They murmured secrets that made her ears ache to hear, promising truths too delectable to survive knowing.
Then reality itself seemed to falter.
The world bent. Folded. A storm of illusions bloomed and collapsed in less than a blink, entire false lives born and extinguished in fractions of seconds. Her senses screamed as they were forced to perceive what could not exist.
From nothing, a woman stepped forward. Her beauty was so devastating that it felt artificial, sculpted to deceive. No living thing could be shaped that way and remain real. She passed them as the others had, leaving behind the sensation of thoughts almost taking form, of imagined futures slipping through her fingers like water.
Next came starlight.
The air tasted of salt and distant oceans as another woman appeared, gliding above the ground as though it dared not touch her feet. Where she passed, change followed. Some of her siblings aged in an instant, flesh sagging, eyes dimming. Others grew younger, faces smoothing, limbs shrinking.
Last came they.
They were tall, swathed entirely in a frayed, dark robe. Eight arms unfolded from beneath the cloth, each ending in seven fingers. Their face was hidden behind a mask of dark, lacquered wood, their visage that of a snarling demon carved in exquisite detail.
They followed the same path as the others. Their steps were casual and unhurried, then, right as they passed by her side, they stopped.
The being tilted its head. The simple motion filled her with dread, the mask turning idle curiosity into something monstrous. Then they threw their head back and laughed, mirth rippling through a body that concealed everything and promised nothing.
No emotion showed through the mask. And yet she knew.
The Daemon was smiling.
They moved on at last, never once looking back. Still, she felt their gaze linger, unseen but undeniable, weighing her. Measuring her. Judging her.
For what, she did not know.
What she knew was that mere months later, the war began.
-------------------------------------------
Of the untold legions that had followed the Demon of Choice into battle, only a few returned home.
Their ancestor was dead.
As were his siblings, and even the gods, whose demise had been their only purpose in life.
They had succeeded, some of her siblings whispered. They had started the war to end the age of the gods, and now the gods were no more.
It did not feel like victory.
The Hollows welcomed them back in silence instead of the celebrations some of her siblings had hoped for.
Those who returned did so in fragments. Some were missing limbs. Others had their minds shattered beyond repair. Some limped. Some stared. Some laughed at nothing, their voices echoing strangely, as if spoken from far away. There were so few of them that the caverns felt obscene in their emptiness, vast halls carved to house legions now reduced to a scattering of ghosts.
At first, she told herself this was how it had always been meant to be. They were made to be used. Broken. Discarded. She had known this since the moment her mother's indifferent eyes had passed over her. Her only purpose was to be a weapon; anything beyond that was not worthy of consideration.
Knowing that did not make it any less painful.
There was no time to grieve what could not be grieved, no space to mark the absence of those who no longer cast shadows beside her. The war might have ended, but its wounds festered, and the Hollows were not safe.
Something had changed.
The darkness, once held back by the might of their ancestor and his endless legions, no longer dreaded them.
Soon, they were the ones who dreaded it instead.
Defiled creatures began to appear with unsettling frequency, things that wore familiar silhouettes, that moved with remembered cadences. At first, she told herself it was coincidence. That the enemy was learning. Mimicking.
Then she recognized one.
The thing lunged at her, limbs warped and swollen with corruption, its body of stone a parody of life. She reacted without thought, blade moving as it had been trained to do. The strike was perfect. Lethal.
As the creature collapsed, it tried to retaliate one last time with its mangled blade, the precise attack invoking a memory so strongly it dazed her. For a moment, it was not a defiled she was fighting, but one of her sisters. The one who had laughed too loudly during rest cycles. The one who had always stood too close.
The moment passed, and the image of her sister vanished, leaving the dead body of a monster behind. And yet the creeping dread did not fade.
She stood there long after the others moved on, her grip locked so tightly around her weapon that her hands shook. Something twisted in her chest, sharp and nauseating, and for the first time since her making, she wished that her judgment had been wrong.
After that, it only got worse.
More of her siblings were lost. Some disappeared into the darkness, never to be seen again. Others were not so lucky. They fell to the secrets and rot they had brushed against during the war and carried back inside themselves like infections.
They tried to quarantine the afflicted. They tried to put them down quickly. They tried to find a cure. They tried a thousand things and more.
All of them failed.
Day by day, the ranks of the defiled grew while theirs only ever dwindled. All of the makers had died during the war, and none of those who remained were strong enough to carry on their duty.
Eventually, she found herself fighting her former siblings more than she did any other creature of the dark.
She would rather have fought the endless hordes of darkness than a single one of her brethren. They attacked her with familiar techniques, muscle memory persisting long after the mind had been distorted into a parody of their former selves. Fighting them felt like sparring in training halls long since reduced to rubble, every parry echoing with memories she did not have words for.
Each death carved something out of her, ripping open jagged wounds that never seemed to close, no matter how many times she visited the healers.
They claimed she needed to stop, to recover from the endless battles lest she too become one of the defiled. Looking back on the memory, she wondered if anything would have been different had she listened, or if it would only have delayed the inevitable.
She fought harder instead of heeding their advice. Longer patrols. Fewer rests. She threw herself into battle with a desperation that bordered on frenzy, as if motion alone could keep the rot from settling in her bones.
At the time, she had claimed honor and duty as her reasoning. The horrible truth was that she had been hoping, wishing to find an honorable end before she became one of them. Before all of them were devoured by darkness.
Her siblings began to look at her differently. In their eyes, she could see a pale, fragile hope. A hope that she could be different, that she could lead them to victory.
As long as she was still standing, maybe there was a way through this, they whispered when they thought she was not listening.
Then corruption claimed her too, and she put an end to what little remained untouched by the spreading rot with her own two hands.
Her memories grew fuzzy after that day.
She could remember a fury so deep it gnawed at her every thought, filling her with a hunger that could only be satiated with the lives of those who had not been touched by the same darkness that now consumed her.
She remembered hate, too. She hated life. She hated death. She hated light and darkness. She hated warmth and cold. She hated everything, even the act of hating itself.
Vaguely, she could recall leaving the Hollows she had been made in, along with what little remained of her siblings, searching for more prey. She recalled traversing a land infested with a sinister red coral and cowering at night before the dark sea that drowned everything.
Eventually, they arrived at a city resting in the shade of a gargantuan Crimson Spire.
There, they staked a claim to a territory of their own and fought endlessly against creatures just as depraved as they were.
For untold eons, that was her life. Until one day, she met God.
Her God.
-------------------------------------------
She could still remember the feel of life ebbing away from the last spider, one among many that had assaulted her territory. They had put her siblings out of their misery, and for that, she would repay the favor by doing the same to them.
After that, she fell to the ground, her wounds too many to endure any longer.
She could recall the exhaustion she had felt at that moment, the pain she was in, the relief that coursed through her fractured mind as she realized that she was going to die and be freed from the madness that had consumed her every moment since she became corrupted.
The sound of footsteps drew her attention. With what little strength she had left, she looked at the one approaching.
Blasphemously, she thought nothing of Him at that moment. He was another human, soft and weak, particularly small as well.
He walked toward her carefully, a dark tachi held loosely in his hand. His eyes watched her intently, searching for any sign of danger despite her ruined state.
Wise. Had she been able to, she would have fought to the death.
"Life is not fair, huh?" he muttered to himself, looking at her with pity.
"Do it already!" Had she been able to speak, or to think beyond the haze of fury and madness, she would have shouted those words.
Mercifully, he did not make her wait long. His blade pierced her eyes swiftly, and her nightmare was over at last.
What followed was an experience she could describe in no other way than pure bliss.
The embrace of shadows, the one whispered of by the first generation with reverence and longing, welcomed her at last. It was deeper, gentler, and more warm than she had ever dared to hope.
In the dark embrace of her God's soul, she found solace at last.
She did not know how long she spent in the quiet, warm embrace of her God's soul before he recalled her, asking to borrow her might against those who would dare oppose his divine will.
He was small. He was weak. He was not quite sane.
He had relieved her of her suffering. He had cured her of corruption, something no other God could ever do. And then, he had brought her back to life.
He was her God, the only one she knew and the only one she would ever recognize.
She answered the call without delay, vowing that one day, when she was worthy enough, she would repay the great service he had done for her.
-------------------------------------------
Many months later, she found herself striding through the halls of a castle, walking at a respectful pace behind her God, ever watchful for any danger that might yet reach Him.
A battle had already been fought within those walls. In the confusion, defiled creatures - or Nightmare Creatures as He usually called them - had slipped inside. They had hunted them for days now, scouring shadowed corridors and shattered chambers, yet the castle never seemed to empty of them.
"Tomorrow, we will assault the Crimson Spire," God muttered, looking nervous and excited at the same time.
She did not answer; she was not worthy of speaking directly to Him yet.
"The plan is crazy," He continued, undaunted by her silence. "What was Neph thinking?"
Despite his words, she could recognize his tone, the one that crept into His voice whenever there was no one else around and he spoke of the silver-haired woman. It was softer, warmer, mixed with irritation and fond exasperation.
God kept muttering to himself as they traversed the dark corridors, their eyes never ceasing their search for danger.
"…and that's why it's stupid," He concluded, then dragged a hand down His face. "And I'm even more stupid for wasting time ranting instead of coming up with something better."
She nodded when he looked away from her. Her God he might be, but he could also be foolish at times.
"Okay, enough wasting time talking about this," He said resolutely, then turned to her. "Where should we go first if we succeed?"
She remained silent.
God nodded as if she had answered. "You are right. I will go to the cafeteria and eat my fill. You have no idea how done I am with the local cuisine."
He fell silent, thinking deeply about some matter, and then His shoulders drooped.
"Yeah," he murmured, almost to himself. "Who am I kidding? I'll go find Rain."
Had she not been so close, she would not have heard Him.
God turned toward her, a mix of hope and dread on his face. "Do you think I'm good enough to be a part of her life now?"
She nodded resolutely. If anyone had to worry about being unworthy, it was not her God.
His smile bloomed, bright, unguarded, and painfully sincere. It transformed his face into something almost boyish, and for a fleeting moment, the danger lurking in these very halls and beyond seemed to disappear.
"Thanks, Saint, I knew I could count on you!" He scratched his head, suddenly looking bashful. "Maybe I should bring Neph and Cassie along? Cassie is like another sister at this point, and Neph…"
His face flushed. He looked pointedly away, as though she were accusing him with her eyes, though she understood nothing of what had just crossed His mind.
It was not her place to pry, so she did not.
God's infatuation with the silver-haired woman was a matter she should not involve herself in, so she did not. However, as pointless as her opinion was, she approved. She could not think of anyone else who could draw such a tender side from him.
The next day...
The next day, the Crimson Spire fell, and her God remained behind.
-------------------------------------------
She was summoned one day after the fall.
God was still wounded and could not defend himself, so he had been forced to call for her aid, despite the fact that she was not fully recovered herself.
She did not mind. Any who dared challenge her God deserved to die, and she would deliver their end even if she had to die in the process.
Fortunately, that was not the case. They were nothing but Awakened Beasts, which she easily dispatched.
"Great work, Saint!" he cheered.
When she turned around, she could finally take in the sights.
What she saw first, or rather what she failed to see, was the first thing to catch her attention. The Spire, the one that had dominated the Dark City for untold eons, was gone, reduced to rubble.
The sight was so shocking that she almost believed she was being affected by a mind hex, despite being immune to them. That monument had been a fixture of her life for so long that she could barely believe it was gone.
Then her gaze fell on God, and she forgot all about it.
He stood amid the broken stone as if it were nothing more than another battlefield, smiling, relaxed, one hand lifted in a casual wave. Belatedly, she realized that the arm was broken, that both were. His posture was loose, almost casual, as if he had not faced mortal peril mere seconds ago. Blood stained his clothes in dark, drying patches, but he seemed unconcerned by it, as though the wounds were an inconvenience rather than a reminder of how close he had come to death.
"See? All handled," he said lightly, gesturing at the scattered remains of the beasts she had just slain. "You never cease to amaze me. A pity you couldn't help me at the end of the raid."
The words were cheerful. Too cheerful.
She stared at the shadows at his feet. They felt subdued. The Gloomy one did not look at their God, and the other desperately tried to cheer him up with ridiculous antics.
He smiled at the shadows, yet it did not reach his eyes.
"You should have seen it," God continued, laughing softly. "Big dramatic fight, lots of yelling." He rubbed the back of his neck, grinning bashfully. "Kind of embarrassing, now that I think about it."
She did not answer.
"But hey, it all worked out in the end, right?" His voice lifted, the cheer rising despite the growing strain behind his smile. "Spire's down, no more Crimson Terror or Dark Ocean. Sounds like a win to me."
A win. That was what God called it. So why did he look seconds away from crying?
God took a step, then another, pacing lightly as he spoke, never staying still long enough for silence to catch him.
She watched his hands. They trembled when he thought she was not looking.
He stopped abruptly and turned to her again, his smile snapping back into place with practiced ease. "Anyway! You did great, as usual. Seriously, I do not say it enough, but I do not know what I would do without you."
The words were warm. Sincere. They reeked of desperation.
God laughed again, a little louder this time, and spread his arms slightly, as if presenting himself to an invisible audience. He tried and failed to hide the pained wince that followed.
"See this world?" he said. "I am still alive. Still standing." His voice darkened, the cheer fading, replaced by fury. "I am not defeated yet. And I will not be."
His smile twisted into something dangerous.
"You think this is over? No. No, no, no." His laughter came again, low and ragged, his shoulders trembling long after the sound died. "This is not over as long as I am still breathing."
He dropped his arms, unable to hold back the pain that keeping them raised must have caused any longer.
"She ordered me to survive," he muttered, anger and hurt bleeding together. His jaw clenched. "Then I will. At least long enough to go back and show her what a mistake that was."
God smiled, an expression that spoke of loss and pain rather than joy.
He turned away from her, staring out over the ruins where the Spire had once stood. His shoulders sagged slightly, as though even standing had become an herculean task of defiance.
"We will be fine," he said quietly. "No one has found another way out of this cursed land. But no one has done what I have either."
He paused before continuing, his voice lower still. "You will see, Saint, we will be home soon enough."
God did not sound as though he was trying to convince her.
-------------------------------------------
She stared down at God.
He was seated on an elegant chair, the same one he had stolen from the temple. Before him lay an arrow, its shaft made of dark wood taken from the trees that populated the Tears. The head was carved from obsidian, scavenged from Wrath's corpse.
Surrounding it were no fewer than four transcendent shards, all that remained after her hunt in the city.
God was performing his miraculous sorcery, turning a mundane, if powerful, arrow into an object of legend. It was a pity it would not survive its one and only use, if He was to be believed.
She did not dare interrupt. Time was running short, and they did not have the means to obtain more shards of that quality.
While she waited, she once more took in her God's appearance.
He was small, smaller than her ever since the day she had become a Demon.
Hanging at the right side of his head was the mask of that being, capable of obscuring his presence even without being worn directly.
Dark hair fell down his back, reaching his lower spine, kept bound by a simple blue ribbon he had taken from the temple as well. His skin was pale, almost sickly in appearance, a quiet testament to years spent beneath unending darkness, the same darkness that, to her, felt like home.
Across that pale skin, faint lines could be spotted if one knew how to look. The many scars carved into his body had faded to a great degree, but they had yet to disappear completely. The ones that lay deep beneath the skin, though, only seemed to worsen.
They stood out starkly now, the sheer exhaustion in his expression making them more prominent. He had been working ceaselessly, barely stopping to sleep an hour or two before resuming his arduous task. His eyes were bloodshot, and dark bags hung beneath them, evidence of just how long he had gone without proper rest.
Despite his condition, God did not seem worried. His expression was calm, focused entirely on the work before him. If anything, a small smile began to play on his lips.
With a graceful flourish, he finished weaving, his smile widening as he did.
"I did it," He proclaimed proudly, eyes shining with excitement.
God turned to her and raised a hand into the air, palm open, seemingly expecting something from her in return. If only she knew what that was, she might have been able to answer.
Seeing no response, he shrugged, completely unconcerned, and stood up on wobbly legs. She was ready to react if He fell, but He did not. Soft pops could be heard soon after as He began to stretch.
"What do you think, Saint?" He asked in a neutral tone, his gaze fixed on the mantle of darkness that covered the tower in the distance. "Can we win this?"
She stared toward the darkness as well. Her eyes, capable of piercing through it, landed on the colossal snake coiled around the tower, sleeping soundly.
It was a Great Beast, an entire rank above her.
She likely could not even harm it without the aid of her God's shadows. The charm that augmented her might -upgraded by God to a transcendent level- would help bridge the gap, and the shadows would do even more.
Was it enough? It would have to be. Any other answer meant failing God. She had not done so yet, and she would not start now.
Besides, she would not be fighting alone. He had devised a plan, and she only needed to weaken the creature enough for him to deliver the final blow.
Saint nodded resolutely.
God's shoulders relaxed, a hidden weight seemingly lifting from them.
"That's good," He said quietly, a small smile resting on his lips.
A beat of silence settled between them, tense yet comfortable.
"This is it, Saint," He began, his eyes never leaving the mantle of darkness. "The end of the line. The thing we have been working toward all this time."
He exhaled slowly, his exhaustion seeming to increase with the motion.
"We have been fighting for so long, I don't even remember how it feels to rest. I have taken more injuries than I can count. I have killed more Nightmare Creatures in a single day than awakened do in their entire careers. I have paid for my survival with sweat, blood, and tears."
He paused briefly, then continued.
"I don't even know where I'm going with this speech," he admitted with a self-deprecating chuckle. "I guess what I mean is that I'm tired. Tired of the fighting. Tired of the death. Of the sweat, the blood, the tears."
He laughed again, the sound empty of humor.
"This is it," he repeated. "Twenty four hours. In a day, we will either be home…"
He turned to her, smiling, bright, unguarded, and painfully sincere.
"…or we will be dead."
God held her gaze.
"And I don't know about you," he said quietly, "but I don't want to die yet."
-------------------------------------------
Saint walked forward without urgency.
The battle would be swift, whether she failed or succeeded, so what need was there to rush?
Besides, it would give God more time to get into position.
Minutes later, she arrived at her position and stared up. She could see him in the sky, flying on the back of the Soul Serpent, a bow in his hand and a quiver of arrows -each meticulously crafted for this very fight- resting on his back.
He saw her looking and gave a silent nod.
Saint stared ahead at the sleeping snake. Oddly enough, it made her feel nostalgic for home.
The darkness that enveloped its form was the same that had plagued the hollows in which she was made, the same that had colored every moment of her early life.
It reminded her of times both good and bad, of tastes and smells she had not experienced in an age. Ones she might never experience again. Oddly enough, she did not lament the fact.
Her home was gone, but she had found another.
She had failed one already. She would not fail the other.
Saint raised her shield into the air and struck it with her blade. It was a ritual among the Stone Saints, one meant to signify that no shield could withstand their assault and no blade could pierce their defense. She was going to prove it true.
Immediately after, she felt God's shadows rush to coil around her. Four enveloped her, multiplying her strength, while the other two went to the Edge of Solace. The transcendent zweihander would not be able to damage the Great Beast otherwise.
There was a second of silence, and then an arrow flew from the sky into the darkness.
Light bloomed, dispelling most of the mantle of darkness and revealing the stirring form of the colossal serpent. A pained hiss thundered across the city, the serpent's anger clear at the attack, as was the pain the light had caused it.
Commander Erelia, the human who had become the snake before her, had a simple yet cruel flaw. Light, any light, caused her immense pain. The brighter it was, the worse it became.
Saint could even spot charred scales, despite the fact that the arrow had only been Ascendant in rank, the stronger ones being reserved for later in the fight.
Before the serpent had time to fix its gaze on God, Saint launched herself forward with a mighty jump, the ground cracking beneath her.
Her leap carried her through the last shreds of darkness clinging to the base of the tower, and when she collided with the Great Beast's coils, a thunderous roar echoed across the city.
She climbed its body nimbly, its size so gargantuan that she had no other option if she was to attack it.
Her zweihander came down in a two handed arc that would have split a building in half. Steel met scales as thick as battlements and carved a bleeding furrow along the serpent's side. The poison embedded in the blade flowed into the wound, subtle as a whisper, insistent as a promise.
The serpent hissed angrily.
The sound rolled across the city in waves, shattering glass, ripping roofs from buildings, rattling Saint's bones inside her armor. Darkness convulsed around the Great Beast, writhing in response to its pain and fury.
A subtle twitch was all the warning she received before its tail came for God, recognizing him as the one responsible for the light that had hurt it so badly.
It moved faster than any mountain had a right to, a colossal blur cleaving through the air toward the sky. Saint pivoted instantly, stabbing the zweihander deep into the beast's scales, then, with a two handed grip, smashed her shield against the serpent with all her might, stopping the attack in its tracks.
The impact was catastrophic, the recoil enough to make her arms go numb. The serpent's form rippled as if struck by an earthquake, throwing her from its back.
She smashed into the ground, pulverizing stone into a cloud of debris that rose like a storm. Before she had time to recover, the serpent was already striking, its immense body falling toward her like a meteor of dark scales. With no time to evade, she raised her shield and braced for impact.
Saint felt the blow travel through her shield, through her arms, and down her spine. Cracks raced across her armor. Her knees bent, but did not break. She would not until the Great Beast was dead.
God's arrow screamed down from the sky.
Light bloomed again, violent and radiant, exploding against the serpent's flank. Darkness peeled away like burned cloth. Scales blackened, curled, and cracked. The serpent recoiled, its fury sharpening as its massive eyes snapped upward, locking onto God's position.
Saint was already moving before it could strike again.
She tore herself free from the furrows gouged into the ground by their clash and charged shield first at the Great Beast. The serpent lunged to meet her, jaws opening wide enough to swallow her whole, fangs dripping with darkness that warped the air around them.
At the last moment, Saint slid beneath the strike and climbed onto it once more to retrieve her blade.
The zweihander tore free from where it had been embedded, carving a gouge along the serpent's skull, venom seeping into yet another wound. The Great Beast recoiled, its head snapping back more from instinct than pain. A swift whipping of its head, had her disloged from the beast once more.
She landed on her two feet, and looked somberly at her opponent.
It was stronger than her. Its size alone made that inevitable, but it would not be enough. Not against her.
The Great Beast learned that fact quickly. It stopped focusing on her and redirected its wrath skyward, coils lashing out in rapid succession, snapping like siege engines toward God and the Soul Serpent carrying him.
Each strike was met by Saint.
She intercepted them all, sometimes with her shield, sometimes with her blade, sometimes with her own body. Every impact drove her deep into the surrounding buildings or slammed her into the ground, her boots sinking as stone liquefied beneath her stance. Her shield fractured, as did her armor and weapon.
Still, she did not yield.
God was not idle either, his arrows falling in a ceaseless yet unpredictable barrage.
Sometimes one struck mere heartbeats after the last. Sometimes the serpent was allowed to wallow in anticipation, tension building until it overcommitted and exposed itself. Then the light came again, blooming along its coils, its neck, its head.
Each explosion forced another hiss, another convulsion.
And with every successful strike of Saint's blade, the poison worked. Slowly. Relentlessly.
The serpent's movements grew heavier, drowsiness seeping in. Its coils no longer snapped back as swiftly. Its strikes overshot their mark by narrow margins. Its rage blurred, unfocused, dulled by an unnatural fatigue gnawing at its mind.
It realized this too late. Blood flowed like a red river, its scales cracked and burned, one of its eyes destroyed. Still, it did not yield.
The Great Beast gathered itself for a decisive blow, rearing back and coiling with titanic force. Darkness surged, thickening and compressing into a mass that promised annihilation.
The serpent came down like a falling meteor, intent on crushing her once and for all, knowing it could not reach God while she lived.
Saint braced and met the charge with one of her own.
For a breathless instant, there was silence. Then a deafening shockwave rolled across the city, pulverizing everything nearby.
The impact shattered her shield. The zweihander met the blow an instant later and broke.
Steel screamed as the blade splintered, fragments spinning away in glittering arcs. The force hurled Saint aside, slamming her into the ground and carving a crater large enough to swallow an entire plaza.
For a moment, she did not move, feigning defeat.
Sensing it, the serpent lunged skyward, coils unspooling toward God with renewed desperation, victory within reach.
Saint rose in a single fluid motion and leapt after him.
She met God first, shadows uncoiling from her form and merging with the arrow nocked on his bow, the very one he had crafted last.
She landed behind him, the Soul Serpent's form large enough to support them both. Her arms braced him from behind in preparation for what he was about to unleash.
The Great Beast's head closed in rapidly despite their mount's efforts to pull away. It would not matter for long.
"I am become death, destroyer of worlds," she heard God mutter.
Then he released the arrow, and a second sun was born.
Light did not merely bloom. It asserted itself, overwriting sky, city, and darkness alike, flooding reality with brilliance so absolute that the concept of light itself lost meaning.
Below them, what little buildings remained untouched crumbled, the very stone they were made of melting upon coming into contact with the light.
Amid it all, Commander Erelia roared, an expression of pain so deep it made her stone skin crawl.
Half of her skull was gone, erased by the radiance that struck her directly. The remainder blackened and flaked away in charred fragments that rained to the ground.
And still, impossibly, she did not fall. Her massive body continued to writhe, still seeking their deaths.
"Saint."
She needed no further prompting. The shadows returned, coiling around her completely. She extended her arm, and her familiar stone blade took shape, ready to end the fight.
A single leap carried her into her enemy.
They crashed to the ground together, Saint bleeding ruby dust while Erelia bled dark blood. For a moment, neither moved.
Through titanic effort, Saint rose, using her blade as a crutch.
The Serpent tried to follow and failed, all of its strength spent.
Saint approached the fallen form slowly, exhaustion evident in every step.
Erelia made one final attempt, her massive head lifting in a weak effort to swallow her whole. She failed.
Saint raised her blade and struck, carving into the charred remnants of the commander's skull. It took many blows. Each one landed with a dull, final weight, until at last the resistance gave way and the colossal form went still.
The darkness that had clung to Erelia dissipated in slow, uneven wisps, unraveling as if reluctant to leave. The massive coils slackened, settling into the ruined ground like fallen ramparts. The city fell silent around them, the echoes of battle fading into distant nothingness.
Saint remained where she stood for several seconds, blade lowered but still vigilant. She watched the corpse carefully, senses strained, waiting for movement that did not come. Only when a few minutes without movement passed, did she allow herself to relax.
Soft footsteps approached behind her.
God emerged from the drifting dust, masked, his posture unsteady. He stopped a short distance away, staring down at the remains of the Great Beast. For a long while, he said nothing. Sorrow radiated from him, quiet and heavy.
Saint did not move. She stood vigil, as she always did.
God, for the first time in almost two weeks, completely removed the mask, though he did not dismiss it.
"You can rest now, Commander," He whispered at last, his voice low and rough. "Your nightmare is over."
He paused, shoulders tightening.
"I can only hope that mine will end soon as well."
They stood together in silence. Saint did not dare break it. God nedeed time to mourn.
The ruins creaked softly as heat bled away from shattered stone. Ash drifted through the air like gray snow. The battlefield, once deafening, now felt hollow.
Then something shifted.
A deep groan reverberated through the corpse. Cracks spread across the ruined skull, widening with a sound like breaking stone. The structure finally collapsed inward, unable to hold itself together any longer.
From within, something dark and dense was revealed. A core, pulsing faintly, calling out to her with an irresistible pull that stirred something deep in her being.
Saint's hand moved before she was fully aware of it, but she managed to stop herself just in time.
Her fingers trembled as she drew them back, gaze fixed on the remains. She would not desecrate the body of someone her God had called a friend.
He stared at the core for a long moment, unmoving. A silent struggle playing out, his head tilting slightly as if weighed down by memories only he could see. Finally, he exhaled, long and slow, as though releasing something he had been holding since the battle began.
He stepped forward and took the core himself. Turning, he offered it to her without hesitation.
"You earned it," he said quietly. "Besides, Erelia would want you to have it."
Sadness colored his voice, but it no longer threatened to break him.
"'You must use everything within your grasp to grow stronger, Transcendent Sunless. It is the duty of the living to honor the sacrifices of the dead by ensuring their deaths were not in vain.'"
The words, recited from memory, softened as he spoke them, sorrow melting into fondness.
Saint could resist no longer. She accepted the core, feeling it resonate with her very being, urging her to consume it, to grow, to become more.
She hesitated once more, glancing at God.
He shook his head gently.
"You are in no state to help me anyway. Take it. Come back stronger." His face settled into a faint, tired smile. "Cheer up, Saint. By the time we meet again, this nightmare will be over."
She absorbed the core, and soon after, she returned to the warm embrace of her God's soul.
-------------------------------------------
Sunny stared at Erelia's corpse a little longer, mourning someone he had not even met.
What a harrowing nightmare this was. He thought.
He shook his head sadly and repositioned the mask to cover his face. He had no time to dwell on this.
Sunny took a step toward the tower and was immediately hit by a wave of drowsiness.
-------------------------------------------
"Sunless…"
"Sunless…"
"Sunless…"
"Sunny!"
He jolted back to his senses, feeling as though something was terribly wrong, yet unable to pinpoint what it was.
"Are you alright?" he heard his mother ask.
He looked around the table, where the whole family was seated, eating breakfast.
His mother, father, Rain, his big sister Saint, and even their pet, Serpent -his mother's poetic soul never ceased to amaze him- were all there, giving him worried looks.
He smiled sheepishly, trying and failing to find a reason for his distraction.
"Sorry," he said. "I guess I'm still a little sleepy."