The last child screamed.
The sound crossed the empty streets and died against the city walls.
Then...
nothing.
Silence did not descend all at once. It simply remained there, filling everything.
A door swayed in the wind.
Bread was still warm on a table.
In a window, a candle continued to burn, though no one remembered lighting it.
In the marketplace, a cart waited for a customer who would never arrive.
The capital of the Duchy of Douglas did not look like a city that had been destroyed.
It looked like a city abandoned by life itself.
Fifty thousand people had vanished.
They left no corpses in the streets.
They left behind homes frozen halfway through being lived in.
At the heart of the capital, a ritual circle occupied the central square.
Blood wound its way through the symbols with unsettling slowness.
It was still fresh.
At the center of the circle, a man opened his eyes.
Lusian Douglas de Mondring drew a single breath.
It was enough.
Cracks spread beneath his feet.
The grass lost its color.
A flower bent its stem before crumbling into dust.
The ancients said that the gods wrote destiny before a child's first breath. That every name was inscribed in the Book of Destiny long before birth. Not a single mortal had ever erased even one line.
And yet, as the land died around him, something was about to put that truth to the test.
On that day, destiny was about to be fulfilled.
The clouds did not move.
The sacred forest had fallen silent.
No birds crossed the sky.
No beasts broke the stillness.
Even the leaves remained motionless upon their branches.
At the summit of a hill scarred by war, Lucian Douglas de Mondring waited.
His cloak, torn by countless battles, fluttered slowly.
Around him, the darkness did not disperse with the wind.
It remained at his side.
Like a beast that recognized its master.
Beneath his boots, the grass lost its color.
It did not burn.
It did not explode.
It simply forgot that it had ever been alive.
Then came the first glimmer.
Then another.
And another.
The gleam of armor began to emerge from between the trees.
The banners followed behind.
There were twenty of them.
Twenty heroes.
With every step they took, a little life returned to the forest.
A branch stirred once more.
The wind returned to the leaves.
In the distance, a bird dared to sing.
Among them, four figures stood above the rest.
Kara walked at the front.
The earth yielded beneath every step.
Alejandro held a sword wrapped in flames.
Blood ran down his arm, yet he seemed not to notice.
Leonardo advanced in silence.
His eyes never left Lucian.
They never did.
And beside them...
Emily.
The woman who had once agreed to marry him.
The same hand that had once reached for his...
now rested upon the hilt of a holy sword.
Lucian smiled.
There was no anger in that expression.
Only weariness.
"It doesn't matter anymore."
He drew Dainslein.
The black blade slipped free of its scabbard without making a single sound.
The air bent around it.
A fissure tore across the hill.
No one stepped back.
The mark of the pact burned upon his chest.
But it was not pain that consumed him.
It was memory.
Fifty thousand souls.
His people.
The men, the women, and the children he had sworn to protect.
Every one of them had died to grant him the power he had desired for so long.
The mark was not a symbol of victory.
It was the proof of everything he had sacrificed.
The darkness did not spread like a shadow.
It condensed.
Lucian's mana surged toward the heavens, swallowing the light until night ceased to be a time of day.
It became a place.
Then the spears appeared.
One.
Ten.
Hundreds.
They hung above them, motionless, as though the sky had been pierced by a rainstorm that had yet to fall.
They were not weapons.
They were the shape his desire had taken.
"I alone am worthy of ruling these lands."
The spears fell.
The sky fell with them.
The hill vanished beneath the impact.
The heroes' formation shattered.
Alejandro gritted his teeth.
He understood.
It didn't matter how many times they attacked.
They could never reach Lucian.
Not while that thing remained between them.
He turned his head.
"Emily!"
She did not move.
Her eyes were not on the creature.
They were on him.
On Lucian.
"Do it! Only the light can judge the darkness!"
Her fingers tightened around the hilt.
They trembled.
Alejandro took a step toward her.
"Emily..."
He said no more.
He didn't have to.
She already knew what she had to do.
She closed her eyes.
And for a brief instant, the darkness disappeared.
She did not see the demon.
She saw the man who had once taken her hand.
Lucian slowly raised his arm.
The silhouette behind him mirrored the motion.
The entire sky darkened.
"Then they will die first."
The spears descended all at once.
Kara barely managed to raise her sword before she was hurled into the forest.
Alejandro's wall of fire shattered like glass.
Leonardo tried to shield them with lightning.
The explosion hurled him several meters through the air.
Silence returned.
The three heroes lay on the ground.
"This is the power the gods fear," he said quietly. "Who are they to decide who deserves to rule?"
For a moment—
Emily took one step.
Then another.
Light began to wrap around her sword.
For the first time, the darkness retreated.
Emily advanced.
Her armor of light shone amidst the darkness. Around her, the falling spears crumbled into nothing but dust the moment they touched her aura.
She stopped before the fallen heroes, shielding them with her own body.
"Lucian..."
Her voice did not tremble.
"It ends here."
Lucian looked at her. For a brief instant, something in his gaze faltered. But the mark upon his chest burned brighter, and the silhouette behind him roared.
"Emily..." he murmured. "It's not over."
"Yes."
There were tears in her eyes, but she did not retreat.
"Lucian... look."
Her voice softened into little more than a whisper, yet it still pierced the noise of battle.
"Do you truly believe any of this was worth it?"
The wind carried ashes between them.
"All those people..."
She said nothing more.
She didn't have to.
Around them, the other heroes continued fighting, trapped among shadows that twisted without end.
Lucian clenched his fists.
For a single second, he remembered.
No names.
No faces.
Only blood.
And silence.
"And then what?" he finally replied, his voice taut. "Why them?"
He lifted his gaze and fixed it upon her.
"Why did the gods choose them... and leave me behind?"
Emily raised her hand.
A small light was born in her palm.
It was not overwhelming.
But it was unwavering.
"They didn't leave you behind."
She took one step.
Then another.
The spears continued to fall, but it no longer mattered.
"You were the one who chose this path."
The light grew, gentle and warm.
"Your people died for this, Lucian."
Her voice barely broke.
"And even so... they believed in you."
Lucian closed his eyes.
"It's too late..." he whispered. "The pact is complete."
He opened them again.
Empty.
"You can't stop me."
Emily slowly shook her head.
"It isn't your power."
Another step.
"It never was."
The shadow behind him roared, breaking free.
A tidal wave of darkness rushed toward her.
Emily did not move.
She closed her eyes and began to sing.
She cast a spell, and...
The darkness stopped.
The spears trembled in midair.
The chains began to loosen.
Lucian fell to his knees.
His sword sank into the earth.
The mark upon his chest flickered, unstable.
"No..." he gasped. "This... this can't..."
His voice broke.
Emily stopped before him.
She looked at him closely, just as she once had.
She raised her weapon and rested its tip against his chest.
And then—
Light descended like an inescapable judgment and pierced Lucian's heart.
The mark of the pact shattered.
The colossal silhouette crumbled into nothing, as though it had never been meant to exist beneath the sun.
The black spears cracked in the air and dissolved like darkness touched by light.
Lucian fell.
The forest reclaimed the whisper of the wind.
Grass began to grow through the scorched earth.
This was how it was meant to be.
This was how it had been written.
Emily held his gaze as the light pierced him.
There was no hatred in her eyes.
And in his, there was no plea.
His lips moved.
No sound came.
But something changed.
Somewhere beyond the heavens...
a page of the Book of Destiny opened.
It remained blank.