The last ray of sunlight vanished behind the peaks, burying the valley in absolute darkness.
Lusian slowly raised his gaze. For the first time since the hunt had begun, the heroes glimpsed something different in his eyes: there was no longer the weariness of a fugitive or the rage of a cornered man; there was only a glacial certainty.
The shadow at his feet ceased to be a defensive shield and became a flowing tide. It spread first across yards, then across dozens of them, devouring everything in its path. The shadows of the trees stretched until they merged with one another, extinguishing the last vestige of ambient light.
Maelia staggered backward, suffocating beneath the oppressive air.
—What... what is this?
No one dared to answer.
Inside Branor's chest, the divine blessing began convulsing violently. But this time, the impulse did not demand reverence. It was primal, visceral panic.
Lusian closed his eyes and exhaled a long stream of icy air. The dark mana did not need to manifest from nothing; the entire night was its natural domain.
When he opened his eyes, the darkness itself seemed to obey the rhythm of his heartbeat.
—It's over.
Dainslein materialized in his right hand.
The first stroke was invisible to the mortal eye; only a jet-black streak tore through the darkness from end to end. The earth twins raised a bastion-like wall on pure survival instinct, but the massive stone split from top to bottom as though it were paper. Both were hurled backward, spitting blood.
Maelia tried to channel a defensive spell, but a shadow suddenly erupted from behind her, striking her with a brutal blow that sent her crashing into the mud.
Aldric gripped his hilt with both hands, desperate.
—Hold the line! All together!
Before he could finish shouting the order, Lusian was already standing inches from his face. Aldric barely managed to raise his blessed steel when Dainslein collided with his blade. The impact was so colossal that the paladin's knees buckled and slammed against the ground with a sickening crack.
—No...!
Lusian applied the slightest amount of pressure. Aldric's sacred metal gave way with a dull snap, shattering into fragments before the warrior was hurled several yards through the air.
Branor roared with everything he had left inside him, condensing every spark of his mana into one final, devastating bolt of blue lightning.
—DIE!!
The lightning tore through the sky as it descended. Lusian simply raised one hand: a dome of darkness condensed around the attack and devoured the electricity without leaving a trace.
Branor froze, arms raised, eyes wide with disbelief.
—It can't be...
Lusian advanced toward him with steady, unwavering steps.
—I warned you.
A shadowy spike erupted from the cobblestones and pierced his side. Branor fell to his knees, unable to move; the blessing inside him convulsed violently, breaking beneath the weight of a superior force.
Lusian walked past him without delivering the killing blow. There was no need.
All around him, the survivors struggled to rise among the rubble as the terrible truth struck them like an avalanche: the night was not merely a setting that favored their enemy.
The night belonged to him.
Every dark corner was an extension of his will, a potential weapon waiting for his command. And the farther they tried to distance themselves... the more deeply they became trapped in his web.
Lusian raised Dainslein, whose black blade seemed to absorb what little light remained in the world.
—You had your chance.
And absolute darkness descended upon the valley.
The soldiers immediately closed ranks, their pulses racing and their weapons trembling.
—Don't split up!
—Hold formation!
—Where is he?!
The blindness was absolute. They could not see Lusian. They could not see his allies. They could not even make out the silhouette of their own hands in front of their faces. Back to back, they raised shields and spears, desperately trying to cover every blind spot.
—He's there! —someone shouted from within the crowd.
They all turned as one, staring into the darkness.
Nothing.
Only the cold wind moving through the trees.
Then, a footstep.
A single, dry crunch beneath the dead leaves.
Then a dense, deathly silence.
—Did you see him?
No one dared answer.
One soldier felt a faint touch, almost imperceptible, against his throat. He looked down in confusion. A thin crimson line appeared across the neck of his armor before blood began pouring from the wound.
—What...?
The man collapsed face-first into the mud.
The others stumbled backward in a panic, crushing against one another.
—Attack!
Blind with terror, they struck at nothing. Steel blades cut through the air, spears thrust blindly, and the mages unleashed waves of mana without direction.
They found no resistance.
A second soldier fell beside him. This time, there was not even a sound—only the dull impact of his body hitting the earth.
—He's among us!
Panic spread through the formation like wildfire. Military discipline disintegrated within seconds. Men began trampling over one another without direction, hurling spells at random in an attempt to tear through the darkness.
A flash of sacred fire briefly illuminated the battlefield.
There was no one left to strike.
Only corpses scattered across the grass.
Then the dying light revealed a silhouette rising behind one of the officers.
Lusian.
The soldier spun around. His eyes locked directly onto the Devil's glowing yellow irises. For one eternal heartbeat, he saw him with horrifying clarity.
There was no fury in Lusian's features.
Nor was there the pleasure of an executioner.
Only crushing apathy.
Infinite exhaustion.
Dainslein pierced through his chest as smoothly as flowing water.
Before the body could touch the ground, the shadow swallowed Lusian whole once more.
—THERE!
Dozens of swords converged on the spot.
Once again, they struck nothing but air.
An agonized scream erupted behind them.
Then another from the right.
And another, deeper to the left.
—We can't see him!
—Where is he?!
—Run!
—HOLD THE LINE, DAMN IT!
It was too late.
The darkness did not surround them.
It lived among them.
One man collapsed, choking on his own blood. Another vanished, dragged into the shadows without leaving a trace. A third lit a torch with trembling fingers.
The tiny flame barely managed to illuminate a few yards of darkness.
At the very edge of the halo of light, two yellow eyes appeared once more for a fleeting second.
The soldier's torch slipped from his hands.
—No...
The darkness closed in again.
The agonized scream that followed echoed across the slopes of the entire valley like a cursed refrain.
Far away, battered, bloodied, and gasping for breath, the heroes watched the spectacle.
And in that moment of pure horror, they finally understood the true nature of the night.
This was no longer a battle.
It was a hunt.
And they were the prey.
The shadows did not merely grow.
They rose like giants. As if the earth itself had regained its memory and reclaimed ownership of everything it bore.
The wind died all at once. The dust of battle froze in the air, suspended in an unreal weightlessness. The sounds of the valley—the neighing horses, the spells, the clash of steel—faded one after another, drowned beneath a silence as dense as lead.
The thousands of soldiers still breathing in the basin huddled together in a frenzy of pure survival, pressing their backs against one another until the ranks warped.
—Don't separate! —Where is he?!
No one had an answer.
There was nothing to focus on. No target to aim at. Only the erratic echo of footsteps over fallen leaves.
One step.
Then another.
And then, absolute nothingness.
A legionnaire raised his greatsword with trembling hands. Something cold and transparent brushed against the metal of his gorget. A thin crimson line appeared along the edge of his armor before the man collapsed face-first into the mud.
—There!
Dozens of spears thrust blindly into the void. Steel tore through the air without finding flesh or bone.
A second man fell, choking on his own blood. Then a third, severed from the shadows.
Military order finally shattered.
—He's among us!
Panic spread like wildfire. Torches hastily ignited, flashes of divine magic, and volleys of blessed arrows shot into the darkness... only to be swallowed by the blackness without leaving so much as a scratch.
Suddenly, two incandescent yellow orbs, devoid of all humanity, flared mere inches from the front line.
One recruit caught that merciless gaze.
—The... Devil... —he managed to stammer.
Dainslein pierced his sternum with a metallic whisper.
Before the blood could even splatter the ground, the darkness snapped shut around his body, swallowing him whole.
And in the suffocating night, the hunt continued without relent.
The heroes watched the scene, frozen in horror. They had marched into the valley with the blind faith that thousands of men would be enough to bring a single person to his knees. Now reality crushed that belief: there was no battle to be fought. They were witnessing a systematic massacre.
Lusian moved through the mist and rubble.
Or, at least, the silhouette of what had once been a man.
His body began to change. Darkness crawled along his limbs until it engulfed his torso—not like armor, nor as a superficial enchantment, but fusing with his very flesh. His arms lost their density, becoming semitransparent like wisps of pitch-black smoke, while the outline of his body dissolved into the darkness of the night.
Lusian took another step.
He was no longer walking upon the shadows.
He had become an extension of them.
Emily watched him, her breath caught in her throat.
—Lusian...
He did not even react. Dainslein hovered beside his right hand, needing no grip to wield it, fused with the night in the same manner.
Suddenly, Branor dropped to his knees upon the stones. His body convulsed before going rigid.
A black glow flooded his pupils.
Branor was still there.
But it was no longer he who looked through those eyes.
The Goddess of Darkness had descended upon her chosen one and was now using his body as a vessel.
—At last... —she said.
The voice that emerged from his throat no longer belonged to him.
The surviving heroes stumbled backward in a panic. Branor slowly raised his head, a foreign smile spreading across his face, filled with malice.
—Kheris.
Lusian frowned, turning his gaze toward him.
—What?
The entity occupying Branor's vessel stared at him with a sickening mixture of long-suppressed rage and relief.
—I found you.
—Do we know each other? —Lusian asked flatly.
The smile on the possessed face froze instantly.
—What?
—I have absolutely no idea who you are.
Branor's eyes burned with pure rage.
—After all this time... are you going to pretend you don't recognize me?
Lusian glanced at Emily, then at Elizabeth.
—Do either of you understand what this lunatic is talking about?
Neither answered. The air had become both freezing and suffocating.
The divine presence within the hero's body took a step forward.
—You never recognized me.
Her voice trembled, saturated with ancient hatred.
—Not when you inherited the darkness. Not when your true power awakened. You rejected me from the very beginning.
Lusian remained unmoved.
—I think you're confusing me with someone else.
—Silence! —the goddess roared, causing darkness to erupt in spirals around Branor. —You forced me to find another!
Lusian narrowed his eyes, annoyed.
—Another what?
—Another chosen one —she spat, clenching the jaws of her vessel. —Velryon.
She uttered the name with burning contempt.
—I gave him my blessing. I granted him my absolute favor, and with his guidance, I seized control of the clan.
Lusian still could not make a single piece of the puzzle fit.
—What clan are you talking about?
Branor's expression twisted into a monstrous grimace.
—The clan that should have been yours by right.
A heavy silence descended upon the battlefield.
—But the ancient law still does not recognize me as its rightful sovereign —the voice continued coldly. —It does not matter. When the day comes, it will.
Lusian rubbed the palm of his hand across his face and let out a weary snort.
—You're completely insane.
The presence froze.
—What did you say...?
—I don't know who Kheris is. I don't know who Velryon is. I have no idea what clan you're talking about.
Lusian casually gestured toward Branor's body.
—And I definitely don't understand why you're putting on this spectacle by speaking through a walking corpse.
The entity's fury shook the entire valley.
—You...!
The shadows went berserk around her host.
—I will find you in the flesh! Even if I have to reduce this world to ashes!
Lusian raised an eyebrow, utterly unfazed.
—You already found me. I'm right here.
—And I'm going to slaughter you —she declared.
Lusian sighed, closing his eyes for a moment.
—Do whatever you want.
—I will be the only entity to rule over Darkness —the goddess proclaimed arrogantly.
For the first time that night, a genuine flicker of irritation crossed Lusian's features.
—The only one?
He took a single step forward.
The entire night convulsed in response.
Thousands of spears of pure shadow rose behind him, tearing through the sky and blotting out the light of the stars.
The expression on Branor's possessed face changed drastically.
Only then, amid the terror, did the divinity understand.
That entity was not Kheris.
But neither was it a mere mortal.
—You...
Lusian vanished in the blink of an eye.
Branor barely had time to make a gesture and raise his hand.
Dainslein was already poised against his throat.
The divinity tried to force her vessel to react, but it was too late.
The blade tore through flesh, and Branor's body collapsed heavily against the cobblestones. The sacred presence was ripped from its vessel like a flame snuffed out in an instant.
For a fraction of a second, two orbs of pure darkness floated in the air, their fierce gaze fixed upon Lusian.
—This is not over.
The specter dissipated into nothingness.
Lusian looked down at the lifeless corpse at his feet with cold indifference.
—I hope it isn't —he murmured.
He shifted his gaze around him.
The night still buried an overwhelming landscape of corpses.
Thousands.
Perhaps tens of thousands scattered throughout the valley.
Rank-and-file soldiers, seasoned adventurers, temple clerics, vassals, and heroes. All of them had marched to the front blinded by faith, convinced they were taking part in a glorious crusade.
Now they were nothing more than scattered remains in the mud.
Dawn slowly forced its way across the horizon. The first rays of golden light crowned the peaks, and the tide of shadows began to retreat, revealing the true scale of the massacre.
There were no military formations left.
Not a single banner remained standing.
There were no battle cries or war chants.
Only the silence of thousands of bodies covering the earth as far as the eye could see.
The few survivors still breathing remained frozen among the ruins, too shattered by terror to even attempt an escape.
Lusian stood at the epicenter of the devastation.
The absolute darkness gradually withdrew from his skin and torso, restoring his mortal form.
He looked human again.
A man consumed by exhaustion, stained with blood and ash, but human all the same.
Emily approached cautiously.
—Is it over?
Lusian swept the horizon with an empty gaze.
—Yes.
Elizabeth stared at the sea of broken steel and lifeless bodies.
—How many fell?
Emily silently shook her head, her expression grim.
—I don't know.
There was no need to count them.
The entire world would take care of the tally soon enough.
That day, the cathedrals and sanctuaries of the Kingdom would receive the news no high priest had ever dared to predict: their greatest champions had fallen.
The deities would be forced to anoint new champions, seek new vessels, write new doctrines, and forge new names.
Because to the entities of the heavens, heroes had always been interchangeable pieces.
Yet that slaughter left behind a precedent infinitely more dangerous than the mountains of dead:
It proved that not even divine blessings could save a chosen one from being reduced to dust.
And high above, in the Celestial World, the deities began to scour the earth, desperately searching for those who would occupy the empty thrones.