Nightborne woke before the first light, the Pocket Abyss Cube warm against his thigh. Last night's discovery of the Umbral Crescent still thrummed through his veins. Today he would learn its true potential—not just to sharpen his blades, but to send arcs of pure darkness flying like silent harbingers of doom.
He headed to his favorite training ground: the old quarry at the forest's edge. Moonlight still lingered in the hollows, but enough dawn had arrived for him to see clearly. He laid a felled oak log on a flat stone and drew both ShadowSteel Daggers. Concentrating, he channeled a thread of his dark power into their edges until the steel seemed to drink in the void itself.
[Ability: Umbral Crescent – Active]
The daggers' blades hummed with living darkness. He slashed downward. Instead of just cutting the log, a wave of inky shadow burst outward in a curved arc, splitting the log cleanly and carving a shallow trench ten feet long in the stone behind it.
"Not bad," he murmured, studying the aftermath of his strike.
He sheathed the daggers, then drew the Blade of Forgiveness. Again he filled it with his shadow power and swung. A ripple of darkness clawed its way forward, leaving a smoky afterimage as it carved a long, jagged gash in the quarry wall.
He grinned. "Void Scythes."
Testing his limits, he stepped back twenty paces and sent an Umbral Crescent through the air. It flew as a perfect line of darkness, humming with raw power, and cleaved a boulder in half. The shockwave rattled his teeth.
Next, he wove in the Darkness Wire. He coiled the wire around one dagger's hilt, then spun it between his hands, imbuing both tools with a single surge of dark energy. He focused on the wire's tip and let an Umbral Crescent flow into it.
The wire snapped out, invisible until the last moment, then the dark blade uncoiled like a serpent of living shadow. When it struck the log, the log shivered, then burst into a black mist that drifted away.
Nightborne swirled the wire above his head. He felt the power build—a ring of shadow spinning just inches around him. With a final thought, the loop of darkness expanded outward in a chorus of slashes, cutting into every tree and rock in a circle fifty feet around him. Leaves fell in spirals; branches snapped as the shockwave of living night surged.
He let the darkness fade and sank to one knee, breath ragged. His training had unlocked the art of shadow manipulation:
**Midnight Edge**: Infuse any blade with darkness to cleave through both physical and spectral matter, leaving wisps of shadow in its wake.
**Void Scythes**: Project each slash as a crescent of concentrated void, capable of striking from dozens of paces with lethal precision.
**Umbral Weaving**: Combine the Darkness Wire and Umbral Crescents to create spinning fields of dark slashes that surround and protect or devastate entire areas.
He tested one more combination: both daggers in hand, wire held taut between them. He channeled power into the web, then released. A cyclone of dark blades erupted, tearing through a stack of spare firewood in an instant.
"Perfect," he whispered, rising.
By midday he had cleared the quarry of fallen logs and reorganized the shattered stones into neat piles for the villagers to carry home. But his training wasn't complete—not yet. The northern reaches of the island remained unexplored, a place where villagers warned strange creatures dwelled. Perfect for testing his newfound abilities.
Nightborne trekked through dense forest until the trees began to twist unnaturally, bark blackened as if scorched. The air grew thick with an acrid scent. He paused at a ridge overlooking a misty valley where strange chittering echoed between stone outcroppings.
Movement caught his eye—a hulking shape lumbering between ancient oaks. A Thornback. Nearly ten feet tall with crystalline growths protruding from its moss-covered back, the beast's four arms each ended in serrated bone-blades.
Nightborne drew his ShadowSteel Daggers silently. The creature hadn't noticed him yet.
He channeled darkness into the blades and launched dual Void Scythes that cut through the air with a whisper. The first sliced into the Thornback's shoulder, severing one of its bone-blades clean off. The second struck its leg, causing it to collapse with a thunderous roar.
The beast recovered faster than expected, eyes glowing amber as it charged uphill toward him.
Nightborne unspooled the Darkness Wire, weaving it between his fingers as he sidestepped the creature's wild swings. He ducked beneath a sweeping arm and lashed out, the wire wrapping around one of the Thornback's limbs. With a twist of his wrist, he channeled an Umbral Crescent through the wire.
Darkness propagated along the wire's length, black lightning that caused the creature's arm to disintegrate into shadow. The Thornback howled, its voice like grinding stone.
It lunged at him with its remaining arms. Nightborne met the attack with the Blade of Forgiveness, now pulsing with midnight energy. Each parry sent arcs of shadow cascading across the beast's hide, leaving smoking furrows in its wake.
The Thornback thrashed wildly, one blow catching Nightborne across the chest and sending him tumbling backward. He rolled to his feet, tasting copper. The creature charged again.
This time, Nightborne stood his ground. He crossed both daggers before him and released a concentrated Midnight Edge slash that cut the air with such force that the very mist parted. The attack struck the Thornback head-on, splitting it from crown to sternum.
Two halves of the beast fell to either side of Nightborne, dissolving into oily smoke.
He continued deeper into the forgotten reaches of the island. In a fetid swamp, he encountered three Mire Stalkers—emaciated, long-limbed predators with translucent skin that rendered them nearly invisible against the murky waters.
They surrounded him, moving in perfect coordination. Nightborne waited until they closed in, then executed Umbral Weaving. The Darkness Wire became a whirlwind around him as he spun, darkness infused through its length. Shadow blades erupted in all directions, catching the Mire Stalkers mid-leap.
Two fell immediately, their bodies riddled with void-cuts. The third, more cautious, retreated into the swamp mists.
Nightborne tracked it by sound alone, following the gentle ripples in the water. When he sensed it preparing to strike from behind, he flicked the Darkness Wire backward without looking. The wire, imbued with an Umbral Crescent, sliced through the creature's neck with surgical precision.
As dusk approached, Nightborne reached the island's northern cliffs. There, carved into the seaside rock face, he discovered an ancient temple entrance. Stone guardians flanked the doorway—not mere statues, but dormant sentinels that stirred as he approached.
Eight feet tall with bodies of living granite, the guardians wielded massive stone halberds. Their eyes flickered with inner flame as they moved to block his path.
Nightborne didn't hesitate. He charged, both ShadowSteel Daggers channeling darkness. The first guardian swung its halberd in a horizontal arc that would have decapitated him, but Nightborne slid beneath it, launching Void Scythes upward that shattered the guardian's arms.
The second sentinel attacked from behind. Nightborne spun, Darkness Wire extending between his weapons. The wire sliced through stone as if it were cloth, cutting the guardian's legs out from under it.
As it toppled, Nightborne leapt atop its chest and drove both daggers into its eye sockets, channeling pure darkness into its core. The guardian shuddered once, then crumbled to dust.
With the temple entrance clear, Nightborne peered into the ancient darkness. Whatever secrets lay within would have to wait for another day. He had tested his abilities against flesh and stone alike, and both had fallen.
He packed up his weapons, stowed the Abyss Cube, and made his way back to Greenwood Hollow, satisfied he now commanded darkness as a living weapon—pure, precise, and limitless. The monsters of the island had taught him that his powers worked just as effectively against living opponents as they did against training dummies.
And soon, he would return to that temple to discover what ancient power it contained.