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The wind howls over Necralys.
A radiant heroine crosses the accursed lands, unaware that the throne she seeks is guarded by an awakened demon.
The clash between hope and despair draws near.
When the blade meets the Abyss... which will yield?
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Part 1 — The Approach of Judgment
The sky had taken on a blood-red hue.
The clouds swirled in slow, heavy circles, heavy with the weight of coming war.
Beneath that tormented vault, the scarred plains leading to Necralys stretched out like a desert of wounds.
Every step raised a black dust, every stone seemed carved by unseen claws.
Sillas Vaelis rode at the head of her group.
Her silver armor gleamed faintly, defying the creeping darkness.
At her hip, Seraphin, the blessed blade, vibrated gently, reacting to the thickening waves of corruption as they neared.
— "Just a few more leagues, Captain," Oren reported beside her.
Sillas nodded, her gaze locked forward, toward the distant black towers of Necralys that pierced the horizon like menacing fangs.
Each beat of her heart was a drum.
Each breath, a silent vow.
The company advanced cautiously, reduced to a mere handful of elites — thirty handpicked warriors, the finest Lumina had to offer.
Each bore a shield emblazoned with Lumina's sigil: a sun crossed by a sword.
Each had sworn an oath: to purify the East or die trying.
They soon passed the first abandoned outposts.
The charred skeletons of villages rose like shadows, the ruins gnawed down to the bone.
The inhabitants were long gone, swallowed by war, famine… or something worse.
A cold unease gnawed at the soldiers.
Sillas could feel it.
— "Stay sharp," she ordered firmly.
She herself felt a weight pressing down on her chest.
An invisible pressure, growing heavier, as if the very air fought against their advance.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
I did not come to save this world out of pride.
I came because no one else dared.
When she opened them again, her gaze burned with icy resolve.
---
Hours later, they reached the first outer walls of Necralys.
And what they saw froze their blood.
The ramparts were undefended.
No soldiers, no sentries, no cries of alarm.
Only statues of warriors sculpted from obsidian, posted at regular intervals, their eyeless sockets staring blankly at the horizon.
Ancient runes covered the stones.
Some glowed with a crimson light; others oozed black mist.
— "It's a trap," Oren muttered.
— "Obviously," Sillas answered calmly. "But we don't have the luxury of turning back."
She drew Seraphin.
The blade sang, humming in the air like a fragment of divinity.
The soldiers formed ranks.
Tension tightened every face.
— "Form up. Shields raised. We move in."
Sillas was the first to step through the gaping gates of Necralys.
No cries.
No movement.
Only silence… and a dead city that seemed to breathe under their feet.
---
They moved carefully through the deserted streets.
The houses, many rebuilt, stood empty.
Windows barred.
Doors bolted.
As if the entire populace had buried itself underground.
— "Too quiet," a soldier whispered.
Oren signaled for silence.
Suddenly, a voice echoed.
Not a human scream.
A whisper.
Coming from everywhere… and nowhere.
"Why have you come here...?"
The very wind seemed to carry the question, dragging the syllables like chains.
Sillas tightened her grip on Seraphin.
— "Show yourself!" she shouted.
No answer.
But then, at the far end of the main street, a figure appeared.
A boy.
Barely a teenager.
Bare-chested, barefoot, clutching a tattered flag.
His eyes were empty.
Literally hollow, two dark pits where invisible flames danced.
He raised the flag… then collapsed, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Before anyone could react, the obsidian statues around them began to move.
Their heavy arms rose.
Their lances pointed forward.
Their metallic cries finally shattered the silence.
---
To be continued…
Parfait.
---
Part II — Into the Maw of Dusk
The earth trembled beneath the march of the statues of obsidian.
Grim heralds of forgotten ages, they advanced with the slow inevitability of the grave.
"Shell formation!" Oren cried, and the knights of Lumina obeyed, shields rising in grim silence.
Sillas stood among them, a shard of defiance against the rising dark.
The statues, towering over men, bore lances soaked in ancient blight.
Their joints groaned like rusted tombs breaking open, each step scraping a funeral dirge across the broken stones.
"Flank!" an archer roared.
Too late.
From the shattered bones of the city, a statue emerged, swift as a specter.
Its lance struck true, impaling a young soldier, who gave no cry as life fled him.
His body was discarded like refuse, a crumpled prayer against the wall.
Sillas felt the burn of rage — yet smothered it.
There was no time for mourning.
"OREN! ON ME!"
She tore from the ranks.
Seraphin answered her call, birthing a storm of light in her grasp.
The sacred blade cleaved the fetid air, cutting through the statue with a scream of parting stone.
The colossus crumbled, black dust devoured by the dying wind.
Another came.
She ducked low, parried, and answered with death.
A second fell.
But there were too many.
Around her, the men faltered.
The statues fought without anger, without mercy — automatons of ruin, enslaved to a will deeper than death.
"Fall back!" Sillas commanded. "To the central square!"
"But Captain, we'll be trapped!" Oren cried.
"Let them trap us."
She moved with the storm, dodging a lance meant for her heart, dancing through the slaughter.
There was a rhythm to the enemy — a ritual.
The square was the altar.
They would awaken something fouler still.
And yet — it was the only path to break the city's curse.
The retreat was a butcher's work.
Men screamed.
Armor shattered.
Blood soaked the stones once more.
But the heart of Necralys awaited.
The central square — a desolate arena where even ghosts dared not linger.
At its heart stood the fountain, dry and dead, adorned with glyphs time itself had tried to forget.
As they crossed into its bounds, the statues halted — motionless, like supplicants before an unseen god.
A voice, neither living nor dead, rippled through the air.
"Welcome, lost children..."
Black flames licked the fountain's base, birthing a form from the ash of despair.
It rose.
A giant, wrought from shadow and madness.
Its arms lashed the air, whips of blackened iron; its torso was stitched with the faces of the damned, mouths agape in eternal woe.
Two eyes, blood-red and endless, opened in its skull of mist.
It screamed — and the stones wept.
The statues fell to their knees in reverence.
Oren's sword shook in his hand.
"This is no battle," he murmured. "This is a funeral."
But Sillas did not yield.
She lifted Seraphin, its light defiant against the crushing dark.
"We did not come to survive," she said. "We came to end this."
She turned to her knights, voice raw, eyes burning.
"FOR LUMINA!"
And so they charged.
The air howled.
The creature struck with blinding fury, its whip-arms carving canyons through stone.
Knights fell like autumn leaves before the storm.
Sillas moved through the tempest, Seraphin blazing.
Their blades bit deep.
Their arrows sang.
Their magic flared — frost and fire and fury.
But the creature fed on their despair.
The more they fought, the stronger it became.
Sillas understood.
They were not merely fighting a beast — but the very sorrow of Necralys itself.
It had to end in a single breath, a single moment.
She gathered her will.
Seraphin pulsed — a heartbeat of fire.
The world narrowed.
Her voice rose, a prayer of ruin.
"O eternal flame... bearer of the last light... grant me this final fury."
The light swallowed her.
She rose — a comet born of rage.
The creature struck —
—but she fell faster.
Seraphin plunged into the heart of the abyss.
The world split open.
The giant howled as its soul was torn asunder.
Its body unraveled, a storm of shadows fleeing into the ether.
The night fell silent.
Sillas knelt, her strength spent.
They had won.
Yet, in the marrow of her bones, she knew:
The true darkness had only begun to stir.
To be continued
---
Part 3 — The Devoured Sanctuary
The scorched ground from the battle was still steaming.
The air reeked of burnt magic — that metallic, acrid scent of arcane exhaustion.
Sillas rose slowly, supported by Oren, who had rushed to her side.
"Captain, are you all right?"
She nodded, but her legs trembled beneath her.
She had tapped into the very core of her life force to bring down the giant.
Every muscle in her body screamed in agony.
"The creature... is dead," she whispered.
Oren glanced around.
Only a dozen soldiers still stood.
The rest lay scattered across the square — wounded… or worse.
But they had won.
At least, this battle.
For at the center of the square, where the fountain had collapsed into rubble, a gaping opening had emerged: a stone staircase descending into the bowels of Necralys.
A dim purple glow pulsed from within — unsettling, unnatural.
Sillas stepped closer.
An ancient inscription ran along the edges of the steps.
She read it aloud, under her breath:
"Let those who seek the light be devoured by their own shadow."
A shiver ran down her spine.
Oren moved up beside her.
"Are we going down?"
She tightened her grip on Seraphin's hilt.
"Yes."
"Even if it's a trap?" he murmured.
Sillas gave a bitter smile.
"All of Necralys is a trap."
She raised Seraphin — its glow flickering faintly — and gave the order:
"Reduced formation. We're going in."
The steps seemed to descend without end.
The group moved cautiously, each footstep echoing in the suffocating silence.
Frescoes were etched into the walls.
They depicted…
The fall of the city.
Priests disemboweling innocents to feed dark altars.
Children consumed by faceless shadows.
Oren turned his eyes away.
Even the most hardened soldiers felt their stomachs twist at the horrors carved into stone.
"What kind of evil could corrupt a place like this?" one of them whispered.
Sillas gave no answer.
She already knew.
At last, they emerged into a circular chamber.
In its center — an altar.
Surrounding it — six black basalt pillars, each etched with vibrating runes.
And in front of the altar…
A throne.
A throne made of intertwined flesh, still pulsing, as if alive.
And upon that throne… someone sat.
A young man.
He wore a torn suit of armor — black and crimson — from a forgotten age.
Dark hair veiled parts of his face.
But what struck Sillas immediately… were his eyes.
Eyes of dull silver, like dead moons.
They saw everything.
Understood everything.
Feared nothing.
The young man slowly raised his head.
He smiled.
A smile devoid of warmth.
Devoid of mercy.
"You've finally arrived," he murmured.
His voice echoed through the chamber — like a sound from another era.
"Who are you?" Sillas asked, her tone unwavering.
The young man tilted his head, almost respectfully.
"Ishi."
A murmur rippled through the soldiers.
For that name… was not unknown.
Ishi Crush.
The Fallen Hero.
The Survivor of the Black Interstice.
The Doomed One of the Realms.
"You shouldn't have come here," Ishi continued, his voice smooth — like poison wrapped in silk.
He stood.
The very atmosphere shifted.
The air thickened, laden with a pressure that had no source.
Oren raised his blade.
"On your guard!"
But Sillas didn't move.
She kept her eyes on Ishi.
Something about him…
Something in his stance, in his aura…
He wasn't just a man.
Not merely a warrior.
He was a catalyst.
A living anomaly.
Ishi extended a hand toward the altar.
The ground trembled.
Veins of red light slithered across the chamber.
Then the altar split open.
From within, something rose — carried by an unseen force.
A crystalline fragment.
Blood-red.
Beating like a living heart.
Sillas gasped.
"The Heart of the Void…"
Ishi's gaze locked with hers.
"You know what it is. Good."
He smiled — wider, darker.
"Then you also know… that whoever touches this fragment… abandons their humanity."
He gently closed his hand around the Heart.
Instantly, black lightning arced across his arm.
But he didn't scream.
He didn't flinch.
He welcomed the pain.
He embraced the corruption.
Oren charged, sword raised.
"NO!"
Sillas tried to shout.
Too late.
Ishi lifted a single finger.
Just a gesture.
And Oren was hurled backwards like a ragdoll, slamming into a pillar with a sickening crack.
Silence fell.
The soldiers instinctively stepped back.
Sillas moved forward — alone.
She raised Seraphin, pointing it at Ishi.
"Why… Why would you do this?"
Ishi tilted his head slightly.
His silver eyes glinted with a cold light.
"Because this world… has already condemned me."
A bitter smile curved his lips.
"Because those who claim to guard the light… are blind to the darkness beneath their feet."
He held out his hand.
The Heart of the Void pulsed between his fingers.
"I am not your enemy, Sillas. Not yet."
Then, in a whisper — almost gentle:
"But if you try to stop me… I will show no mercy."
A rupture.
A tearing of the air.
And Ishi vanished — swallowed by a rift of shadows.
Darkness engulfed the chamber.
Sillas collapsed to her knees, drained.
They were too late.
The fragment was gone.
And somewhere in the rising darkness…
Ishi was watching.
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