There was silence for a while.
But the quiet never lasted long. Not in a place like this.
Not where desperation passed for currency, and raw strength was the only language that held any weight.
First ca the murmurs—faint, uncertain, like the rustling of ghosts.
Then curses, spat out between clenched teeth. Then prayers, desperate and cracking under fear.
Then the screaming.
Because the shadows had started to move.
They ca from the walls. From the cracks in the ground.
From the long-dead eyes of broken statues. Slowly, deliberately—relentless and inevitable. They didn't rush. They didn't stumble. They advanced like they already knew how the night would end.
So resembled people, vaguely.
Once-human shapes, twisted by ti and death and sothing darker still. Others didn't look like anything that should've ever existed.
Things that had no right to stand upright. Things whose limbs bent the wrong way. Things with too many eyes—or none at all.
And all of them carried weapons.
So rusted and real—pitted steel and splintered wood. Others looked forged from nightmares: blades that shimred like blood-slick moonlight, spears that whispered nas as they passed, axes that breathed like living things.
And they were closing in.
Too many of them. Far too many.
Gaunt figures in plague-eaten robes, faces hidden beneath rotted veils. Knights in rusted armor, crests worn from months of disuse—banners of kingdoms long forgotten them.
Giant hounds, nothing but bone and sinew, shadows pouring from their maws like smoke from a dying fire.
They were bound. Every one of them. Tied to him.
And then there was the thing beside him.
HAVOC.
No introduction necessary.
It was a beast, yes—but not like the others.
This one had weight. Presence. Authority. The kind that made the world hesitate. The ground cracked under its steps. It didn't walk. It arrived. Every movent carved gouges into the stone, like the earth itself was trying to pull away.
Its body was a cruel hybrid of lion and void-creature—muscle wrapped in blackened bone, fur like shifting smoke, violet cracks throbbing beneath the surface like lightning trapped under skin. Its mane wasn't hair.
It was a crown of twitching cords, each one moving independently, coiling and twisting like they could snap the world in half.
And those eyes—molten amber, bright with sothing almost... intelligent. Too intelligent.
Then it opened its mouth.
Too many teeth. A second jaw, jagged and twitching beneath the first. A gullet that pulsed like it wanted to consu more than just flesh.
So n whimpered. Others began backing away.
But Ian didn't look at it.
He stepped forward, slow and steady, boots cracking on old stone. His voice cut through the noise like frostbitten steel through silk.
"I gave you all a choice," he said. Calm. Cold. Unbothered. "Drop the relics. End your lives. Clean. Simple. Without pain."
Murmurs rippled through the gathered crowd—rcenaries, heretics, scavengers, and fools who thought ancient power ca without a price.
"That way, you die fast," Ian continued. "Consider it a kindness. A trade. Your swift death for he relics."
He tilted his head, voice softening just slightly.
"But if you'd rather die screaming—shattered, swallowed, and remade into sothing less than nothing…"
He gestured toward the ever-closing circle of shadows.
"…I'm happy to oblige."
The response was always the sa.
A rcenary charged forward, roaring—a man with spiked hair and half his face lted, twin axes glowing red-hot in his hands.
"You piece of shit!" he howled. "You think you'll get away with this?!"
Ian blinked once. Then tilted his head, inspecting him like a curious animal.
"Think?" he echoed, the word a quiet amusent. He smiled.
Not kindly.
"I don't think I'll get away with it."
His voice dropped, quiet enough to make the crowd lean in without realizing it.
"I know I will. Because none of you will be left alive to tell the tale."
That was when Caelen stepped up beside him. Longcoat flicking in the wind. Face unreadable, as always. One hand rested on the hilt of his blade.
His eyes swept over the sea of dood souls, judging them as unworthy.
Ian glanced at him, almost casually.
"Anyone you care about in that crowd?"
Lyra's voice was flat. Unmoved.
"No."
Ian nodded once. "Good."
Then he raised Judgent.
And the sword scread.
Not a sound. A lack of one. A silence so sharp it tore through every other noise. A silence that bent the world inward. The kind of stillness that cos right before the gods decide to blink.
Ian's eyes lit up—cold, brilliant gray.
And the world shifted.
[Crown of the Forgotten.]
He didn't chant it. Didn't shout.
He just said it.
And then it began.
A wave of death magic erupted from him—first a whisper, then a roar. The pressure made the air heavy, like it rembered every corpse that had ever rotted in this valley.
Bones felt brittle. Torches dimd. The sky—already starless—sohow grew darker.
A do of shadow burst outward.
Veils of black spiraling across the ruin, swallowing light. Sigils ignited in the air—twisting, ancient things that no living tongue rembered.
The ground cracked beneath Ian's feet, spiraling outward in perfect, terrible symtry.
And everyone caught within the spiral?
Already lost.
Then the shadows changed.
The skeleton warriors warped, growing taller, more refined. Bones reforged with tal, sealed with obsidian. Their eyes blazed from violet to burning white. One grew wings of shadowglass. Another's arms lted into blade-hooks.
The beasts followed. Bones stretched. Armor fused into skin. Smoke spilled from new mouths. One let out a shriek so pure and violent it shattered a brazier—fla extinguished in a blink.
They weren't just undead anymore.
They were perfected.
They weren't bound by magic.
They were bound by legacy.
And in the heart of it all, Ian stood.
Still. Unshaken.
He didn't flinch. He didn't pose.
He simply raised a hand.
No speech. No ceremony.
Just words.
"To all soulbound," he said.
No echo. Just command.
Sharp as a blade. Heavy as the grave.
His eyes burned brighter.
"Kill them all."
Reviews
All reviews (0)