Moments before, Lisa's hushed voice had laid out her entire plan. Her gift, she'd revealed, allowed glimpses only seconds to minutes into the future. She had feared speaking of it earlier, unwilling to risk any premature mention altering the delicate threads of possibility, costing them their small advantage. Hanz had taken it as well as one could expect; Zuberi, a rational man, found her reasoning sound then, as he did now.
"It's coming." Lisa's voice, a low thrum, nearly vanished in the wind whistling through the stone seats. She stood at the center of their defensive circle, a fragile nexus of calm in their collective fear. Her eyes closed, her slight frame seemed translucent against the crimson-streaked sky. "We need to be ready. This thing feels—hungry."
Zuberi watched her, his knuckles going numb as his grip tightened around his spear's shaft. The air buzzed with oppressive energy. A palpable pressure vibrated in his bones and made his teeth ache—a sinister, twisted echo of the potent aura from his den.
"The plan is simple," Hanz said, eying everyone in quick succession. "Well, as simple as it gets in this god-damned place." He grunted, voice tight with tension. He hefted his shadow-weapon, its dark, irregular form swallowing the dying light, a patch of deeper night in the gloom. "The kid and I push for its core. Lisa says it's that black whirlpool-like thing towards the back of the arena. We try to disrupt whatever holds it together. You two," he jerked his chin at Zuberi and Shifty, "keep everything else off Lisa. I still don't know why we're fighting this thing when its minions nearly killed us last time, but…" He squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling his frustration. "She's our only chance out." His gaze on his sister, protective and fearful, hardened.
Eli, pale but resolute, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Hanz. A faint, ethereal luminescence already gathered around his small hands, pulsing softly. He looked like a child playing at war, yet there was a grim set to his jaw that spoke of a courage Zuberi found humbling. Shifty, a coiled spring of iridescent scales and powerful muscle, let out a low hiss, her frilled neck membranes pulsing with an agitated, warning gold light. Her multicolored eyes, usually bright with curiosity, were narrowed, fixed on the encroaching shadows.
"Stick to the plan," Lisa said in a whisper, her voice gaining a sudden, unexpected firmness. Her eyes snapped open, pupils dilated into black pools that reflected the crimson sky, making her look like a prophetess of doom. "No matter what you see, no matter what you feel. It will try to break us apart. It will feed on our fear, our despair. Don't let it."
Zuberi nodded, a knot tightening in his stomach. Feed on fear. He knew that feeling, the cloying tendrils of hopelessness the creature's distant roars had instilled.
Then, as if summoned by Lisa's words, it was upon them.
Not as a singular entity, not at first. The air thickened, grew heavy, the metallic scent intensifying until it was almost choking. From the deepest shadows pooling around the amphitheater's crumbling edges, smaller, nightmarish forms detached themselves—wraithlings. They were skittering, multi-limbed horrors, their bodies indistinct and fluid, moving with an unnatural, jerky speed that defied tracking. A chittering tide of shadowy abominations swarmed towards Lisa, their collective intent a palpable wave of malice.
Zuberi met them head-on, his spear a blur of motion. He felt the familiar, welcome surge as his senses sharpened, the world around him slowed a fraction, allowing him to track their erratic, impossible movements. Each thrust and parry was precise, instinct guiding his limbs. He felt a savage satisfaction as his spearpoint met yielding shadow, a puff of acrid smoke the only testament to a wraithling's unmaking. Beside him, Shifty was a whirlwind of gold and green, a dervish of tooth, claw, and searing energy. Focused beams of intense heat lanced through the wraithling ranks, leaving trails of vaporized shadow and the stench of burnt ozone. They formed a desperate, embattled wall around Lisa, who remained unnervingly still at the eye of the storm, her gaze fixed on something beyond the immediate, frenetic chaos, her lips moving silently.
Across the ruined arena, Hanz and Eli advanced into the deepening gloom. A shield of pure, impenetrable shadow, darker than the encroaching night itself, shimmered into existence around Hanz, its edges wavering like heat haze. It deflected the few wraithlings that, with suicidal fervor, veered towards their advance. Eli, a small, defiant beacon in the growing darkness, sent pulses of radiant, golden energy lancing into the deeper shadows from which the wraithlings emerged. Each blast of light was met with an unearthly, high-pitched shriek, a sound that scraped at Zuberi's nerves.
They were holding. For a breathless, precarious moment, Zuberi allowed a sliver of hope to pierce the oppressive dread. Perhaps, just perhaps, they could weather this.
Then, the fragile balance shattered. Eli, his face contorted in a silent scream of effort, stumbled. The radiance around his hands sputtered, flickered, and died like a snuffed candle. He crumpled to the ground, a small, broken figure, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Kid!" Hanz's roar was a mixture of fury and terror. His shadow shield wavered—a fatal mistake, the one thing they couldn't afford.
It was the opening the true Dreadwraith had been waiting for.
From the roiling heart of the swirling darkness at the far end of the amphitheater, a larger, more substantial form began to coalesce. It was a being of pure nightmare and animated shadow, towering over Hanz, its shape vaguely humanoid but hideously distorted, its edges dissolving into tendrils of misty smoke that writhed like tormented serpents. This was the faceless, robed statue from his Den of Power, now pulsing with terrible, malevolent life. Hanz, caught off guard, his attention divided, tried to re-form his shield, but the Dreadwraith's power was immense, a palpable wave of crushing despair that rolled across the arena. The shadow construct buckled under the assault, then shattered into a million dissipating fragments. Hanz, with a choked cry, disappeared under a torrent of crushing, suffocating darkness.
A raw, desperate sound tore from Zuberi's throat. He saw Hanz go down, saw Lisa's face, previously a mask of focused concentration, contort in a silent scream of terror. He felt the tide of wraithlings, emboldened by their master's attack, pressing in with renewed ferocity, overwhelming Shifty's valiant defenses. He was losing. They were all losing.
No.
The word was a silent, defiant scream in the depths of his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut, not against the unfolding horror, but to find that other place, the sanctuary and crucible that was his Den of Power. He reached for it, not with coherent thought, but with a primal, desperate need that transcended reason, that very same instinct that pushes a newborn to inhale. The chaotic sounds of battle, the shrieks of wraithlings, Lisa's strained cries, all faded. The world around him dissolved.
He stood once more on the polished volcanic rock, the air thrumming with an almost unbearable intensity of power. The basins of his nascent abilities, the time-bending flow, the razor-sharp perception, the enduring fortitude, pulsed with a soft, inviting light, but he ignored them. They were not enough. Not for this. He strode with a desperate certainty towards the deeper chamber, towards the incandescent lake of fire, the suspended corona of pure, untamed flame that burned with the heart of a captive sun. He needed more. He needed everything.
He plunged his awareness into the fire, bracing for the familiar, soul-chilling cold that had previously met him. But this time, there was no resistance, no icy counterpoint, only searing, consuming heat that threatened to incinerate his very consciousness. Yet, he did not burn. He became the fire. He felt pebbles of power, countless and brilliant, rushing from the central mound, not into the carefully prepared basins, but directly into him, a torrent of raw energy, fueling the inferno within, pushing his nascent gift beyond its limits, far beyond any limit he had known or imagined. It was agony, a feeling of being torn apart and remade in an instant, but it was also power.
Zuberi's eyes snapped open, the red glow of the dying sun reflecting in their fiery depths.
Flames erupted from him, a roaring, incandescent inferno that blasted outwards in a concussive wave, incinerating the wraithlings closest to him, pushing back the suffocating darkness. The fire wasn't just around him; it was him. It seared his skin, scorched his lungs with every ragged breath, but it was a clean pain, a pain of power unleashed, a desperate defiance against the encroaching night. He stood, a pillar of living fire, a desperate, defiant sun in the heart of the dying world. The strain was immense, his muscles screaming, his head pounding, the overclocked energy threatening to tear him apart from the inside.
"Come on, come on, come on…" Lisa's voice, strained, clear, cut through the roar of his flames and the cacophony of battle. "Please. Just a little longer." She wasn't addressing him, Zuberi realized. Pain wracked him, blurring his perception.
Through the shimmering curtain of his own fire, he saw what he thought was Hanz, struggling to rise from the spot where the Dreadwraith had struck him down. He was a broken silhouette, barely moving. The larger shadow of the Dreadwraith was solidifying further, a skeletal, nightmarish figure emerging from its shifting core, bone-white and razor-sharp, tendrils of solidified darkness reaching for Hanz, coiling around his throat like spectral ropes.
Then, a miracle, or something very much like it. Eli, on his hands and knees, head bowed as if in prayer or utter exhaustion, suddenly flared with light. It wasn't the gentle, pulsing luminescence from before, but a blinding, sun-like radiance that exploded outwards, pushing back the skeletal figure, severing its shadowy tendrils with ethereal blades of pure light. The light was pure, intense, and for a precious moment, it held the greater darkness at bay, carving a sanctuary of brilliance in the oppressive gloom. Hanz coughed, a ragged, desperate sound, as the tendrils released him.
The Dreadwraith recoiled from Eli's unexpected nova, a soundless snarl rippling through the air, a distortion that Zuberi felt in his teeth. It seemed to draw strength from the remaining, cowering wraithlings, the smaller shadows dissolving, flowing into its larger form like streams into a black, hungry river. Its power swelled, its presence becoming even more crushing. The amphitheater, already dim, plunged into an oily, suffocating blackness, the last vestiges of the red sun vanishing as if devoured by a celestial beast.
The voice returned to Zuberi's mind, no longer just cold contempt, but now laced with an unsettling, silken persuasion that slid into the cracks of his resolve like ice water. "Why do you struggle so, little flames? Such fragile things, burdened by so much pain, so many regrets, such weariness." Zuberi felt the words try to soothe, to bypass his defenses. "This world… it merely changes. As all things must. It is not an ending you truly face, but a release, a merging into something vast and eternal. I can take it all from you. Your fear. Your failures. Your wounds. They are so very heavy, aren't they?" The voice was a caress, a venomous comfort. "Let me carry this burden for you. It will be a relief, a quiet, final peace." The mental intrusion was a violation, sending shivers of dread down Zuberi's spine despite the inferno raging around him. He risked a glance at Lisa; her eyes were squeezed shut, face contorted in a silent battle, her knuckles white where she gripped her own arms, clearly fighting the insidious mental violation with every ounce of her will.
Zuberi's fire flickered, the immense strain of maintaining it becoming unbearable. The pebbles of power he had drawn upon burned out, their energy dwindling to embers. Doubt, cold and sharp as a shard of ice, pierced through the haze of his power-induced rage. His vision swam. A faint, steadying warmth from Eli's direction barely registered through the roaring in his ears, a subtle current of the boy's aura attempting to shore up Zuberi's failing power, but it was like trying to fill a sieve with water. He had nothing left.
A hole punched through the dimming plasma of his protective bubble. The inky, metallic goo outside hissed, a hungry sound, as it exploited the weakness, seeping through the new opening. It sizzled against the weakening edges of the shield, the breach widening under its assault. A lance of pure, concentrated shadow, impossibly fast, impossibly black, shot from the heart of the oily darkness, aimed directly at his faltering, fiery heart.
He couldn't move, couldn't react. His overtaxed body refused to obey. He could only watch it come, a silent scream trapped in his burning throat.
Then, a battered figure stumbled into its path. Hanz. His face was a mask of blood, grime, and sheer, indomitable will, but his eyes burned with a defiant, feral spark. His shadow-weapon had changed. It was longer, sleeker, no longer a boxy amalgam of metallic rectangles, but a longer rectangle with two handles beneath, its dark material humming with a new, dangerous power. He didn't try to block the enemy projectile. Instead, he leveled the weapon. Zuberi heard him snarl, the words clear despite the chaos, a raw epithet that was pure, undiluted Hanz. "Carry this, motherfucker!" Then, he fired.
A bolt of concentrated shadow, so dense it seemed to tear a momentary hole in the oppressive darkness, erupted from the muzzle of the transformed weapon. It slammed into the incoming shadow lance with a deafening implosion of energies, shattering it into a thousand dissipating wisps. The impact of the recoil threw Hanz backwards like a discarded doll, his body slamming hard against the stone. But his shot, impossibly, miraculously, continued its trajectory, a spear of focused annihilation, striking the skeletal core of the Dreadwraith.
The creature shrieked, a sound that wasn't merely heard but felt, a psychic scream that tore at Zuberi's sanity, threatening to unravel his being.
Darkness, utter and complete, came then.
Fragmented images, sharp and fleeting, swam before Zuberi's fading consciousness, like shards of a broken dream. Shifty, a streak of desperate gold, shielding a weeping Lisa. Hanz, a crumpled, unmoving silhouette against a final, dying flare of some distant, unseen light. His own body, heavy, unresponsive, the fire within him extinguished, leaving only an aching cold. The taste of blood and ash filled his mouth. And then—her.
As the remaining sliver of the red sun finally died, plunging the world into the absolute but ephemeral starless blackness that would last until the blue sun rose moments later. In between those two moments, a new light shone. Ethereal. Gentle. A figure stood at the ravaged edge of the amphitheater, bathed in a soft, pearlescent glow that seemed to emanate from within. Her skin was a deep, matte black, smooth and flawless, dusted with subtle, darker freckles across her nose and cheeks. Iridescent wings, like a dragonfly wrought in moonlight and nebula-dust, unfurled from her back, catching the faint, otherworldly shimmer with their delicate, veined structure. Elegant, ridged horns, like ancient, polished stone, swept back from a brow crowned with intricate, dark braids that framed a face of striking, alien beauty. Her eyes, large and luminous, were a pale, icy silver, ancient and wise, that seemed to see not just him, but into the core of his soul. She wore a simple, light-colored, long-sleeved tunic that reached her mid-thigh, slit high on the sides, over dark, form-fitting leggings. A long, segmented tail, scaled and powerful, curved behind her, and her feet ended in sharp, clawed digits.
Zuberi had never truly considered what came after life. He tried to move his fingers, tried to curl them against Lisa's, but they refused to obey. If this striking figure was the dark reaper, only half of him was surprised. He had always seen death as the great equalizer, pulling down prophets and merchants, chiefs and common tribesmen to the same inevitable end. And if death had a form, it made sense it would be as unreachably graceful and lethal as an apex predator itself. Pure, unbounded, lethal grace.