The distant clocktower's chime floated up into the night.
The balcony of the inn — the same balcony where Kairo and Elyra had been dancing only minutes earlier — still glowed with warm lantern-light. Soft golden reflections skimmed across Elyra's dress, brushing her shoulders like drifting fireflies.
But now…
Now the balcony felt cold.
"What do you mean you don't want to look for him…?"
Elyra's voice trembled as she stepped closer, her fingers tightening around the fabric of her dress.
Faran stood near the railing, lantern-light outlining the tension in his posture. His face was calm — too calm — but his eyes carried something sharp beneath the surface.
"We can't."
Elyra blinked, disbelief hollowing her expression.
"What do you mean we…?"
Her breath stuttered.
"Kairo just vanishes… and you don't even care…"
Her voice cracked.
"Mister Faran…
how could you be so heartless…?"
Her shoulders folded inward as her gaze dropped to the wooden balcony floor.
And for a moment — the world blurred.
She remembered:
The music drifting faintly from the inn.
The lanterns swaying in the night breeze.
Kairo's fingers brushing hers as he pulled her into a step, clumsy and shy.
Their laughter.
Her dress spinning.
His heartbeat she felt when she accidentally stepped too close.
And then —
just like that —
he was gone.
Cyran coughed, steadying himself against the railing. The lantern-light caught the thin line of blood trailing from the corner of his lip.
"Elyra," he rasped softly, "we have business we must deal with. I apologize… for your friend."
Her head turned slowly.
"…What."
She stared at him — hurt, anger, confusion all mixing into something raw and fragile.
And her eyes…
they began to water.
"What do you mean your friend?
Why are you speaking like he only mattered to me and not you—"
"Shut up."
Faran's voice cut the night in half.
Cold.
Harsh.
Louder than the music echoing through the inn behind them.
The balcony fell dead silent.
The lantern flames stopped flickering.
Even the gentle breeze froze for a heartbeat.
Elyra's eyes shimmered instantly, glassy and bright — the tears finally rising.
She opened her mouth to speak—
—but no words came.
And then she turned—
and ran.
Her dress brushed the lanterns as she burst through the doorway, disappearing into the inn's hallway, her footsteps swallowed by the night.
Faran didn't move.
Couldn't.
His jaw tightened once — the only sign he wasn't as stone-hearted as he pretended.
Cyran exhaled, the breath leaving him like a tired frost.
"You didn't have to be that harsh," he murmured.
"Did you?"
Faran didn't answer.
His eyes weren't focused on the balcony.
Not on the lanterns.
Not on the empty doorway Elyra had vanished through.
He was awake—
fully awake—
but somewhere far away.
Slowly, he reached toward his belt.
The dagger he drew wasn't the one Cyran remembered.
It should have been solid.
Rusty, yes.
Old, but still real.
Still functional.
Instead—
Faran froze.
The blade that emerged from the sheath was dead.
Truly dead.
It was corroded beyond recognition, metal eaten through as if by centuries.
Decayed.
Withered.
Hollowed out from the inside.
A relic that looked like it had been buried for five thousand years and dug up just to crumble in the air.
A dagger with no lifespan.
Cyran's brow furrowed, but before he could speak, Faran's breath hitched—
a tiny, involuntary sound.
His mind replayed the memory he tried never to touch:
Seraphier's voice.
Soft.
Monotone.
Inhuman.
"Kenzamuke—"
And then everything went still.
Not quiet.
Still.
Birds dropping from the sky like broken arrows.
Animals collapsing mid-step.
The air turning cold enough to burn.
The entire world dying around him—
and Seraphier standing there, empty-eyed, murmuring an apology with the smile of someone who didn't understand what emotion was supposed to feel like.
The shift from silence to joy.
From death to a gentle farewell.
From a corpse to a man.
Faran hadn't forgotten.
He could never forget.
While he stared at the impossible dagger, drowning in a memory that did not belong to the living—
Pinch.
A sharp sting on his cheek.
"Hey— what was that for?"
Faran stumbled back a step, rubbing the spot where flesh still tingled.
Cyran sighed.
"I was talking to you."
The lanterns flickered softly between them, as if trying to warm a night that had suddenly grown colder.
Noah dropped from the sky like a falling star—
BANG.
A shockwave tore across the balcony, lanterns rattling as he straightened and slicked back his black hair.
"Your suspicions were right," Noah muttered.
Cyran's expression sharpened instantly.
Green eyes narrowing.
Calm replaced with steel.
Faran didn't look at him.
"This could get bad…" he murmured, distracted, half lost in the memory of a dead dagger and a colder world.
Cyran snapped:
"Noah. Get the people out of here."
Noah nodded once and launched into the sky.
The balcony fell quiet.
Too quiet.
Then—
A voice drifted through the air.
Soft.
Old.
Gentle in a way that felt carved from another age entirely.
"Pray tell…
what doom is it that so stirreth thine hearts, friends Faran… and Cyran?"
Both men turned.
A figure stood at the balcony's edge, bathed in lantern-gold.
Seraphier Lucein Vellonté.
His smile was warm.
Saintly.
Perfectly serene.
"Why doth thou quake so?
I am here, as ever, in humble accord."
And the world released a single sweat drop—
as if even the air understood
that this man was not one to speak lightly with.
Faran did not move.
His boots stayed planted on the balcony stone, shoulders squared, breath steady—but every muscle in his body tightened as if remembering a catastrophe he had survived by accident.
His eyes locked onto Seraphier.
Focused.
Unblinking.
Cold.
Slowly—deliberately—Faran raised his hand.
He reached into the air—
—and the air gave way.
As though reality itself were thin parchment, his fingers slipped through the surface of the world, vanishing up to the wrist. A faint distortion rippled outward, like water disturbed by an unseen stone.
Then—
creak.
A coffin box emerged from the rift.
Small.
Black.
Bound in twisting chains that clinked with metal older than any mortal craft.
Smoke-like vapors seeped from the cracks—smoke that didn't rise, but coiled downward, heavy and cold.
The scent it carried was wrong.
Metallic.
Rotting.
Faintly sweet—like a flower blooming in a grave.
Cyran's jaw tightened.
"So it's time," he muttered, lifting both hands.
He shifted into his stance—shoulders angled, feet locked—not drawing his bow yet.
Not until the first movement.
Faran didn't answer.
He didn't blink.
A soft, warm smile grew on Seraphier's face as he stepped forward.
His footsteps were soundless.
His posture is perfect.
His presence is gentle—too gentle.
"Let us begin,"
Seraphier spoke, the words flowing with archaic smoothness,
"if such be the course thou seekest."
It was calm.
Saintly.
Rehearsed, as though spoken a thousand times in a thousand dying worlds.
His smile did not falter.
Not even once.
The chains began to move.
Not rattling—
not clanking—
moving.
They unwrapped themselves one link at a time, sliding off the coffin like serpents shedding old skin. The box lifted gently from Faran's grasp, floating into the cold night air as if held by invisible hands.
The lantern-light dimmed.
Not flickered—
dimmed.
As though the coffin drank the glow.
The chains spiraled away, unwinding in slow, deliberate circles…
like a gift being opened.
For the first time—
Seraphier's smile faltered.
Only slightly.
Barely.
But enough that both Faran and Cyran noticed.
His eyes didn't widen, nor did he step back—
but they shifted.
A minuscule, almost imperceptible tilt of attention.
As if something that deserved his reverence…
or his caution…
had finally entered the room.
Cyran's breath hitched.
Faran reached toward the floating coffin.
It opened with a soft metal sigh.
And inside—
Faran's fingers closed around the hilt of a blade.
He drew it slowly.
A broadsword emerged—
simple in shape,
terrifying in presence.
It was black.
Too black.
Not darkness…
but the absence of light.
A void forged into steel.
The handle was carved into a grinning skull, the sockets empty and hollow, staring in every direction and none. The blade appeared rusty—
dusty—
ancient—
yet new.
New like it had never been swung.
Ancient like it had ended civilizations.
A contradiction given physical form.
Even Cyran felt it—
a whisper in the air,
a chill on the skin,
a silent question that crawled into the mind:
How many lives has this taken?
The sword hummed faintly, as if recognizing the world around it.
Or tasting it.
Faran held it with one hand.
His expression did not change.
Seraphier tilted his head, voice soft and archaic, drifting through the night like a prayer stained in dust:
"Ah…
so thou drawest that blade."
His smile returned.
Wider.
Gentler.
More wrong.
Seraphier smiled.
Softly.
Warmly.
Then—
he brought his hands together.
Clap.
A gentle sound.
A saint's applause.
And the moment it rang—
he vanished.
Faran's eyes widened—truly widened for the first time.
His lungs locked.
His heartbeat froze.
Seraphier's hand was already in front of his face, fingers hovering less than an inch from his cheek. Not striking. Not grasping.
Merely touching the air.
As if teasing him.
As if saying:
"Caught you."
In the span of a heartbeat.
But Cyran—
Cyran moved.
He did not aim his bow.
He did not notch a standard arrow.
Instead, he drew one with no tip—
a blunt head, pure wood, nothing sharp.
But the tail—
the feathered end—
was reinforced steel, jagged and lethal.
He didn't shoot it.
He threw it.
A simple toss.
Midair, spinning.
Cyran's eyes narrowed.
Then—he moved.
His foot snapped forward, striking the blunt end of the arrow like a footballer charging a ball with murderous precision.
BOOM.
The balcony cracked beneath his foot.
Wind spiraled outward from the kick.
The arrow rocketed forward—the steel tail now the leading point.
Its trajectory cut through the lantern-light—
—and intercepted Seraphier's hand.
A thin red line opened across Seraphier's skin.
His smile flickered.
Just slightly.
He stumbled back—
not in pain,
but in surprise.
In one graceful motion, Seraphier lifted himself off the balcony, feet tapping the railing as he leapt into the air, landing several meters away with dancer-like ease.
Cyran landed beside Faran, stance resetting, breath calm.
The arrow he'd "kicked" embedded into the stone behind Seraphier, still humming from the force.
Seraphier looked down at the tiny cut on his hand.
And he laughed.
Lightly.
Softly.
"A most curious strike, friend Cyran…
thine foot playeth the arrow better than bow or string."
His voice was pure velvet,
his eyes bright with saintly mischief—
and something much older.
Seraphier laughed softly—
a light, airy chuckle,
rambling in archaic cadence as if reciting poetry for an invisible audience.
And then—
He paused.
A voice drifted behind him, low and venomous:
"Got you…
you sly bitch."
Before Seraphier could turn—
SHNK.
A black blade tore clean through his shoulder.
The world reacted faster than he did.
The buildings behind him cracked—
splitting down their foundations like brittle glass.
The balcony floor cubed outward in geometric fractures,
stone turning into floating blocks before collapsing back into debris.
A shockwind exploded outward,
ripping lanterns from their hooks,
forcing Cyran to brace with both heels dug into the balcony stone.
Seraphier blinked.
His eyes widened.
He raised his hand—
and caught the blade.
Stopped it.
With one hand.
But the damage around him told the truth:
The force behind Faran's swing was absurd.
Catastrophic.
Unreasonable.
Seraphier stared at the sword lodged in his shoulder.
Then at his own hand gripping the blade.
A slow, dawning confusion washed over him.
"This blade…"
he whispered to himself, archaic tone softening,
"'tis not even sharp…"
And yet—
The destruction around him was apocalyptic.
He shifted his weight.
Lightly.
Fluidly.
Without warning, Seraphier drove a brutal kick toward Faran's stomach—
—but Faran had already moved,
vanishing backward in a burst of speed,
boots scraping stone as he widened the distance in a single motion.
Cyran didn't flinch.
He simply reset his stance, feet grounding, breath steady, hand reaching for another backwards arrow.
Seraphier stood still,
black blade buried in his shoulder,
blood trailing down his robe like ink.
And for the first time since he arrived—
his smile faltered.
Just barely.
Seraphier's eyes relaxed.
Calm.
Flat.
Emotionless.
His modern voice slipped out—cold enough to bruise the night air:
"Why do you resist."
He lifted his hand.
Slow.
Unhurried.
As if he were signaling a carriage to stop rather than triggering an apocalypse.
A black heart formed before his palm.
Not summoned.
Not conjured.
Born.
Born from the air—like something foreign forcing itself into this world.
It pulsed—
thump
—the balcony tile vibrated.
thump
—the lantern flames bent inward.
thump
—Faran's breath frosted midair.
Purple-black veins crawled across its flesh, twisting in impossible, fractal patterns that hurt to look at.
Then—
eleven more tore into existence.
Not orderly.
Not symmetrical.
They phased in, each from a different layer of reality collapsing inward.
Twelve hearts.
Twelve pulses.
Twelve anchors of corruption.
The sky dimmed.
The temperature dropped.
The air grew thick, heavy, suffocating.
Cyran moved.
He drew his bow—empty—
and light answered him.
A spear of lime-green radiance ignited on the string,
engraved in shifting constellations,
orbiting halos,
ancient glyphs spiraling along its body.
A divine arrow forged from sacred geometry.
He released.
The world cracked.
The arrow split into twelve beams mid-flight—
ricocheting between the hearts in perfect rhythm.
Every collision birthed a halo of lime-green light,
pushing back the darkness in brief cosmic flashes.
The sky flickered—
green, black, green, black—
like two universes arguing.
Seraphier didn't blink.
He whispered, modern, empty:
"…Sorrow."
The hearts imploded inward.
Faran's eyes widened.
He stepped forward—
"DON—!"
His warning never finished.
The world detonated.
A tidal wave of black-purple radiance erupted—
not fire,
not smoke—
but anti-life,
the erasure of matter.
Buildings didn't collapse;
they shattered into spinning cubes that dissolved midair.
Market stalls inverted like crushed paper.
Stone liquefied into black sludge that evaporated before touching the ground.
The earth heaved and cracked under cosmic distortion.
The shockwave slammed outward—
twisting rooftops,
melting walls,
ripping lanterns from their chains.
Everything behind them was undone.
Not destroyed.
Utterly unmade.
Faran and Cyran leapt back—
barely escaping the devouring tide of corruption.
The entire balcony dissolved into static.
Seraphier lowered his hand.
His smile returned—
gentle, saint-like,
a mask carved from holy porcelain.
His voice shifted into archaic cadence,
beautiful and unsettling:
"Doth the sundering of sacred things
not fracture thy heart,
friend Cyran?"
Behind him, the fading remnants of the black hearts hovered like dying stars—
each pulsing with corrupted divinity.
Cyran's divine arrow fragments still shimmered in the sky,
lime halos spinning defiantly against the void.
And in that moment, the ruined street of Velronia understood—
This was not a battle between men.
This was a collision between gods.
Cyran didn't hesitate.
He stepped forward—
not with his bow—
but with a single arrow gripped in reverse, tail-end forward.
The steel feather gleamed sharp under the moonlight as he dropped his bow without looking.
His expression tightened.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Focus.
The kind of focus that thins the pupils and draws the lips into a faint, hard line.
He sprinted—
cloak snapping behind him—
green hair trailing like a streak of wind.
The arrow's tail carved a clean arc as he raised it to slice Seraphier's throat.
Seraphier didn't blink.
His modern voice stayed cold.
But his expression changed.
Only slightly.
A faint lowering of the lashes.
A soft softening of the brow.
And then—
a single tear.
Not emotion.
Not heartbreak.
A tear like someone grieving a result already decided.
Effortlessly, his hand flicked outward.
Cyran's wrist snapped off course.
A flash of surprise crossed Cyran's eyes—
brief, sharp, instinctive—
before training took over.
His feet adjusted automatically—
trying to recover.
He didn't get the chance.
Seraphier's second hand rested on the back of Cyran's head.
Light pressure.
Almost gentle.
BOOM.
Cyran's skull hit the ground.
His teeth clenched from the whiplash, breath punched out of his lungs in a silent gasp.
The veins near his temples throbbed
as stone cubed outward beneath him.
The entire district shook.
Roof tiles avalanched from homes.
Sirens howled across Velronia.
Earth split in violent convulsions.
Dust rushed past Cyran's face, his green hair whipping upward in the blast of displaced air.
He tried to rise—
only for pain to spike through his shoulder, forcing him back onto one knee.
And then—
Faran moved.
His expression was something Cyran had rarely seen:
rage under perfect control.
Jaw set.
Eyes narrowed.
Breath steady and silent.
Every muscle tightened, but not shaking.
He leapt—
a front flip clean through the dust-cloud—
void-black blade gripped in both hands.
His face didn't twist or shout.
It stayed cold,
focused,
determined—
like a man swinging the final strike of his life.
He slammed the blade down toward Seraphier—
Seraphier lifted one boot.
A tiny metallic click.
A knife flipped from his heel, catching the moonlight like a sliver of judgment.
Steel met void-steel.
CLANG.
Faran's teeth ground together.
His eyes narrowed further as the force vibrated through his bones.
The shock cracked several tiles beneath them.
Still mid-air, Faran adjusted—
body twisting
—ready for a follow-up.
Seraphier was faster.
His hand pressed lightly against Faran's chest.
A flicker of disbelief crossed Faran's eyes—
just a flicker—
as the force tore through him.
THUMP.
His ribs screamed.
His breath jolted.
His grip tightened reflexively on the blade hilt.
Then the crescent kick came.
Seraphier's boot connected with Faran's jaw.
CRACK.
His head whipped sideways.
Blood sprayed.
His vision whitened.
But even as he flew—
his expression twisted into something almost feral.
Teeth grit.
Brows drawn tight.
Eyes refusing to close.
A silent vow mid-flight:
Get up.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Seraphier lowered his leg with ceremonial grace.
His face softened with genuine sorrow.
Modern voice.
Flat as death.
"…I am so sorry this is the only path…"
His eyes dimmed.
A second tear gathered.
Not grief—
something colder.
"…God chose for you."
Seraphier's tone was mourning.
Faran's body skidded across broken stone.
Cyran rose to one knee, blood lining his lip, breaths sharp, eyes burning with defiance.
And for a moment—
The entire world felt like a funeral.
And somewhere in the vast city of Velronia—
far from collapsing districts,
far from the screams,
far from the holy and the eldritch clashing like broken gods—
a girl with pink hair walked alone.
Her eyes were watery,
yet shining with that soft Arctic blue that never learned how to lie.
A crooked crown sat on her head—
a crown that matched no royalty,
no kingdom,
no throne.
Just her.
Just Elyra.
She pressed a trembling hand against her chest
where something warm once rested—
something that felt like a hand in hers,
a heartbeat beside her own.
And she whispered his name once under her breath—
too quietly for the world to hear,
but loud enough for her heart to break.
Then she stepped beyond the lanterns,
leaving the city behind.
Into the forest.
Into the cold.
Into the night.
To search for the boy
who meant everything to her.
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