The pickaxes struck the stone with a dull thud, vibrating up our arms. It was a rhythm. Thud. Breath. Thud. Breath. The Azure Rift Mine was a cacophony of suffering. The sound of metal on rock, the crack of whips, the coughing of demons whose lungs were slowly turning to stone from the mana dust. The air was hot enough to blister skin, heavy with the metallic taste of raw magic.
"Dig faster, scum!"
A whip lashed out, catching the old demon from the night before the one who had given me his bread across the back. He stumbled, gasping, dropping his pickaxe.
"I… I am trying, master," the old man wheezed, clutching his chest. The human guard raised his whip again. "Don't talk back to me, beast."
I watched from the corner of my eye. I didn't stop swinging my pickaxe. Thud. Thud. This was the "hell" the old man had promised. Just another day in the humans empire. But as I worked, I wasn't just mining ore. I was listening. I listened to the groan of the earth. The humans had dug too greedily here. The walls were weeping mana, the structural integrity held together by hastily inscribed containment wards.
I listened to the hum of the collars. Grade 3 Suppression. Flawed. And deeper, far below the soles of my boots, I listened to something else. A heartbeat. Faint, rhythmic, and angry. It was a pulse that no human could feel, but to me. It felt like home.
"Commander on deck!" a voice bellowed.
The work slowed. Overseer Kaelen walked down the main tunnel, flanked by two Paladins in full plate and the Elven Ranger the commander from yesterday. Kaelen looked out of place in the filth, his white robes magically repelling the dirt. He held a handkerchief to his nose.
"Production is down three percent," Kaelen announced, his voice amplified by magic. "The Empire requires more stones for the barriers generators. If the quota is not met by sundown, rations will be cut for the entire sector."
A murmur of despair rippled through the demons.
"Silence!" Kaelen snapped. He pointed a gloved finger at the old man, who was still struggling to stand. "You. You're slowing the line. Examples must be made."
He nodded to the guard. "Throw him in the Pit."
The old man's eyes went wide. The Pit wasn't a prison; it was a disposal chute for unstable mana waste. It was a death sentence.
"No, please!" the old man cried as the guard grabbed him. "I can work! "I can. "
The guard dragged him toward the edge of the chasm. I stopped swinging my pickaxe. This wasn't in the plan. The plan was to wait until the shift changes, disable the wards, and slip into the lower levels unnoticed. Saving one old demon served no tactical purpose. It risked exposure. It was irrational. But as I watched the old man's terrified face, I remembered the taste of the moldy bread he'd given me. "Because we are all that is left. "I sighed.
Fuck It Plans Change.
I dropped my pickaxe. It clattered loudly against the stone. The sound cut through the noise of the mine. The guard paused. Kaelen turned his head, his eyes narrowing as they landed on me.
"Pick it up," Kaelen ordered, his voice bored.
I stepped out of the line. My posture changed. The slump in my shoulders vanished. I rolled my neck, feeling the vertebrae pop.
"I said, pick it up, filth," Kaelen repeated, a vein throbbing in his forehead.
"No," I said.
The word hung in the air, heavier than the stone ceiling. The other demons stopped working. They stared at me with a mix of horror and confusion. Even the Oni, working a few meters away, looked up. Kaelen blinked. He looked at the Elven Commander, then back to me, a cruel smile spread across his face.
"A rebel? Wonderful. I was getting bored." He gestured to the higher rank guards called Paladins. "Kill him slowly I like to watch. Then throw him in with the old one."
The two Paladins stepped forward, drawing mana-infused swords. They were fast for humans, moving with the weight of practiced killers. The first one swung for my knee. I didn't dodge. I didn't step back. I looked at the shadow cast by the Paladin's massive frame. To anyone else, it was just an absence of light. To me, it was clay. The shadow on the ground surged upward, defying physics. It solidified instantly, forming a jagged, obsidian-black gauntlet around my left arm.
CLANG.
The heavy mace struck my shadow-armored forearm and stopped dead. The impact shook the floor, but I didn't move an inch. The Paladin's eyes went wide behind his visor. He tried to pull his weapon back, but the shadow gauntlet morphed, tendrils of darkness shooting out to wrap around the handle.
"You should be careful where you stand," I whispered, my voice dropping an octave. "The dark bites."
I reached out with my free hand, fingers splayed. The shadows in the corner of the room leaped to my command, coalescing into my palm. They twisted and hardened, forming a long, serrated blade of pure darkness crackling with purple energy.
I swung.
The shadow blade cut through the Paladin's breastplate like it was wet parchment paper. He flew backward, slamming into his partner. The shadow weapon didn't just cut; it passed through them like a phantom, leaving no blood, only a cold, paralyzing shock that dropped them both instantly. Silence. Absolute, terrified silence. I flexed my hand, and the shadow sword dissolved into smoke, only to reform instantly as a heavy spear. I looked at the iron cuff on my wrist. "Grade 3," I muttered. "Insulting." The shadows around my feet swirled violently, rising like a tide. They lashed out, shattering the cuffs on my wrists and the collar on my neck. The iron fragments didn't fall to the floor; they were swallowed by the darkness. Kaelen took a step back, his face draining of color. "An Umbramancer? That... that's the power of the demon king. What are you?"
The Elven Commander didn't ask questions. He was already moving, his bow drawn. Three arrows, glowing with wind magic, streaked toward my heart. Fast. Precision targeting. I didn't even lift my weapon. The shadow cast by my own body rose up, forming a solid wall of black. The arrows struck it and shattered.
"You have good aim, Elf," I said, the wall dissolving back into the floor. "But you can't kill what you can't touch."
The Elf's eyes narrowed. He dropped the bow and drew twin curved daggers, blurring toward me. He was faster than the Paladins, weaving through the dim light. He slashed at my throat. I parried with my shadow spear, the collision of Dwarven steel and hardened darkness sending sparks flying. He spun, slashing for my tendons. I stomped my foot. Spikes of shadow erupted from the ground, forcing him to backflip away to avoid being run through.
"Why fight for him?" I asked, twirling the shadow spear in my hand. "He calls you a rat. He spits on your people."
"Orders are orders," the Elf grunted, crouching low.
"Bad orders," I whispered.
I thrust my hand forward. The spear in my hand elongated, shooting across the room like a piston. The Elf barely brought his daggers up in time. The force of the impact launched him backward, sending him crashing into Kaelen and both into the wall. I stood alone in the center of the tunnel, the darkness writhing around me like a loyal pet. The demons were staring at me, not with hope, but with primal fear. They recognized the power. It was the power of the Umbramancer. Kaelen scrambled to his feet; his pristine robes stained with dirt. He looked agitated.
"Kill him! Everyone! Attack!" He began to chant, holy light gathering in his hands for a Smite spell. "By the grace of the Goddess, be purged, Umbramancer!"
I looked at him, and for the first time, I let the mask fall completely. My eyes, usually a dull brown, bled into a luminescent violet. The shadows in the mine seemed to stretch toward me, bowing in reverence.
"You think light scares me, Kaelen?" I asked, walking toward him. "Light just makes the shadows stronger."
Kaelan screamed as he fired the spell. A lance of blinding holy light hot enough to melt steel struck my chest. Holy light sprayed into my chest and vanished. The shadows didn't resist it. They closed around it, compressed it, crushed it into nothing. The brilliance died without so much as a flicker, smothered like it had never existed. Kaelen froze. I raised my hand. A colossal shadow hand developed in the air and seized him around the waist, snapping his spine instantly as it dragged him upward. He swung there, ten feet off the ground. His eyes met mine. Understanding hit him then. The shadows surged into my grip, solidifying instantly. They didn't form a hand this time. They twisted and hardened into a long, jagged snath, culminating in a curved blade of absolute void a scythe of condensed ebony magic.
Kaelen sucked in a breath. Not to pray. To scream.
I swung.
The shadow scythe passed through him vertically, from the crown of his head straight down through his core. There was no sound from the blade, only the sudden, horrifying absence of resistance. For one suspended moment, Kaelen remained whole. Then the line appeared. His body separated into two perfect halves, clean and precise, the darkness between them still humming as it finished consuming what remained of him. The shadow hand released. Both halves struck the stone floor in silence. The mine answered with a low, angry groan. The mountain shifted. Dust poured from the ceiling in choking waves.
"The pillars!" the Elf Commander shrieked, his eyes fixated on the severed corpse, his face drained of all color. "You... you monster! You'll bring the whole mountain down!"
I ignored him, shouting at the demons to scatter, before walking through the spreading pool of Kaelan's blood to the edge of the drop. I looked down into the infinite darkness of the Pit. To anyone else, it was just a void. But to me? It was a canvas. I could feel the four massive, complex binding circles glowing faintly in the depths. "Where are you going?" the Oni from the mess hall shouted from the crowd, his voice trembling as he looked from me to the bisected body.
"I'm... I'm sorry." We both said.
I paused at the edge. The shadows around me calmed, the scythe dissolving back into a cloak of smoke that draped over my shoulders.
"I'm not escaping, if that's what you think," I said, my voice echoing through the cavern, darker than the abyss below. "I'm not here for freedom. And I'm not here for revenge."
I pointed a finger down into the deep.
"I'm here for the General."
I stepped off the ledge. As I fell into the darkness, the wind rushing past my ears, I smiled. I didn't fall helplessly; the shadows wrapped around me, a protective cocoon guiding my descent.
Four targets. Four gods of war.
IGNIS. TERRA. VENTUS. MARE.
Terra was here.