Daemon lifted his gaze to the sky, where darkness twisted in a ballet of shifting shadows.
Around him, the dark forest seemed to bow, bent under the invisible weight of what was coming. The wind, heavy with dust and Umbra, lashed at his black cloak, lifting its edges like the wings of some corrupted beast ready to spread. Each gust carried the acrid scent of dead earth, a perfume of decay he had learned to savor.
A twisted smile tugged at his split lips.
At last.
He had waited. Day after day. Night after night. Lurking in the shadows of his thoughts, gnawing at his frustration like a starving beast, eyes locked on that arrogant mountain rising on the horizon: the Golden Tree Academy. Bastion of light. Monument of arrogance. Symbol of everything he despised.
"Your turn has come."
His hordes, a seething sea of broken figures and malformed creatures, stood back, hidden among the trees, cloaked in shadow. Some of the Infested growled with impatience, their twisted throats releasing guttural, raspy groans. Others, more Altered, rocked back and forth like beasts chained before the slaughter. But none moved without his signal.
He alone commanded.
He alone was their master.
And above him... The sky had finally answered.
The Black Moon, a shattered carcass suspended in the heavens, throbbed with unholy light. Clouds wrapped around it like tentacles, smothering the stars. Then came the rumble: deep, guttural, a vibration that crawled through the bones of his soldiers.
'Mother...'
The word formed in Daemon's mind. A whisper. A prayer.
His heart, if it still beat, throbbed in unison.
But it wasn't for him. Not tonight.
'An Ascension?'
The word echoed within him like a rejection. Someone, up there, was attempting to climb toward the light.
'How ironic, to seek elevation while the world's roots sank into corruption.'
But he didn't care. Whether it was an Ardent, an Exalted, or some blessed child, Ascension always called chaos. It opened a breach, a fracture in the walls of the Academy and the Lumic Order.
And tonight, that breach would be a blessing. Their defenses would falter. Their focus would be elsewhere.
This would be his moment.
His hour.
The wind intensified, tossing his stark white hair.
He tugged on the reins of his mount, an Hollowborn beast, a titanic mass of blackened flesh and chitin plates, its glowing red eyes piercing the dark.
Taming the creature had been a feat in itself. Riding it into battle... an act of defiance against the laws of the world.
But to Daemon, laws were merely chains begging to be broken.
He raised his hand, palm open to the sky.
And the first dark lightning tore through the heavens.
A tongue of shadow burst from the clouds, ripping through the air with an apocalyptic roar. That twisted light spread across the deformed faces of his soldiers, revealing gleaming fangs and ravenous eyes.
Daemon tilted his head back, and laughed. A deep, rasping sound, echoing with madness and triumph entwined.
"Oh, Mother…" he whispered. "Your fury is beautiful."
The lightning came again, and again, each bolt striking the earth with insatiable hunger. Ash spiraled through the air. Shadows danced like spirits unbound. Daemon inhaled deeply, the scent of lightning flooding his senses.
"You reject their light, don't you?" he murmured, lifting his gaze to the Black Moon. "Then watch me. Watch what I'll do to them."
A promise of blood. A promise of the end.
But he couldn't linger.
His eyes, pools of shadow rimmed with crimson glow, shifted to the horizon. There it stood, like a challenge carved from defiance: the mountain of the Golden Tree.
Its jagged slopes shimmered in the pale flicker of lightning, whispering ancient warnings. Centuries of knowledge, of defenses, of sacred rites stood behind those walls. But tonight…
Tonight, knowledge would burn. Defenses would fall. And rites would be defiled.
"Your prayers will stop nothing. Your walls will hold nothing. And your songs… will drown in screams."
He lowered his arm. The horde moved. The ground trembled.
Step by step, the monsters marched, pounding the earth beneath their feet.
Waves of crawling shadow unfurled, slithering across the land like trails of venom. Infested creatures leapt from stone to stone, claws ready to rip. The towering Altered stretched open their mangled jaws in silent cries.
Even the mountain seemed to shudder beneath the weight of this black tide.
"March, my children...
Scour the earth of their memory.
Snuff out their torches.
Smother their voices."
Daemon drove his heels into the sides of the Hollowborn. The beast roared and surged forward.
The winds tore at his face, but he didn't blink. Every second brought him closer, to the summit, to the sanctuary, to the beating heart of those who had dared to defy him.
The Academy thought itself a beacon of hope?
It would become a tomb.
Another bolt split the sky.
He grinned, lips split wide.
"It's time for a few sacrifices!" he shouted, louder now, voice crackling with glee. "Let blood call to blood!"
And beneath the Black Moon, the mass of creatures began their ascent of the mountain.
_ _ _
Gaël had been holding his breath for long seconds when the lightning storm finally ceased.
A final rumble echoed through the air, slowly fading into the oppressive silence that fell over the sanctuary. Above, blackened clouds drifted, veiling the shattered moon, but Gaël no longer paid them any mind.
His eyes were locked on her.
Astraéa.
She was there, kneeling on the cracked stone tiles.
Her hands, fingers bone-white with tension, were pressed hard against the ground, as if holding herself in place, or keeping the earth from swallowing her whole.
Her shoulders trembled.
Not a faint shiver… but violent, uncontrollable convulsions.
Around her, the floor was laced with radiant fissures, glowing with a golden light so intense that Gaël's eyes burned, tears streaking his face. And still, he didn't look away.
'Beautiful.'
That was the first thought that pierced through him.
Not because of the light. Not because of the near-sacred scene playing out before him.
Because of her.
That girl, head bowed, dark strands of hair plastered to sweat-slick skin, breath ragged, body on the verge of collapse… But still upright. Still there. And it was unfair.
So horribly unfair.
The beauty of that light held him captive as tightly as the pain it brought clenched his heart.
'Why does she have to suffer so much…?'
A shadow slipped into his field of vision. The Grand Druid.
Ambrosius advanced with the measured slowness of someone who understood the weight of every step. His long cloak brushed the fractured stones, and his gaze, intense, unwavering, settled on Astraéa's faltering form. The air around him trembled with lingering energy as he raised a hand slightly, ready to intervene...
When her voice cut through the silence like a blade.
"No!"
The cry was hoarse, broken… but unyielding.
It echoed under the sanctuary's arches, and everything froze.
Even the wind.
Her fingers dug into the stone, knuckles white with strain.
She lifted her head. And Gaël saw her eyes.
A storm.
One eye, blazing gold, pulsing like a miniature sun.
The other, drowned in such endless black that he swore he saw the echo of the void itself.
"Don't come any closer… It's not over," she breathed, voice trembling, but resolute.
Gaël felt his throat tighten.
'Not over? What more could she possibly endure?'
And then... It happened.
The air thickened. The space around her drew inward, as though the world itself was holding its breath with her.
The golden fissures on her skin pulsed… And from one of them, something dark began to ooze. Slow. Inevitable. Like reversed blood.
And then... Darkness erupted.
It burst from her like a geyser of shadow, swallowing the light, flinging black shards like fragments of materialized night.
The sanctuary quaked beneath the onslaught.
Candles were snuffed out.
The lingering radiance devoured by an abyssal wave.
Around Gaël, some students stumbled back in panic, fear etched into their pale faces. One of them dropped to his knees, gasping for air.
'It's like… drowning,' Gaël thought, heart pounding like a war drum.
But it wasn't the darkness that truly terrified them.
It was her.
"She… she's going to kill us all!" someone stammered behind him.
"That's… that's not human…" sobbed another voice, barely more than a whisper, lost in the howl of the wind.
Astraéa rose, slowly. Arms outstretched, as if embracing the very shadows that coiled around her.
Her face no longer bore the look of a frightened girl.
Her features, once twisted by pain, had smoothed into something else... A strange serenity. Or was it resignation? Her eyes… gods, those eyes.
Gold and void, swirling together in a cosmic dance.
Gaël wanted to scream, to reach out and pull her back. But no voice came. It was like watching the sea consume the shore… and knowing nothing could stop it.
And in that screaming blackness…
She whispered:
"I'm searching for balance…"
But the Umbra...
The Umbra didn't want balance.
The Umbra wanted everything.