The void creature cried out, liquid form contorting in a whiplash of doubt. Asher sensed it—the faint lag in power, the chink in the creature's smothering form.
It would not last, however.
"You may not harness the light," the voice struck his mind, sharper now, more detached. "You are a creature of the darkness. The void courses in your veins."
Asher disregarded it. His arms wrapped around the remnants of sacred energy, the final fragments of the High Architect's authority remaining within the broken ruin. It was small—flickering, momentary wisps—but it was sufficient.
The instant lingered. Then Asher moved.
He launched himself, his body enveloped in a ridiculous, unstable blend of void and sacred energy. The beast struck back, a score of tendrils slashing through space to devour him.
Asher did not crouch.
Rather, he jumped into them.
Releasing a shock of unadulterated power, he sliced through the tendrils, holy light and dark shadow crashing together in a whirlwind of madness. The strike rocked the Cathedral, destroying what was left of its walls to rubble.
The creature screamed, its body contorting uncontrollably.
Ardyn recoiled, his hands slapped over his eyes from the mayhem. "What the hell did you just do?"
Asher did not respond. He had no time. The creature was adapting—its wounds healing quicker, its tendrils becoming something harder, deadlier.
The temporary lead was gone.
"Interesting," the voice said. "You are more than I anticipated."
Then, the air grew heavy.
The creature's shape grew, spreading into something even more terrible. Its void-born limbs stretched out, shadows curling into jagged, blade-like protrusions. The air grew thick, heavy with crushing weight.
Asher's breathing froze.
This thing—whatever it was in life—was adapting in the heat of combat.
"Enough tricks," it spat. "You will be devoured."
And then it hit.
The power behind its strike was something new this time. Quicker. Stronger. Smarter.
Asher didn't have a chance to move before he was struck.
Pain washed over him as he was tossed across the room, crashing into a pillar with rattling bones. He spat, the taste of blood like metal in his mouth. His arms and legs pounded. His vision blurred.
"Asher!" Ardyn bellowed.
He tried to stand, but the creature beat him to it, its shape blotting out all light.
"You burn hot, little wizard," the voice stated, low and sneering. "But all fires burn out."
It stretched out towards him.
Tendrils of nothing encircled his form, constricting, pulling, consuming—
And Asher felt something inside him shatter.
A feeling unlike anything else. A tug. A hunger.
Something within him stirred.
His sight was filled with blackness—not the creature's, but his own.
The power he'd usurped, the line he'd crossed, the hollowness that'd long been inside him—stirred.
The shadows that'd clung to him throbbed. Riped. Moved.
"No," Asher snarled, his voice thick with something more.
The bonds that'd kept him contained dissolved.
The creature swayed, a flash of honest shock coursing through its shape.
Asher stood up, the darkness itself no longer resistant to his desires—but compliant to them.
"You're correct about one thing," he said to her, his silver eyes now streaked with black veins of raw void energy. "I am a creature of shadow."
He balled his fist. The abyss responded.
"But that doesn't mean you get to devour me."
Then, he attacked.