It began as a whisper.
Faint at first, curling into the edges of Shun's mind like smoke slipping under a locked door then the smoke turned into carnivorous insects. Then it grew, layer upon layer, until it pressed against the inside of his skull, scraping his thoughts raw. It was not sound. It was hunger shaped into meaning.
The Black theatre was feeding him madness.
His vision swam with images that were not his own. Faces he knew warped into grotesque mockeries of humanity. His wife's gentle smile split wider, her teeth spilling from her gums in jagged spirals, each tooth a glistening needle that pulsed with its own rhythm. The swell of her belly twisted, pulsing, stretching, something inside pressing against it, clawing at the taut skin with splintered nails. He saw its silhouette, not human, not animal, but a writhing shape that folded in on itself, limbs bending at impossible angles. The cries of an unborn child filled his ears, high, sharp, and wet, as if it were being born into a world of knives. The sound burrowed into his bones, each cry a blade slicing through his resolve.
The walls of his kingdom, once proud and unbroken, now crawled with shadows that moved like veins across flesh. His people clawed at their faces, peeling skin away in strips, their eyes shining with the same black light that dripped from the monster's core. Their mouths opened wider than jaws should allow, tongues lolling out, black and glistening, curling like worms toward the sky. The theatres burned not with flame but with inverted light, illumination that devoured instead of revealed, pulling warmth and color from the world. His mind was heavy with the stench of rotting dreams, a miasma that clung to Shun's scales and sank into his lungs.
The sky bent over his world like a broken spine, sagging under the weight of something vast and unseen. Clouds churned, forming faces that screamed silently, their eyes hollow pits that wept tar. The horizon bled, streaks of crimson and black oozing across the heavens, pooling in the crevices of reality. Shun's claws dug furrows in the ground, the earth beneath him soft and yielding, as if it too were alive and suffering. Each step he took left behind a trail of bubbling ichor, the ground hissing as it consumed his footprints.
The horror of failure crushed his chest until he could barely breathe.
He was meant to protect it. All of it. His kingdom, his people, his unborn child. Yet the Black Theatre's hunger gnawed at him, whispering promises of ruin. It told him he was too small, too weak, a fleeting spark against an endless void. His heart pounded, each beat a hammer striking his ribs, threatening to shatter them. His scales, once gleaming gold, dulled to a sickly gray, as if the Theatre's shadow were draining his essence.
The whisper became a chorus. Thousands of voices screamed and laughed, all speaking his name in different tones. Some were shrill, others deep and guttural, but all carried the same message: he could not save them. He had already lost. All that awaited was surrender, to become one with the writhing mass of the Theatre's will. The voices wove together, forming a tapestry of despair that draped over his mind, suffocating his thoughts. He saw his soldiers, their armor rusted and cracked, their faces melting into featureless masks of agony. Their hands reached for him, fingers elongating into claws that dripped with black oil, beckoning him to join their torment.
Shun threw back his head and roared, the sound tearing from his throat, raw and broken. The cry echoed across the bloodied landscape, swallowed by the Theatre's endless hunger. His mind fractured under the assault, memories twisting into nightmares. He saw his childhood home, its walls now pulsating with fleshy growths, windows staring back like unblinking eyes. His mother's voice called to him from within, but it was wrong, warped into a guttural chant that spoke in a language of teeth and bone. The ground beneath the house split open, revealing a maw lined with jagged spines, swallowing the structure whole.
He could not fight them. Not with his mind intact. The visions grew sharper, more invasive. His wife's face appeared again, her eyes replaced by writhing nests of worms, each one whispering his failures. The child within her belly spoke now, its voice a cacophony of overlapping screams, promising to devour him from the inside out. The Theatre's presence grew stronger, a heartbeat that shook the soul, each throb sending tendrils of black light burrowing into his skull. His thoughts dissolved into static, his sense of self unraveling like thread pulled from a tapestry.
He made his choice.
His talons rose to his own face, piercing his eyelids in one swift, brutal motion. There was no hesitation. He dragged the points across, severing the eyes from sight entirely. Blood and silver ichor streamed down his scaled cheeks, hissing where it touched the earth. The pain was a white-hot lance, but it was clean, real, something he could grasp amidst the madness. Blindness came instantly, a curtain of black falling over the world.
Darkness swallowed the visions, but the madness remained. The voices swarmed inside his skull, clawing at him, chewing through the memories he had left. The absence of sight did nothing to stop the invasion. The horrors were not in what he saw; they were in what he could no longer unhear, in what was branded into the core of his soul. The Theatre's hunger pulsed in the back of his mind, a parasite digging deeper, its tendrils wrapping around his thoughts, squeezing until they bled. He felt it growing, a tumor of malevolent will that whispered of surrender, of becoming one with the endless dark.
Shun's claws twitched, his body trembling as the voices grew louder, more insistent. They sang of his failures, of the kingdom reduced to ash and bone, of his wife's body twisting into something that mocked life. He saw her in his mind's eye, her flesh peeling back to reveal a lattice of black veins, her laughter a wet gurgle that echoed in his chest. The child's cries grew louder, no longer human but a chorus of insects, clicking and chittering as they burrowed through his resolve. The Theatre's presence was everywhere, a weight that pressed against his ribs, threatening to collapse them inward.
He could feel it, pulsing in his skull, a living thing that fed on his despair. The monster was inside him, its roots sinking deeper with every breath. Shun knew there was one thing he could never allow. He would not fall to it. He would not be its puppet, made to turn his claws on the ones still standing. His kingdom might crumble, but he would not be the one to wield the blade against it.
He expanded his barrier.
Ether tore from him in a tidal wave, gold light boiling outward in every direction. It stretched far beyond what it had ever reached before, touching every surviving fighter, burning the tendrils that tried to push through. The ground split under the force, fractures glowing with molten gold. The air screamed as the barrier expanded, a dome of radiant energy that pushed back the theatre's shadow. Fighters caught in its light gasped, their bodies trembling as the black veins retreated from their skin, their eyes clearing for a fleeting moment.
Through the roaring in his head, Shun reached for something else. A memory of steel. The Jian. It sang through the air, breaking free from Lira's grip as if called by blood. The silver blade cut across the space between them, a streak of light that tore through the smoke and ash. The air cracked as it broke the sound barrier, its edge gleaming with a purpose that matched Shun's own. It did not slow.
Shun lowered his head.
The Jian struck home.
Its point punched through the armored scales of his skull, piercing deep into the brain beneath. There was a sound like a bell struck underwater, a resonant hum that vibrated through the fractured earth. The world went still. Blood ran down the blade, mixing with the silver ichor. Shun's talons trembled, then steadied as his breath slowed.
The voices raged. They screamed. They clawed.
And then—
They began to fade.