If you Like this story! Check out my other stories! Solo leveling in Westeros.
&
If you wish to read more or simply support me than check out my patreon at
"https://www.patreon.com/FrenzyAren"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want !
/-\
The city still smoked. Cracks ran along the streets, buildings, and the air hung heavy with the smell of blood, dust and rot. In the lull between battles, the ground itself seemed to tremble as Arthur's shadows spilled forth like a dark death tide.
In the streets, the giants, dark silhouettes of blackened armor and glowing eyes, their footsteps leaving indents in the concrete. They moved without a word, bending massive hands to lift collapsed beams, shifting piles of rubble that had entombed half-buried doorways in search for people. Dust rained down in clouds as each piece was moved, and their work was almost methodical, inhumanly so.
Among them darted leaner smaller forms, the shadow demons, sleek and angular, their claws scraping the stone as they scoured alleyways and shattered corridors, searching with unnerving precision. The demon knights followed in their wake, heavier in step, their helms turning this way and that with a predator's vigilance, their swords drawn though no immediate foe stood before them.
Above, a streak of violet light shimmered. Ultra hovered silently, cape rippling in the breeze that followed his movements. His gaze cut across the ruins, his vision tearing past walls and rubble alike until, there. A heartbeat too many, too close to the smoldering core of the battle. He drifted lower, the air tightening as his presence dimmed what little sunlight filtered through the smoke.
Beneath a cracked stairwell, three figures huddled, a man clutching his wife's hand, their boy pressed tight between them. The boy peeked first, eyes wide, only to yank his head back with a sharp gasp.
"They're here…!" he hissed, his voice trembling.
The father swallowed hard, leaning forward to steal a glance. One of the shadow giants walked past, carrying a bent steel beam across its shoulder as if it were nothing but a branch. The light caught the hollow sockets of its helm, and the man went pale.
"They… they came out of that man," he whispered, the memory of a violet glow and a man with cold eyes flashing across his mind. "I saw it on TV... he is the one who fought that demon… not long ago."
The mother clutched her son closer. "Is he with them? The League?" she asked, as if saying it would somehow make the shadow army less monstrous.
"Seems like it," the father muttered, though his voice lacked conviction. "But look at them… they do not look very friendly..."
Before he could draw another breath, a flicker of movement swallowed the space before them. Ultra was there. One moment empty air, the next, violet light, the sound of power, a figure standing so close the father could see his reflection in those glowing violet eyes. His blood froze, muscles locking on instinct. Not a muscle dared twitch.
Ultra didn't speak at first he merely raised a single finger, slowly , pointing past them, away from the ruins. His voice came low, resonant, and disturbingly calm.
"Move away from here," he said. "Or you'll die."
The boy whimpered. The mother nodded before her husband even moved, tugging him by the arm. The man could only stare a second longer, heart hammering, before he found his legs. They fled.
Elsewhere, in the shadow of a crumbled overpass, Igris came across a different kind of nearby survivors. A squad of shaken soldiers, dust-caked and ragged, their uniforms torn but their rifles still gripped tight. They turned as one when a menacing shadow knight emerged from the haze.
"Hold it!" one barked, though his voice wavered. The barrels of their weapons trained on him.
Igris didn't quicken his pace. He stopped only when the muzzles gleamed inches from his chest, his helm tilting slightly as if considering the insects before him. Slowly, almost lazily, he raised his gauntleted hands, and the rifles started to shake. Metal shrieked, the barrels bending, twisting, warping into grotesque knots that tore from the soldiers' hands with a hiss of warped steel.
Panic broke their formation. One cursed, another stumbled back, clutching his fingers as if burned.
"Go away from here little men, as far as you can." Igris said, his voice a quiet rasp "And don't be a burden for my liege."
The soldiers needed no second warning.
And then the shadow passed over them. It was not the drifting cloud of smoke, nor the screech of a jet. It was larger and alive. The ground darkened as Kamish swept over the city, his wings spanning entire streets, the sky itself momentarily swallowed by his presence.
On his back, a couple of children clung to him, their laughter carried on the wind like something from a forgotten world. One waved down at the shrinking soldiers below.
"Look! We are flying!"
Unlike the children, the men on the ground hardened and armed though they were, stared up in cold sweat, knuckles white. The sight was no miracle to them, it was a nightmare.
Kamish roared once, the sound rattling windows still left standing, and turned his titanic frame toward a safer place in the city.
The shadows worked without pause, feared as much as the black lanterns they fought against.
Arthur hovered high above it all, coat trailing behind him in the wind, the faint glow in his eyes pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. A small, rare smile tugged at the corner of Arthur's mouth. It was fleeting, almost imperceptible, but it was there. He let the city fall into a muted sound beneath him, his gaze half-lidded as he drew in a slow breath.
"Good work," he murmured, the words barely carried by the wind. They were not meant for the world below, but for the shadows that obeyed without question, the silent army that carried his will.
He closed his eyes fully, the glow behind his lids sharpening to a thin, dangerous line. His body stilled in the air, hands folding behind his back as if he had all the time in the world to find what he is looking for.
"Now…" his voice was low, more thought than sound, "…There you are."
"Exchange."
****
The old cemetery in Metropolis was a place the living had long forgotten. Weeds choked the iron gates, headstones leaned like weary sentinels, and the city's sounds never quite reached its broken soil. Only the dead kept vigil here silent and still.
Among the crooked markers, a figure stood.in black, his fingers brushed across a cracked gravestone, tracing a name that had long since lost its meaning to the world. Power bled from him in slow, pulse. Rings of black energy coiled around his knuckles, threads stretching outward like a puppeteer's strings, guiding corpses to their slaughter far from this quiet refuge.
Black Hand's lips twisted into something like satisfaction. "Soon," he whispered to no one, voice a rasp that carried across the headstones. "In time we will accomplish what we want."
But then he froze.
A chill slithered up his spine, cold in a way that had nothing to do with the graveyard air. His head snapped up, eyes narrowing at the darkness between the mausoleums. It wasn't the chill of the grave, he was used to that, it was home. This was a different, heavy presence.
"…No." His hand flexed, black energy sparking between his fingers. "No, it can't be."
And then he felt it. a terrifying weight of someone ancient, searching and now locked on him.
"It seems…" he whispered, voice tightening, "he really can find me.."
For the first time that night, a bead of cold sweat slid down his forehead. He cast one last glance at the rows of dead beneath his sway, then clenched his fist.
"Time to change my location."
He stepped back, ring flaring with the beginnings of a dark gateway when the ground beneath him shuddered.
A shadow stretched across the graves, long and jagged like the fingers of a titan reaching up from the abyss. His eyes widened, the words dying in his throat as a colossal, clawed hand formed of black-violet shadow and thrumming with an unnatural life erupted from the earth.
"NO!"
The claw slammed into him before the thought was finished.
The impact was cataclysmic. Earth split like rotten wood, headstones exploded into dust, and a ripple of force shot outward, toppling mausoleums and tearing open graves in a wide, brutal radius. Half the cemetery caved in on itself, a crater yawning where he had stood only seconds before.
Pinned to the fractured earth, Black Hand wheezed, his body sparking with broken energy, the black ring on his finger flickering in protest. He struggled, the shadow's talons grinding him deeper into the ruined ground. Soil filled his mouth, his ribs creaked under the pressure.
"Ghh... Damn you!" he spat, coughing up dust and dark ichor. His head turned just enough to look skyward through the settling haze.
A glow descended violet, deep and cold. It wasn't bright it devoured the sky around it, bending the shadows toward its center. A silhouette cut through the swirling smoke a long coat whispering in the wind, eyes twin shards of amethyst light, sharp and calm.
Black Hand's breath hitched, a hollow laugh bubbling from his chest despite the weight crushing him. "Shadow Lantern…" he rasped, bitterness and dread warping his tone. "So you finally… came crawling to me.."
/-\
If you Like this story! Check out my other stories! Solo leveling in Westeros.
&
If you wish to read more or simply support me than check out my patreon at
"https://www.patreon.com/FrenzyAren"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want