The night was a battlefield of shadows and steel.
Lightning crackled in the sky, illuminating the blood-soaked courtyard of Kael's estate. The scent of iron thickened the air, mingling with the distant echoes of the dying. The Archons had come as executioners, righteous in their duty, certain in their god-given mandate.
They were wrong.
Kael stood amidst the chaos, golden eyes gleaming like molten fire, his expression unreadable. Around him, the bodies of the first wave of assassins lay in grotesque stillness—some impaled by the very walls they had tried to infiltrate, others crushed beneath the weight of the sentient shadows he commanded.
Yet, one remained.
Eryndor, the Shadow Serpent of the Archons. A being of myth, legend, and silent judgment. He had walked across oceans of blood, slain titanic wyrms, defied the abyss, and emerged untouched. Where others prayed for strength, Eryndor was strength incarnate.
But tonight, for the first time—he hesitated.
The silence between them stretched, thick with tension, like two worlds on the verge of collision. Eryndor's grip on his sword was steady, but Kael saw the flicker—the flicker of doubt. His divine blade glowed faintly gold, a sliver of light in the night's suffocating maw.
"I have seen tyrants," Eryndor said softly. "Fallen kings. False gods." His voice held neither arrogance nor anger—only experience. "They all believed they were inevitable."
Kael smirked, eyes glinting. "And how many of them still draw breath?"
Eryndor didn't blink.
Kael stepped forward, each motion graceful, lethal. Shadows danced at his feet like loyal hounds, whispering of death.
"But tell me," Kael's voice was silk over a blade, "how many of them knew you were coming before your gods whispered your name to them?"
A beat.
A flicker in Eryndor's eyes. He didn't answer.
Kael's smile widened.
And then he moved.
The distance vanished, a blur of black and gold. Kael's arm snapped forward, abyssal energy coiling around his fingers, forming a jagged blade mid-strike. Eryndor countered, divine steel meeting shadow-forged death.
The air cracked.
Power surged.
Their first clash sent shockwaves rippling through the estate. Statues shattered. Trees split. The ground caved beneath them, stone trembling under the force of their collision.
Kael's strikes were relentless—precise, overwhelming, each one seeking the fault lines in Eryndor's form. But the Archon adapted, his style a beautiful economy of motion, honed through millennia.
Sparks danced between them, light and dark interlocked in violent rhythm.
Eryndor pivoted, blade slicing upward in a crescent arc of searing light. Kael ducked beneath it, shadows bursting upward to meet the holy edge. The impact carved a crater beneath their feet.
Kael laughed—not mockingly, but genuinely, a note of exhilaration laced with bloodlust. "You're better than I expected," he admitted. "Most don't survive the opening exchange."
Eryndor's answer was silence—and a strike that blurred through space.
Kael twisted, shadows forming a shield just in time, but the force still slammed him back across the courtyard. His coat tore, blood blossoming along his side.
Pain. Real. Sharp.
Kael looked down at the wound, crimson running down his abdomen.
He grinned.
"I wondered if you'd make me bleed."
Eryndor didn't gloat. His breathing was measured, eyes narrowing. "This is not personal," he said. "It's correction. You were never meant to rise."
Kael's golden eyes flared. "And who decides what I was meant for?"
Another collision. Blades screamed as they met. Divine power roared against abyssal fury. Each strike now carried history—rage, rebellion, faith, and defiance.
Kael faltered. A split-second misstep—enough.
Eryndor struck.
One, two, three—
Hilt to ribs. Knee to gut. Elbow to jaw.
Kael's body slammed into the stone with brutal finality. The courtyard trembled.
He lay there, the taste of copper in his mouth, pain flaring in his side. For the first time in years, he'd been thrown down.
But as the dust settled…
He smiled.
"You're fast," Kael murmured, rising to one knee. "But you've made a mistake."
Eryndor's brow furrowed.
Kael stood, the wind shifting. The shadows stirred—not as servants, but as something older. Something ancient.
"You assumed I was fighting back," Kael said softly.
The world changed.
Shadows thickened. The air became viscous. A pressure descended—crushing, unnatural.
And Kael—he stopped holding back.
Eryndor moved.
A blur of divine speed.
But the instant his foot touched the ground, reality fractured.
The courtyard shattered like glass.
The torches extinguished. The stars vanished. Even the moon fled.
Abyss. Pure. All-consuming.
Eryndor stumbled—not in body, but in faith. The darkness didn't just obscure. It unmade. It stripped the soul bare, tore at memory, and suffocated the spirit.
His divine blade pulsed, flickering—struggling to exist.
Then: a whisper.
Not loud.
Not close.
Everywhere.
"Did you think you were fighting a man?"
Eryndor spun, blade slashing.
Nothing.
"Did you think your gods would answer you?"
Another voice. Closer.
"Did you think light could survive where I was born?"
The darkness breathed. It moved. It watched.
Then—
Pain.
A blinding, soul-rending pain.
Eryndor gasped.
He looked down.
A hand—Kael's hand—was inside his chest. Not metaphorically. Literally. Fingers curled around his heart, squeezing gently, like a lover cradling something fragile.
Eryndor's breath caught.
He tried to lift his blade.
It didn't respond.
His body trembled. Not from fear. From realization.
He had lost.
Kael stepped into the thin sliver of light his blade still emitted. His golden eyes glowed with cruel serenity.
"You are a relic," Kael said softly. "A fossil worshipping the bones of gods who stopped listening eons ago."
Eryndor stared into his eyes—eyes that saw through time, through soul, through everything he'd ever been.
His lips moved.
"…monster…"
Kael nodded. "Perhaps."
And then—he crushed his heart.
Eryndor jerked. Light exploded from his chest—then sputtered. Then died.
The Archon collapsed. Kneeling first. Then to the side. His sword fell next, its divine light fading.
The darkness retreated—slowly, reluctantly—as if it mourned the end of the hunt.
Kael stood alone amidst the corpses, the storm finally breaking above.
Rain began to fall.
He tilted his head to the sky, eyes closing, feeling the droplets wash over him.
Cleansing?
No.
Affirming.
This was judgment.
And the world had chosen its god.
To Be Continued...