The wind had died down, leaving behind an eerie stillness.
The morning light that once streamed through the gaps in the canopy of leaves now felt extinguished, as if the sun had withdrawn its warmth entirely. A biting chill swept through the air, silencing the soothing songs of the birds and the gentle hum of insects that typically filled the morning. It was as if the entire world held its breath, enveloped in a tense and foreboding silence.
At the river's edge, Rinoa knelt, cradling Fitran's frail body in her trembling arms. His breaths were but fleeting whispers, shallow and labored, each rise and fall of his chest a fierce struggle for survival. He felt icy, like a stone cast into the depths of a shadowy abyss. Beads of cold sweat slipped slowly down his pallid face, mingling with the stains of blood and shimmering remnants of magical dust from their last harrowing confrontation.
With hope flickering like a candle in her heart, Rinoa bowed her head, pressing her forehead tenderly against Fitran's. In a soft, unwavering voice, she whispered a healing spell, her words laced with desperation and longing. Yet, her magic flickered like a dying ember, fading into the suffocating emptiness that surrounded them, as if the universe itself had turned its back on their plight. She could feel his pulse—weak and feeble, like a distant heartbeat fading into oblivion—but despair did not take root in her heart. Instead, a lingering flicker of hope remained, though it had dimmed perilously low.
Suddenly, another sound shattering the silence erupted in the air, tearing apart the fragile peace.
"Ghrruuuuuuukkkkk..."
A grotesque, mucus-like noise erupted from some unfathomable realm, obliterating any traces of melancholy. The sound was a grotesque symphony—flesh being ground, earth being chewed—conjuring a nightmarish atmosphere thick with dread.
Rinoa glanced up, her breath catching in her throat as she beheld the sight she had feared would come to pass. The ground by the riverbank began to swell ominously, as if something ancient and malevolent was being forced from the very belly of the earth. The muck writhed and undulated, contorting into a massive, horrifying jaw that seemed to hunger for the light. From the dark, wet soil, an entity emerged—an abomination that was neither fully solid nor completely fluid. It was a grotesque fusion of flesh and mud, intertwined in a nightmarish birth, ready to unleash chaos and consume all in its path.
"Kelurak," Rinoa murmured, her voice barely rising above the oppressive silence that surrounded her. The very name of the creature seemed to hang heavy in the air, a grim incantation summoned from the depths of dread. This ancient monstrosity, formed from the desolate marshes of the underworld, emerged from the nexus of horror and the restless remnants of forgotten thoughts. Its body was ensconced in gelatinous black mud, a substance that shimmered and slithered, filled with iridescent bubbles that popped with a sickening sound. The creature's movements were fluid yet terrifying, echoing a rhythmic pulsing that resonated with deep, consuming agony.
Fragments of bones—relics of animals or perhaps even humans—were ensnared within the inky darkness of its form, glinting faintly with an eerie luminescence amidst the layers of mud. Clots of congealed blood trickled from the creature's pores, dripping like a macabre rain onto the once-pristine ground, leaving horrific trails that served as a testament to its dreadful presence. No part of Kelurak appeared stable; its body quivered and trembled, influenced by dark currents that seemed to shake its very essence and origin, radiating an unsettling sense of instability.
His eyes—thousands of muddy black orbs—were scattered across his grotesque form, each one radiating a palpable aura of insatiable hunger. They not only watched Fitran; they stripped him bare, laying his existence open for examination as they sensed his fear and concocted sinister plots to devour him whole. As Kelurak advanced, the ground beneath him exhaled a sinister mist, coiling around like bloodstains that presaged an imminent threat. The nearby river morphed into a murky abyss, and a bone-chilling cold seeped into the air, amplifying the dread that hung thick around this terrifying creature.
Rinoa quickly rose, her body quaking with a charged tension. It wasn't fear that engulfed her, but the disquieting truth that Fitran would not be able to fight back this time.
"Don't come near him," Rinoa whispered, her eyes glowing like ember-coals in a dying fire, "Or I will destroy you."
Kelurak did not respond, his silence as imposing as his figure. Instead, he extended his grotesquely long, slimy tongue toward Fitran, a grotesque appendage that dripped with malice. One of his eyes flared with an intense red light, piercing through the shadows as if seeking to siphon the residual energy trapped within the man's soul.
"He… absorbs souls, not just bodies…" Rinoa mumbled, her voice quivering with a mix of fear and the weight of her fear-laden knowledge.
With determination, Rinoa conjured swirling winds and sharp shards of ice in both hands, steeling herself for battle. But Kelurak was faster, an aberration of Nature, surging towards them with an unnatural velocity!
"Freeze, oh wind—Glacies Sylphid: Ward of Isolation!"
Rinoa conjured a formidable wall of ice, accompanied by a swirling mini storm that formed a barrier between herself, Fitran, and the looming creature. Yet, the sheer force of Kelurak's strength began to erode her magic, consuming it like acid against a fragile surface.
"I can't hold it for long!" she shouted, panic slicing through her voice.
With a thunderous impact, Kelurak struck Rinoa's magical shield, sending cracks spiderwebbing across the surface. The barrier groaned under the pressure, as if the very spirit of ice trembled in dread of their adversary.
In a surge of desperation, Rinoa ignited her magic anew, her aether swirling around her, vibrating with raw energy. Sparkling purple light coalesced in her hand, transforming into a deadly spear. Yet, before she could unleash her attack—
Behind her, Fitran emitted a soft cough, a fragile sound in the escalating chaos.
"F-Fitra—" Rinoa began, her heart racing.
"Let me…" Fitran whispered, his voice barely more than a breath.
With determination, Fitran moved.
His body trembled under the weight of exhaustion, his breath ragged and shallow, but he managed to lift his right hand gracefully. A haunting, fragmented melody emerged from his lips; it was neither an ordinary incantation nor human speech, but a fantasy woven from shards of glass, echoing a consciousness awakening from a deep dream.
In that moment, an eerie stillness enveloped the battlefield. Kelurak's furious advance faltered as if time itself had been suspended. His eyes widened in shock, dark wisps of vapor escaping his pores like smoke rising from a smoldering ember, reflecting the fear dawning across his face.
Voidwright Magic: "Veritas Nihilum – Hollow Reversal."
With a deafening roar, Kelurak's voice was filled with the confusion of emptiness, reverberating through the air like a haunting echo of despair.
His eyes detonated one by one, not from the pressure of reality, but from the illogicality solidifying within his realm. Each explosion brought not just pain, but also birthed an existential contradiction: he was acutely aware of his own existence, yet there lingered no evidence to affirm that he had ever drawn breath in this world.
His sluggish body lamented in a tongue alien to the mortal realm—a desperate expression that was not meant for listening, but rather to wipe away all that was understood. This sound did not escape his lips; it emanated from the abyss, from the deep void that lay between cause and effect.
Fitran did not lay a hand upon him. He did not utter a curse, did not slash through the air with a commanding gesture, nor did he point a finger heavy with judgment. He simply declared with unyielding calm:
"If you never existed... why must you suffer?"
In response, the world answered with a crackling silence, amplifying the desolation that had already engulfed them, a silence pregnant with dark understanding.
As if obeying a higher command, time around Kelurak began to retract—not spiraling back into the past, but instead pulling him into mistakes never made. It was a fluid, wave-like ebb of time, unmapped by beginnings, simply a relentless cycle of trauma devoid of a clear origin.
The seals of reality seem to invert, as if mocking the desperate gaze of those yearning for clarity. The name Kelurak has been obliterated from the very earth it once graced, from the expansive sky that once cradled it, even from the distant memories of ancient monsters that are said to remember all. It has transformed into something so profound that even nothingness itself disregards it, shrouded in an impenetrable dark haze.
Its form quakes, dissolving into an ambiguous shape that swells and contracts aimlessly, before collapsing into a nameless silhouette. For a fleeting moment, its eyes flicker with a fleeting spark of final awareness, an illumination that defiantly resists the darkness:
"I want to believe that I once lived..."
Yet that echo of a voice, tragically, is destined to vanish, not through violence or restraint, but simply because it has become irrelevant to reality.
What lingers is not merely a body, nor a spirit that dissolves into the ether, nor even a remnant that can be remembered. Instead, there exists a hole with edges too fine to be called empty, a void that transcends comprehension. This hole neither attracts nor repels; it merely proclaims non-existence in a haunting stillness. Each being that approaches it senses a presence gently shedding itself, as if this world increasingly finds no need for their existence.
Rinoa screamed Fitran's name, her voice resonating in the shadowy light that encircled the desolation, a solitary cry slipping into the chilling silence that dominated the air. But her voice felt as though it had been cast into the Dead Sea, swallowed whole with no echo to affirm her anguish.
When everything finally settled, only damp earth remained, its darkened surface exuding the scent of rain and loss. Heavy breaths lingered in the still air, creating a palpable tension, as if the world itself stood poised, waiting for the next decision to unfold.
Fitran knelt on the soaked ground, his body trembling with the weight of fatigue, as if every muscle had been battered in an unseen storm. With a trembling hand, he reached down, feeling the earth beneath him, a tenuous connection to reality in the chaotic aftermath. The Void sword, once a powerful presence on his back, dissipated like smoke in the morning light, vanishing into a dimension untouched by any living soul. Around him, the ethereal lights that had danced moments before slowly faded, while the shadows, once elongated and ominous, began to shrink, suggesting that time was learning to trust itself once more and to flow in gentle currents.
"He won't come back," Fitran whispered, his voice cracking like fragile ice, echoing the profound loss that seemed to envelop the entire universe.
With tears streaming down her face, Rinoa dropped her aether spear, the weapon clattering helplessly against the drenched earth. She ran to Fitran, wrapping her arms around him from behind, her embrace tighter this time, as if she wished to fuse her very essence with the dwindling strength and flickering hope that remained between them.
In that moment, there were no words, no promises exchanged; only the rhythmic thrum of their hearts remained, trembling against the backdrop of profound silence.
And that beat… though slow and labored, still existed. Still meant.