The chamber stank of smoke and cold stone, the Beacon's light clashing with the shadows Malkoran dragged behind him.
My arms burned. My blade was slick in my grip. My body screamed for rest, but there was none to be found. Malkoran pressed me harder with every strike, his conjured blade of void hammering against my steel like thunder.
I barely kept pace. Sparks flew. My breath tore ragged from my lungs. Every hit sent pain racing up my shoulders, but the new strength I'd carved from leveling up kept me standing where before I'd have collapsed.
He was relentless.
But so was I.
I bared my teeth, parried another sweeping arc, and slammed my shoulder forward. He staggered—just enough. My sword snapped upward, carving across his ribs. For a moment, shadow peeled back and something human showed beneath the void.
He hissed. His hand swept across the air, and another wave of tendrils lashed toward me. I threw myself to the side, rolling across the stone floor, my ribs shrieking in protest. I came up to one knee, sword braced, and spat blood into the dirt.
"Getting tired?" I croaked.
His eyes burned darker. "You are nothing but delay."
Shades rose again, dragging themselves up from the cracks. Their weapons glowed faint in the dark, their jaws open in soundless screams. I lunged before they could surround me, my blade cutting two down in one swing. Their forms broke apart like smoke, dissolving into the cold.
I didn't stop. My body screamed, but I shoved forward, driving toward Malkoran. Each step felt heavier, but rage carried me where strength might've failed.
He raised his voidblade. I met it with steel. Our blades locked again, pressure tearing at my arms. His mouth opened, chanting words I didn't understand—each syllable pressing against my skull like stone weights.
I couldn't let him finish.
I roared, ripped my blade free, and slammed it across his chest. Light and shadow burst together. His body twisted as if breaking apart. His scream was guttural, echoing off the walls until it felt like the whole mountain howled with him.
And then—silence.
He staggered back, the voidblade dissolving. His form cracked like glass, the darkness unraveling from him in threads. For the first time, he looked small. Human. Just a man.
He fell to his knees, hands clutching his chest. His mouth opened as though to speak, but no sound came. A final breath rattled out, and then he collapsed, still and unmoving.
I stood there, chest heaving, sword trembling in my grip.
It was over.
I didn't believe it at first. My legs refused to move, waiting for the strike that always came next. But Malkoran's body lay still, his face frozen in a final grimace.
Slowly, painfully, I lowered my sword.
"I… I did it," I whispered to the empty chamber, though the words didn't feel real.
The shades had vanished. The silence pressed in thick and heavy. The Beacon pulsed behind me, its light washing the stone in steady rhythm. For the first time, I thought—maybe this was enough. Maybe I could leave this cursed temple alive.
Then the air shifted.
Cold rolled across the chamber, deeper than before, sinking into my marrow. Malkoran's body twitched.
I froze.
The shadows peeled from his corpse, rising like smoke dragged from the earth. His flesh blackened, crumbling away, until only a shape of void stood where his body had fallen.
Two eyes opened in the dark. White. Hollow.
The shade of Malkoran straightened, its presence heavier than before, as though death itself had given him back with interest. His voice, when it came, was layered and broken, a whisper and a roar at once.
"Did you think it so simple?"
The voidblade reformed in his hands, longer, sharper, darker than before.
My chest went tight. My grip on my sword faltered for a heartbeat.
I had killed him. I had killed him. And still he stood.
The Beacon pulsed behind me, louder, brighter, like a drumbeat forcing my heart to keep pace. Meridia's voice stirred faint in the back of my skull. Prove yourself. Cleanse the darkness.
My body trembled. Fear crawled hot and bitter in my throat. But I raised my blade anyway, teeth clenched, eyes locked on that impossible figure.
Because what else could I do?
Malkoran's shade lifted its weapon, the shadows bending toward him like worship.
And then it lunged.