Gray's footsteps echoed faintly across the stone floor. Each step rang hollow, swallowed by the vast chamber and returned to him in a distorted whisper. His eyes remained fixed on the hulking spider-like beast ahead. Its silhouette rippled in the shifting torchlight, grotesque and alien, every movement sharp and unnatural. The shadows it cast on the walls stretched into monstrous shapes, as though the darkness itself wanted to pull away from it.
He drew a slow breath through his nose and released it. His fingers tightened around the hilt of his katana. This was either going to end here, or it was going to end with him.
Then he moved.
The dash was unlike anything he had ever experienced. The air warped around him, a pressure building in his ears as the distance between them vanished. His blade flashed in an arc so fast that even his own eyes barely caught the movement.
The strike landed with a force that rattled his bones. Metal bit deep into hardened chitin, the sound sharp and grating. The monster staggered back, crashing into the wall behind it with enough force to shake loose clouds of dust from the ceiling. Small stones pattered against the floor.
It tried to raise one spined limb to defend itself, but it was too slow. The katana's edge had already carved a jagged wound into its arm, splitting the chitin wide. A thick, viscous stream of purple blood spilled from the gash, dripping to the ground in heavy drops that hissed where they landed.
It didn't roar.
It trembled.
Gray froze for a heartbeat. That… was fear. The towering beast, all muscle and armor and alien menace, was afraid of him. He could see it in the way its legs shifted restlessly, in the slight recoil of its body.
He drew in another breath, the taste of iron thick on his tongue. Something was happening to him. His chest heaved with each inhalation, and yet he felt stronger than before, as if his muscles had been reforged in fire. Heat and weight pooled in his core, rushing outward into his veins like liquid power.
He glanced down. Darkness was curling faintly from his skin, drawn toward him in thin tendrils. The movement was slow at first, almost hesitant, then steadier, purposeful. It reminded him of something he had been told.
"Vyre is an empty canvas," the teacher's voice echoed in his mind.
He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing his energy not as the pale, formless blue he had known, but as something richer, heavier, shadows given weight and shape. The blue bled into black at his fingertips. It spread, coiling over his hands, thickening like oil until the darkness was almost tangible.
The edges of the chamber seemed to draw back, swallowed in gloom. The flicker of torchlight dulled, as though the darkness were drinking it away.
Gray clenched his fist.
The blackness surged, spilling upward to wrap around him in sleek, overlapping layers. In moments, it had covered him from throat to heel, a tight second skin that shifted like smoke but felt like steel.
A faint shimmer passed over his vision:
[The darkness obeys your will...Vyre has been shaped into protective armor.]
Gray exhaled through a faint smirk. It had worked. He har imagined the Vyre into his affinity, darkness. And then shaped it into armour.
The armor was light yet solid, as if it belonged to him as naturally as his own skin. His muscles felt unbound. He stepped once, twice, and the world blurred. The ground vanished beneath him and reappeared behind.
The spider lunged. Claws stabbed through where he had been standing, but he was already gone. It twisted, eyes tracking wildly. He shifted again, disappearing and reappearing at impossible angles, the air snapping faintly each time.
The beast's movements grew erratic. It lashed out again and again, striking stone and web but never him. Frustration rippled through it, and it swung all limbs at once toward the corner where he had paused.
Gray sprang upward in a long, black arc. The air seemed to stretch around him. He sailed clean over the beast's head.
Steel screamed against chitin as his blade tore a deep gouge along the right side of its face. A spray of ichor painted the ground. The creature reeled, limbs flailing. Small, pale hatchlings crawled from hidden seams along its torso, racing over its body to spin frantic webs over the wound. But in its rage, the monster tore them away, sending them tumbling to the floor.
Gray landed lightly, shadows still clinging to his frame. He surged forward again. They clashed, one a storm of slashing limbs, the other a darting shadow that slipped between strikes. His blade bit deep, severing two arms in one pass. The next exchange took another pair.
The air sang with each blow. Dark Vyre rippled and pulsed around him, his form breaking and reforming with every step.
But the rush began to fade.
A cold edge of awareness slid into his thoughts. The Vyre was draining fast. His core felt hollow, each movement burning away more than he could recover.
He needed to end this. Now.
His gaze locked on the swollen sac along the monster's back. Two strides, a leap, and he was in the air, blade angled for the strike. But the creature was faster this time. From its spine erupted a long, bladed limb. The edge caught him full in the chest.
The impact drove the air from his lungs and slammed him into the ceiling. The world flashed white with pain. Stone cracked beneath his back, and the limb stabbed into the wall just beside his ribs, pinning him there.
He gasped, expecting the armor to shatter entirely. It held, but fissures raced across its surface, shadows flickering weakly.
Gritting his teeth, Gray brought his blade up and sliced through the limb. The cut was messy, but it freed him. He dropped to the ground hard, knees jolting. His armor was dying. Another strike like that would leave him exposed.
He had one chance.
His eyes cut to the cocoon at the chamber's center. Energy pulsed within it like a slow heartbeat, the same foul rhythm that had been in the monster's sac.
He sprinted to it and drove his hand into the silk. He then "consumed" the Vyre, cold power flooded his arm, seeping into his core. It was Vyre, stolen from whatever the monster had been feeding.
The dark Vyre surged, thickening, flooding back into him until his chest ached with the force of it.
The monster shrieked, its voice a jagged sound that scraped along the bones. It charged, slamming down where he had been, splitting the floor into jagged shards.
"I'll wipe your entire species out if I have to," Gray growled.
The shadows burst from him like a tide, racing across the floor, up the walls, overhead. The light was gone in seconds, drowned in perfect black.
The beast froze. Confusion rippled through its movements. It struck blindly, claws scraping empty air.
Gray was everywhere. From every side, blades of darkness stabbed and sliced, drawing ichor with each hit. The creature spun, blocking where it could, but each defense left another side open. The air filled with the wet sound of tearing flesh.
It began to adapt. Each swipe grew closer, its senses finding him in the dark. The flurry slowed. The advantage thinned.
And then the shadows drew back.
Gray dropped from above. The spine-limb lashed upward to meet him, stabbing clean through the armored shape that landed. But the armor dissolved into smoke, an empty shell.
The real Gray twisted in the air, landing on the monster's back. His blade plunged deep into the swollen sac. The ichor sprayed hot and foul over his hands.
The creature screamed, thrashing wildly. The spine-limb shot upward again, but in its desperation, it drove straight through its own head. The sound was wet and final.
Its body sagged beneath him. Limbs twitched once, twice, then stilled.
Gray pulled the blade free and jammed it between its mandibles. "Go to hell," he said, voice low and final. "I had just had my turn."
The light in its many eyes dimmed to nothing.
His chest heaved. He dropped the weapon, the steel snapping halfway down the blade as it struck the stone. The broken half clattered to the floor.
The darkness surrounding him and the chamber dissolved. Turning him back to his previous self, and restoring the chambers light.
His chest burned as he took in deep breaths. He had overexerted himself yet again.
'I really should stop doing that...' he looked around himself.
Around the chamber, the smaller spiders froze in place. Dozens of pale bodies twitched as if waiting for a signal. Then, in eerie unison, they scattered into the dark, their legs tapping quick and light until the sound faded entirely.
He appeared somewhat surprised, he had expected them to rush him. At his weakest.
Gray turned toward the far corner. Through the thick webbing, a human shape hung limp.
"Lira," he breathed.
He crossed the distance at a run. The webs clung stubbornly to his blade as he cut through them, each strand resisting before snapping with a sticky snap. Her body dropped into his arms, lighter than he remembered, weak from whatever she had endured. Her face was pale beneath the tattered strands that clung to her skin.
She coughed as he tore the silk from her mouth, drawing in a desperate, ragged breath. Her eyes fluttered open, confusion flashing there before recognition bloomed.
Gray managed a tired but genuine smile and extended his hand to her.
"Come...Let's go."