The shadow system's words still clawed at Roman's mind. The One is coming. He stood frozen near the estate gates, his gaze fixed on nothing, turning the phrase over and over. Who? What? The possibilities churned, each darker than the last.
Then the sky changed.
This was the deep, wet red of freshly spilled blood, as if someone had emptied an ocean of sacrifice across the heavens. The light that fell from it cast everything in a sickly hue, painting the estate walls in shades of gore.
"What in the " he started.
"Young master Roman!"
A woman's scream cut through his daze. He turned sharply.
A mother was being dragged toward the bunkers by two knights, her body thrashing against their grip. Her face was streaked with tears and dust, her clothes torn and filthy. She clawed at the air, reaching toward a collapsed pile of rubble that had once been her home.
"My son! My son is still in there! Please, young master! He's all I have! He's all I have left!"
Roman's heart clenched. Without a second thought, he snapped into motion.
He ran toward the rubble, his boots pounding against the blood-soaked ground. The knights released the woman and followed, their armor clanking as they struggled to keep pace with their young master.
Roman reached the collapsed house and stopped. Wood and stone lay in a chaotic heap, the structure reduced to splinters and dust. He listened and heard it. A faint, muffled cry from somewhere beneath the debris.
He dropped to his knees and began pulling the rubble apart with his bare hands.
The knights joined him, grunting as they heaved massive chunks of stone. But Roman moved faster. He lifted pieces that would have taken three men to budge, tossing them aside like they weighed nothing. His fingers bled. His arms burned. He didn't care.
"Keep digging!" he shouted. "He's under here!"
A minute passed. Then another.
Finally, his hand brushed against something soft. Fabric. He cleared the remaining debris and found the boy no older than eight, his face pale and streaked with tears, but alive. Minor wounds, a gash on his forehead, but breathing.
Roman scooped the boy into his arms. "I've got you. You're safe now."
The boy whimpered, clinging to Roman's tunic.
Roman turned and began running toward the bunkers. The knights formed a protective perimeter around him. But as he moved, something shifted in the air. A pressure. A weight. He felt it pressing down on him like the hand of an unseen giant.
His instincts screamed.
The shadow system's voice pierced his skull. Warherald. Get down. Now.
Roman opened his mouth to shout the warning
Too late.
An invisible force ripped through the battlefield. It was silent, unseen a blade of pure magic that cut through everything in its path. Roman felt it pass, felt the shift in the air around him. But he didn't feel pain.
He didn't feel anything.
Then he looked down.
The boy's head was gone.
The small body in Roman's arms went limp, blood pouring from the stump of its neck, soaking through Roman's tunic, his hands, his arms. The warmth of it spread across his skin like a curse.
Roman froze.
His eyes traveled to the ground beside him. The knights who had been flanking him lay dead, their heads severed cleanly from their bodies, their lifeless forms crumpling to the earth. Blood pooled beneath them, mixing with the already crimson-stained soil.
Roman stared at the boy's body.
He was alive. He was alive just a moment ago. I had him. I had him in my arms. He was safe.
Warherald. The shadow system's voice returned, cold and measured. Control yourself. Do not go berserk.
Roman didn't respond. He couldn't.
Slowly, mechanically, he turned and walked toward a nearby knight who had just arrived. The man's face was pale with horror as Roman approached and gently placed the boy's body into his arms.
"Take him to his mother," Roman said. His voice was flat. Empty.
The knight nodded, unable to speak, and ran.
Roman looked down at his hands. They were covered in blood. A boy's blood. A child he had held, had promised safety, had failed to protect.
Something inside him cracked.
Then it shattered.
He straightened. His jaw tightened. His eyes, once filled with grief, hardened into something cold and sharp as broken glass.
He activated his Yin-Yang core.
The power surged through him like a tidal wave dark black and brilliant gold, twisting together in a storm of raw energy. His Archon Sword materialized in his grip, its blade singing with hunger. The black aura around him pulsed, spreading outward like the shadow of death itself.
Roman had only one thought now.
Destroy them all.
He ran.
Not toward the bunkers. Not toward safety. He ran toward the horde of monsters pouring from the dungeon gates. Their forms were grotesque twisted limbs, too many eyes, mouths filled with jagged teeth. They snarled and screeched as they charged.
Roman met them head-on.
He leaped into the midst of them like a blazing comet, his sword carving a path of destruction. The first monster died before it could blink its head separated from its body in a single, fluid motion. The second followed. Then the third. Roman moved like a whirlwind, every strike precise, every movement fueled by grief and rage.
He didn't stop. He wouldn't stop.
He cut through the horde with terrifying efficiency, leaving a trail of black ichor and severed limbs in his wake. Monsters fell by the dozens. By the hundreds. Each swing of his blade was a prayer for vengeance. Each step was a declaration of war.
Behind him, the evacuation continued. Knights guided the last civilians through the shimmering spatial portals Roman had summoned earlier. The artillery division rained enchanted shells upon the advancing monsters. The Holy Paladins held their formation, their blessed blades gleaming in the crimson light.
And then
The last civilian disappeared into a portal. The shimmering gateways closed.
Jacob and Selena charged forward, their swords blazing, and joined the fight. They cut through the monsters with practiced precision, their movements synchronized like a well-oiled machine. Selena's blade danced through the air, each strike elegant and deadly. Jacob's sword cleaved through anything that drew too close.
"Roman!" Selena shouted, carving through a beast that had lunged at her brother's back. "What the hell are you doing?!"
Roman didn't answer. He just kept cutting.
Jacob fought his way to his son's side, parrying a strike that would have taken Roman's arm. "Roman! You need to focus! This isn't"
But Roman wasn't listening. His eyes were distant, fixed on some invisible point beyond the battlefield.
Selena watched him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she turned to her father, her voice low.
"If this is only the beginning," she said, "what will happen at the end of all this?"
Jacob didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because he was staring at his son the same son who had just carried a dead child in his arms and he realized that the boy he had raised was slowly disappearing.
And in his place stood something far more dangerous.
A Warherald who had just learned the cost of failure.
And who would never let it happen again.