The world snapped back into focus with the crackle of my own power.
Blue-white electricity danced across my knuckles, coiling up my arm like a serpent of pure energy.
Its furious glow cast long, jumping shadows across the crumbling ruins that were all that remained of the chamber.
My body was a coiled spring, every muscle taut, ready for a confrontation that felt both inevitable and utterly hopeless.
The Harbinger of Oblivion simply looked at me.
Then, he did something that threw my entire reality into question.
He tilted his head, a faint, almost curious gesture, his burning red eyes focusing not on me, but on the lightning wreathing my fist.
"Quite strong..." he muttered, the word a low whisper that seemed to vibrate in the air itself. "This ain't normal lightning."
His gaze, those impossibly deep pools of dark red, flickered with something unreadable for a single, fleeting moment.
And then, he did the most unexpected thing of all.
He averted his eyes.
Without another word, he turned his back on me and began to walk away, his footsteps making no sound on the ravaged stone.
I frowned, my grip tightening. The storm in my palm flared, spitting arcs of energy that scorched the air.
This being had erased a dungeon lord with a mere presence, unraveled a power I couldn't even fathom, and now he was just… leaving?
Dismissing me like a minor curiosity?
I took a sharp step forward.
"Wait."
He didn't stop. His retreating form was as implacable as the void he represented.
"Why did you help me?" My voice cut through the groaning of the dying chamber, sharper than any blade.
I was tamed by the Sixth Orc Lord but when he came the tame mysteriously got removed.
I knew he saved me from the tame, but I can't prove it.
He paused. Only for a second, a brief suspension in his silent stride.
"... I didn't help you. I just happen to be looking for him. And when I found him, I had to confront him." He replied. "But, maybe I actually did both at once."
"Who are you?" I asked genuinely curious.
Was he a high rank hunter? A monster? Or something else entirely?
In a voice that was both distant and absolute, that carried the finality of a closing tomb, he answered.
"... I am, Oblivion."
And then, he was gone. Not in a flash of light or a puff of smoke, but in the way a star might wink out of the sky, leaving behind only the chilling certainty of its absence.
Only Evelyn and I remained in the collapsing tomb.
He didn't even take us out of here.
A violent tremor shook the ground, followed by another, deeper one that felt like the chamber itself was cracking apart.
The walls groaned, deep fissures racing up their length.
The ceiling splintered, and chunks of stone the size of small houses began to rain down.
I exhaled sharply, my eyes darting across the chaos.
There was no way out. No shimmering portal, no hidden passage.
Just a dead end of rock and ruin, and I was fresh out of world-ending entities to call upon.
Evelyn swayed beside me, her breath a ragged, shallow sound.
She clutched her staff, her knuckles white, her small frame trembling uncontrollably.
"A-Allen…" she stammered, her voice thin with terror. "The whole place… it's going to be destroyed…"
I didn't answer. My mind was a vortex of frantic calculations, scanning every shadow, every fracture for a solution that wasn't there.
The exit had to be here. It had to be.
A deep, rumbling crack, louder than any before, split the air.
I snapped my head upward. Directly above us, a massive section of the ceiling, a monolithic slab of stone, broke free.
It plummeted downward, a shadow of death expanding to swallow us whole.
There was no time to run. No time to think.