The city still stank of ash and panic.
I walked down the ruined street, boots crunching over broken glass. Shadows clung to me like second skin, reluctant to let go even after the Eidolon's corpse had faded. Every step was accompanied by whispers, soft and needling.
> More fear… more power… more…
I pressed my fingers against my temple. It didn't help. The voices weren't just in my head—they were stitched into the world around me. Every terrified glance from the civilians fed them. Every whispered curse turned into static in my ears.
"Fear Architect," they called me now.
A name spat like a curse.
And yet, when I let it roll on my tongue, it tasted like inevitability.
---
The sky groaned overhead, heavy gray pressing down. Somewhere in the mist, a bell tolled—dull, metallic, warning of another incursion.
I almost smiled. This world never rested. Neither could I.
Then I heard it: footsteps, steady and deliberate, cutting through the chaos.
I turned.
A woman approached through the haze, her presence bending the street around her. Tall, armored, an obsidian shield strapped to her back, its surface cracked with faint silver veins. A blue cloak billowed behind her, its edges tattered like mourning cloth.
Her eyes caught me first—deep, steady, carrying sorrow heavy enough to drown in.
The survivors who had shrunk from me seemed to breathe again at her arrival. Their panic dulled, fear mist thinning, as if her very presence had smothered it.
She radiated calm. Where I drew power from terror, she smothered it.
A Mourner.
---
Her gaze lingered on me. Not on the dead Wraiths or the fading traces of the Eidolon, but on the shadows still crawling at my feet.
"You're the one they're whispering about," she said, voice low, carrying a weight that made the street fall silent.
"Depends what they're whispering," I answered, forcing a smirk.
Her lips pressed into a line. "That you don't fight like a Nocturne. That you build nightmares instead of banishing them."
The word build hit like a hammer. Not wrong. Not entirely.
"And if I do?" I asked.
"Then you're dangerous," she said simply.
---
The crowd behind her murmured, caught between relief at her presence and dread of me.
Her hand touched the obsidian shield slung across her back. Not as a threat—more like an oath.
"My name is Daenerys D'Aubrey. Mourner of the Silverveil Choir." Her gaze hardened. "And I'll warn you once: a Nocturne is meant to carry people's pain, not weaponize it."
I couldn't help the laugh that slipped out, sharp and bitter.
"You shield them from fear. I use it. Different philosophies, same battlefield." I stepped closer, my violet eyes cracked and glowing. "Tell me, Mourner, do you think spirits care about your ideals? Fear is the only currency that buys survival here. Pretend otherwise, and you'll be broke in a week."
Her grip on her shield tightened. But she didn't strike. Not yet.
---
The ground quivered.
The bell tolled again, louder. A fissure ripped open in the distance, spewing black vapor. Shadows surged outward, coalescing into shapes—smaller than the Eidolon, but many. Too many.
Wraiths. Dozens.
The civilians screamed, fear mist erupting once more. My system blazed.
> [Wraith Swarm Detected]
Fear Index: Rising Rapidly [Dangerous]
The timing was poetic.
Daenerys drew her shield, obsidian surface gleaming. She barked orders to her squad—figures in silver-trimmed cloaks fanning out, forming a defensive wall around the civilians.
"Protect them! Hold the line!"
She planted her shield into the ground. Light rippled outward, a dome of sorrowful blue, muffling screams and slowing the advance of shadows.
I felt the shift instantly. The Fear Index dipped. My power—my fuel—bled away.
I frowned.
Her very existence was suffocating me.
---
The Wraiths shrieked, slamming into her shield wall. Shadows burst against it like waves breaking against stone. Her squad fought back with practiced precision, blades of grief cutting through mist.
I watched.
Then laughed softly.
Because even as she calmed the civilians, fear didn't vanish. It just changed shape. Anxiety. Desperation. The knowledge that even behind her shield, they weren't safe.
Enough.
> [Fear Arena – Partial Expansion]
Source: Residual Terror [✔]
The street twisted beneath the swarm. Lamp posts bent like skeletal arms, the ground splitting into mazes of glass and shadow.
The Wraiths screeched as they were pulled into my design, trapped between mirrored walls.
Daenerys turned sharply, her shield glowing against the distortion.
"What are you doing?!"
"Winning," I said simply.
---
Her eyes flashed. "You're feeding on their terror!"
"And you're starving us both," I countered.
The Wraiths thrashed inside my arena. I tightened it, chains snapping shut, illusions of screaming faces multiplying until the swarm drowned in their own reflected panic.
I harvested every drop of their terror.
> [Fear Harvest +200 EN]
Corruption Gauge: 14%
Power surged through me, intoxicating and sharp. Shadows writhed across my arms, clinging like tattoos that moved.
The swarm shriveled, fading into ash.
Silence followed, broken only by the civilians' ragged breathing.
---
Daenerys stood across from me, shield lowered, face hard.
"They look at you with more fear than they did at the spirits," she said quietly. "Is that the savior you want to become?"
I met her gaze, smirk thinning into something colder.
"I don't want to be their savior. I want to survive. Heroes die. Survivors adapt."
Her sorrowful eyes lingered, searching, as though she could see the cracks spreading in mine.
Her squad began guiding the civilians away, but she stayed. For one heartbeat too long.
As if she couldn't decide whether I was salvation… or the abyss in human skin.