The guild's atmosphere shifted, sharp and sudden, like the moment before a lightning strike. A creeping chill coiled through the air, wrapping around each person like invisible hands tightening against their throats.
Conversations froze mid-sentence. The scrape of chairs against wood stopped. Only the crackling of the torches remained, flickering weakly against the surge of something unseen. Undeniable.
Leo stood at the heart of it, his body moving slowly, mechanically, as if dragged forward by invisible chains. His face was barren. No fear or anger, just a terrible, hollow stillness.
Inside though, the weight crushed him. Images flashed behind his eyes: their faces, pale and still.
"I promised to protect her," he muttered. The words fell into the dead air like broken glass, sharp and accusing.
A shadow stirred beside him. Ai's presence. She didn't speak, but her gaze held him, a mirror to the storm raging beneath his stillness. The cats jump onto her, seeking solace.
Leo's voice cracked the silence again, louder this time, bitter. "How could I have been so weak?"
No one answered. No one could.
His hands raised.
A mask materialized.
His fingers closed around. Cold. Alive.
He moved before he could second-guess it. Action was the only answer left.
A shimmer rippled above his open palm. The air darkened, swirling into a dense mass, writhing like a living thing desperate to escape. The shadow condensed, beating against the space around it with a low, pulsing thrum of malevolence.
Across the room, Talia staggered back a step, her heart hammering against her ribs. She could feel it. The way the very air seemed to rot around him. Panic clawed at her throat.
Without thinking, she grabbed Elois's arm, her fingers digging in harder than she intended. "We need to move," she hissed, her voice thin and trembling.
Elois didn't argue. Her wide, tear-streaked eyes flicked between Leo and the growing shadow clutched in his hand, her body frozen between fight and flight.
Talia tugged her back, heart pounding a frantic rhythm as they retreated, the weight of the coming storm pressing against them.
Miles away in the capital's crowded marketplace, a figure stilled mid-stride.
His nose twitched.
That scent.
Sharp, electric, unmistakably wrong, snapped through him like a whip. He turned, golden eyes narrowing as he tracked the disturbance to its source.
The demihuman's fingers curled tighter around his staff, nails scraping against the worn wood.
"This is it," he muttered, voice low and grim.
Without hesitation, he leapt upward, vaulting onto a nearby rooftop with grace that turned heads too slow to track him. His staff extended, snapping forward like a spear, launching him from building to building with relentless speed.
The city blurred past.
Each bound brought him closer to the heart of the storm.
Closer to the guild.
Closer to Leo.
One final leap. And he landed lightly in front of the heavy guild doors. The wood trembled under his hands as he shoved them open.
He stepped inside.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the air changed. Thick. Suffocating.
His gaze locked onto the figure at the center of the room. Leo, bathed in a haze of shadow, the mask pulsing in his hand like a heartbeat gone wrong.
The demihuman moved cautiously, every muscle coiled and ready.
"You must not yield to it," he called out, his voice cutting through the oppressive stillness. Firm. Urgent.
His eyes gleamed under the dim torchlight, scanning Leo's face, searching for something. Anything that remained of the man he had once been.
But before Leo could respond, a ripple of sound echoed through the room. Faint and strange. Like leaves rustling in a wind no one could feel.
Ai stiffened, her mechanical gaze darting toward the shadows crawling along the edges of the hall. She didn't speak, but the slight tilt of her head said enough; something was coming.
Leo barely noticed.
He turned his head, the corners of his mouth lifting into a faint, unsettling smile. His eyes shimmered, not with hope or anger, but with something colder. Sharper.
"Don't worry about me," he said. His voice was steady, almost too steady. But if you listened closely, if you strained past the calm surface, you could hear it. The crack beneath. The struggle.
He paused, glancing down at the mask. It pulsed once, in rhythm with the trembling beat of his heart.
"Right now, it's clear what I need to do," Leo continued, almost to himself. "My body... my very being... It's not important."
The words sounded wrong coming from him. As if someone else's voice was moving through his mouth.
The mask shimmered in his hand, hungry.
"As long as I can protect what's important... as long as I can save them..." Leo's voice dipped, faltered for a heartbeat before regaining its strength.
"The end... it has to justify the means."
Silence wrapped around the room again, thicker than before.
He lifted the mask, holding it before his face. Inches away. Close enough that he could feel the cold energy licking against his skin.
He paused. Just once. A flicker of something old, something stubborn, sparked deep within him. A chance to stop.
But the need, the ache to be strong, howled louder.
With a slow, final breath, Leo pressed the mask against his face.
The world exploded.
Darkness ripped outward from him, a flood of seething power that shattered the torches' fragile light and rattled the stone walls. The pressure forced everyone back, choking the air from their lungs.
In the center of it all, Leo stood. Not a man anymore, not exactly.
Something more. Something less.
"Ruyi Bang!"
The shout cracked through the darkness as the demihuman hurled his staff like a spear.
The pole extended mid-flight, a gleaming blur aimed straight for Leo's chest.
But before it could reach him, Leo's body dissolved into shadow. One moment he was there. Next, only a lingering smear of black remained, fading like smoke on the wind.
The guild fell into stunned silence.
Only the heavy taste of dark energy remained, clinging to their tongues, sinking into their bones.
Leo's final smile, flickering on the edge of memory, said it all.
He knew this path might destroy him.
And he had chosen it, anyway.