Alarm: Shouting
Stone: Cracking
Shadow: Stirring
"To the wall! Move to the wall!"
The veteran guard's voice tore through the camp—raw, cracking with panic.
The same scarred bastard who'd carved pain into Asterion's back now flailed his arm toward the sheer rock face, trying to herd the slaves into its meager protection.
Too late.
The distant rumble deepened into a roar.
The spire shuddered.
Asterion tilted his head back.
Thanks to the Mark of the Fallen Night, dusk meant nothing to him. He saw it clearly—the darkness parting like a curtain.
First came the debris.
CRACK—CRASH—!
Rocks. Jagged ice. Chunks of frozen stone smashed into the shelf, pulverizing bodies where they landed. Slaves screamed, scattering instinctively—but the chain betrayed them, yanking people off their feet, knotting them together in screaming heaps.
Here it comes.
Then—
BOOOOOOM—!!
The world buckled.
Something colossal slammed into the platform between the caravan and the wall. The impact threw bodies through the air, split stone, and snuffed the fire in an explosion of dust and frost.
Silence.
For half a heartbeat.
Then the dust cleared.
And it stood there.
Towering.
Grotesque.
A hulking abomination of warped muscle and pale carapace, too many limbs ending in curved, sickle-like claws. Its skin was stretched tight over bulging knots of power, veins pulsing sluggishly beneath mottled flesh.
Its head was wrong.
Misshapen.
Blind.
Milky eyes stared into nothing—
—yet the creature turned unerringly toward warmth.
Toward life.
An Eclipsed Tyrant.
The ruler of these forsaken heights.
Asterion swallowed.
Just how hard is my damned [obscured Anomaly] pulling?
The Tyrant roared.
RAAAAAAGH—!!
The sound rattled his teeth.
And then it charged.
Chaos detonated.
Guards screamed orders, blades flashing uselessly. Slaves shrieked, clawing at chains, dragging one another down in blind terror.
The young guard—the earnest one—froze for a single heartbeat.
Then he screamed and charged, spear leveled.
Asterion didn't freeze.
He moved.
The Tyrant's claws swept wide toward the densest cluster near the fire.
Asterion threw himself sideways—only as far as the chain allowed—and shoved.
Hard.
The burly slave ahead of him stumbled directly into the arc.
SHRRRKK—!!
Wet. Ripping. Final.
Blood sprayed hot across Asterion's face as the man's torso was torn open like soaked parchment. The corpse collapsed backward, slamming into him and pinning him to the frozen stone.
Pain flared.
Weight crushed the breath from his lungs.
Asterion blinked blood from his eyes.
"…Sorry."
Better you than me.
The Tyrant's shadow passed overhead as it rampaged onward, slaughter echoing from the far end of the shelf.
But then—
Something moved beneath the corpse.
The dead man's skin bulged.
Convulsed.
Asterion's stomach sank.
Of course.
He kicked hard, shoving the body off just as—
—SPLIT.
The corpse burst open.
A smaller horror clawed its way free, twisted flesh and exposed bone writhing with abyssal corruption. It screeched, launching itself straight at him.
Asterion didn't hesitate.
For the first time—
—he reached inward.
Deep.
Cold.
He called to the Nightfall Slave.
The shadows answered.
From the pooling darkness at his feet—thickened by extinguished firelight and the Tyrant's massive silhouette—black tendrils erupted.
WHIP—CRACK—!!
They lashed out like living chains, coiling around the creature mid-leap. Bone snapped. Flesh collapsed inward as the shadows crushed it like wet clay.
SKRRRCH—!
The abomination burst apart.
Asterion gasped.
Pain stabbed through his chest, sharp and hollow—as if something vital had been torn loose.
[Essence Consumed: 12%]
[Warning: Hunger stirs.]
He clenched his teeth.
"…Worth it."
The remains dissolved into wisps of void.
But the Tyrant—
—it was turning back.
The monster had finished its first pass.
Bodies littered the shelf. Chains lay snapped and twisted. Fire smoldered weakly.
Its blind gaze fixed on what remained.
Asterion.
The wiry slave.
The scholar.
A handful of trembling survivors.
No time.
Asterion lunged, snatching a loose length of chain from a fallen slave.
"Now!" he shouted.
The wiry one hesitated—then moved.
The scholar followed.
Together, they hurled the chain as the Tyrant charged again, looping it around its thrashing arms. Links bit into carapace, scraping sparks as they pulled with everything they had.
The monster roared, muscles bulging.
The chain screamed.
"Hold it!" Asterion snarled.
Sweat streamed down his face. Blood dripped into his eyes.
He fed Essence into the shadows again—dark tendrils weaving through the metal, reinforcing the chain like living sinew.
[Essence Consumed: 28%]
[Backlash Imminent.]
The Tyrant wrenched one claw free—
—then the young guard appeared.
He drove his spear deep into the creature's side.
SKREEEE—!!
The Tyrant howled, swiping blindly.
The guard dodged—
—not fast enough.
A glancing blow sent him flying into the rocks with a sickening crack.
More shadows surged at Asterion's call, spearing into the Tyrant's joints, slowing it.
The wiry slave screamed as his grip slipped.
Asterion pushed.
He unleashed everything he had left.
Shadow tendrils shot forward like spears—
—piercing straight through the Tyrant's milky eyes.
The monster convulsed, blind and maddened.
"One more!" Asterion roared.
They pulled.
The chain held.
The shadows crushed inward.
CRACK.
The Tyrant collapsed.
Its massive body hit the stone like a falling tower.
Silence followed.
Wind: Whispering
Fire: Crackling
Breath: Ragged
Blue light bloomed in the dark.
[Marvin Beast Slain.]
[Awakened Tyrant Defeated.]
[Soul Fragment Absorbed.]
[Flawed Divine Aspect Resonates.]
[Echo Acquired.]
[First Nightfall Progress: Significant.]
Asterion slumped against the chain, chest heaving.
Essence burned low—but slowly, slowly, it began to refill.
Pain throbbed everywhere.
But he was alive.
The scholar stared at him, eyes wide.
The wiry slave trembled.
In the distance, the young guard groaned, forcing himself upright—bloodied, broken, but breathing.
Asterion wiped gore from his face and let out a thin, bitter smirk.
"…Slave to the night?"
He glanced at the corpse of the Tyrant.
"Not tonight."
The fire crackled on, shadows stretching long across the carnage.
And far above—
—something ancient shifted in the dark.