"What is the essence of combat?"
Sunny asked, his eyes carefully tracing the two clans about to engage in battle.
From his vantage point atop the crown of a tree—the closest he could find to the battlefield—he could see everything in detail. The current champion of the Heralds, a Fallen Monster, was about to engage the champion of the Brood, the same Fallen Demon he had hidden from just yesterday.
"Back then, my answer was 'Survival'. And I genuinely believed that. Who cares about honor? Who cares about glory? Leave those to the Legacies and may they choke on it. Who am I to stop them from dying if that's what they want? I, for one, will do whatever it takes to survive."
He summoned the [Bow of the Lone Hunter]. Serpent left the tattoo and instead turned into an arrow, dark as night and just as deadly. He nocked the arrow, the bow slowly accumulating power through the [To Pierce the Heavens] enchantment.
Below, the champions were already fighting, tearing into each other with a savagery that mere words could not even come close to describing.
"She rebuked me, claiming that it is 'Murder'. In battle, the only thing that matters is murdering your opponent while stopping your opponent from doing the same to you. Nothing more, nothing less."
Saint, hiding behind the line of trees, readied herself. Her stone armor glistened under the eternal rain, her sword and shield ready to follow her into battle once more. Her ruby eyes shone balefully, an uncompromising vow of victory gleaming in them. She had a duty, and the world would break before her will did.
The champions were slowing down, the wounds they had taken during the short duel already making themselves known. Surprisingly, despite being of a lower class, the Herald was winning—the unquenchable wrath and willingness to take any injury, as long as it could deliver the same onto its opponent, proving more than a match.
"At that moment, I believed her. She was a far more experienced fighter than I was, the daughter and student of humanity's first Saint. If she said so, what reason did I have to doubt her? It made sense after all." And then, without even realizing that he voiced the thought, he added, "It's quite hard to argue against a beautiful woman in a seaweed bikini too."
Unaware of his slip, he continued watching the fight, eyes cold and sharp as he took in the duel that was about to end. Soon, other creatures would join, descending into a vicious melee that would only end when one side was in far too much of a disadvantage to keep fighting.
He could feel his pulse quickening, heart thumping louder in his chest, vision sharpening as adrenaline started to flood his veins.
Soon, he promised himself.
The command stirred, rising from a quiet whisper to a low drone that held his attention like nothing in the world could ever do. At times—and curse his soft heart for it—he appreciated it. Cherished it even.
It had been a year and four months already since he heard any voice but his own, [Ordinary Rock] aside. And the command... the command sounded just like her.
He felt hate roar to life, a mad, relentless beast that would never stop until rightful revenge was claimed. He felt love answer the challenge, an insidious and stubborn creature, still clinging to him against all logic. It was like a poison to which he could find no cure.
He banished the thoughts—this was neither the time nor the place. He would think about the conflicting emotions at another moment.
Never, if he could get away with it.
"As I crossed the Forgotten Shore and The Tears," he murmured, "battling horrors that knew nothing but madness, I began to doubt her answer. Murder is simple. Elegant, even. Honest in its brutality." He muttered, "It is not, however, an acceptable answer for me."
Behind him, a thunderous crash could be heard, and the violent currents of the river he had clogged came back to life. The river flooded immediately, water building up and then spilling as a tide that washed over the battling creatures without mercy.
The creatures were taken by surprise, the mighty currents strong enough to make them stagger and even drag away some of their weaker members. It did not, however, harm them.
How could it? They were all Awakened at the minimum. The flood was nothing but an inconvenience for the creatures, their leaders even exuding a deranged sort of amusement at the predicament faced by their minions.
What did not amuse them, however, was the way the river started bubbling, as if there was something inside it ready to erupt out of the water at any moment.
"The essence of combat is control."
Almost a year ago, a creature had ambushed him from inside a river. He remembered it because it had granted him the memory that allowed him to make Saint into an Ascendent. Since then, he had never seen another of its kind.
Never, until he had sent one of his shadows to scout the endless rivers that populated the land. Inside, he found veritable swarms of them, refusing to come out unless provoked or they had an easy prey—namely him—in reach.
The Azure Claws were the third clan that reigned over The Tears, their dominion over the rivers uncontested and absolute.
"Leaving an opening for your opponent to strike, unaware that in doing so they are leaving themselves open to your counter. Taking a smaller wound so that your enemy will receive a grievous one instead. Pretending to be unaware of the creature stalking you, when in truth, you are leading it into a trap. Slowly culling the ranks of your rivals, pitting them against each other, making sure that when the time of the decisive battle comes, there will be far less of them for you to face. Luring a third enemy horde into a battle between two others."
The waters bubbled savagely and then erupted into tall sprays as creatures started emerging from it—massive crustaceans with pincers just as big as he was, their blue shells emitting a low bioluminescence that banished the darkness that pervaded the eternally clouded lands.
There was a nest not too far from where he had placed his improvised dam. And when it broke, crushed by the combination of the violent currents and his tender ministrations through [Endbringer], it had been violently disturbed, displacing them too close to the fighting clans to be ignored. Thinking themselves attacked by the Brood and the Heralds, the Claws could answer in no other way but murderous fury.
And then, coming last, it appeared.
From the dark waters it rose, a colossal crustacean whose shell glowed with an unholy blue, each plate veined with bioluminescent lines that pulsed like a cold, alien heartbeat. The light did not comfort—it revealed. It cast jagged shadows across the land, illuminating hooked spines crusted with ancient scars and layers of calcified growth, as though the creature had been molting and hardening since before memory had names.
Its carapace shimmered like drowned starlight, beautiful in the way a toxin is beautiful—seductive, lethal, and utterly indifferent. Long antennae drifted outward, tasting the air for movement, for fear, for the faint electrical whisper of living things. When it moved, the air seemed to recoil, silence thickening as if sound itself dared not linger. And the creature was furious.
The Fallen Tyrant set its baleful eyes on the clans and exploded into motion.
"It all comes back to control. Control your enemy," he continued. "So they act how you want, while losing the ability to act how they want. Control the battlefield, turning the environment into an extension of your will. Control time—strike when they are weakest, when you are strongest."
The three leaders engaged in battle, forced to contend against each other lest the others wipe out their subordinates too quickly.
"But most importantly..."
His shadows coiled around the bow, the wood creaking under the might it was suddenly infused with. He took a deep breath, casting aside all thoughts and distractions.
The world narrowed into a tunnel, and then, it narrowed to a single point, a jagged glassy plate that was slightly cracked from a previous fight. The damage was already undoing itself, but it had not done so yet. It would never do, if he had anything to say about it.
He let go of the Serpent-turned-arrow, his shadows leaving the bow at the last possible moment and reinforcing his companion instead.
The shaft leapt forward, screaming through the air as though the wind itself had been split open. Fletching blurred, steel sang, and the space between Sunny and Wrath collapsed in an instant. Time faltered around it—raindrops hung suspended, the blood of battling beasts froze mid-fall—unwilling to interrupt the arrow's furious pilgrimage.
It flew true, bearing the weight of his will and unspoken prayers. The great enemy loomed ahead, vast and terrible, yet for the first time cast in the shadow of something smaller… and unstoppable.
When the arrow struck, it was not impact alone that thundered across the battlefield, but meaning. The moment declared that even the mightiest could bleed, that inevitability could be challenged, and that even a slave, condemned to die alone and forgotten, could still rebel against Fate.
"Control yourself," Sunny finished softly, eyes gleaming, "and even the gods will fall."
Below, Saint surged forward. The signal had been given, and she answered eagerly.
Ahead, Serpent shed its arrow form and tore into the enemy ranks, just as faithful as she was.
Sparks gathered around Sunny's arm, coalescing into an austere tachi that settled into his open palm.
He had but one chance.
Glory or death—that was the only choice he had.
-------------------------------------------
Chaos took over the battlefield.
Sunny dove into the fight headfirst, heart thundering in his chest as he did so.
He saw a Herald tearing a Claw in two, then savagely feeding on its still-breathing form.
He saw a Brood clashing against a Herald, claw and hook meeting in a shower of sparks that cast ominous shadows along the battlefield. The clash ended with the Brood victorious, its claws drenched in the blood of its enemy.
He saw a Claw savagely stomping on a Brood with its long legs.
Two of his shadows returned, coiling around him, breathing new strength into his body. Shadow Essence flowed through him, bringing even greater might to bear.
He had neither the time nor the option to play it slow and steady. If the battle dragged on, either Wrath or the Emotion Eater would retreat to lick their wounds and try again later.
His arm came down, the tachi striking with all of his might behind it. The Claw did not have time to realize he was close before its life ended.
[You have slain an Awakened Demon, Azure Claw]
[Your shadow grows stronger]
[You have received a Memory, The Essence of Combat.]
He heard the spell announce the kill but didn't have time to listen before he was besieged by a new opponent. It didn't stop him from feeling a small sense of foreboding, though.
A hook came for his face, and he didn't have time to keep pondering the matter, having to focus on the enemy ahead of him instead.
He saw Saint in the distance, having joined the three-way fight between the leaders, one of his shadows coiled around her to augment her even further.
He saw Serpent, currently in the form of a Spire Messenger, tearing into packs of nightmare creatures with a savagery that the normally placid snake didn't usually showcase.
The fight became a blur, scenes of savagery merging together, his whole world reducing to nothing but the battle going on.
The tragedies of the past disappeared, the uncertainty of the future stopped mattering; the command, Fate, and even the [Shadow Bond] were cast away from his mind. He could deal with them later—what mattered now was victory.
Breathe. No time to think about anything else. They were moving. He could feel the ground shift beneath their weight. Don't look at the eyes—don't let the eyes take you. Focus.
The first strike was coming. Left. Duck. He knew the motion before it even began, the angle. Right arm, quick jab—hit. The sound of bone cracking. Good, but not enough. Don't let up. Keep your pace steady. One down, two more to go.
They never stopped coming. Another one. Right, sharp turn. The claws swished past his cheek. Close. He could smell it—flesh, rotting. Don't let the stench distract you. Get lower. Move fast.
Right leg—sweep. Another down. That's two. One more.
He could feel the heat from the last one. It was different. Heavier. The air felt thick with the tension of its movements. The others were still circling. I can't let them regroup. Breathe. No hesitation. I'm not tired. I'm not scared.
It was only the battle. Only the battle. Strike. Strike. Strike.
Focus. I know their movements. They know mine. There's no surprise left, only the rhythm of the fight. Jump. Pincer misses by a hair's breadth. Counter. My tachi arcs—right through. The beast stumbles. Not enough. Not yet.
Can't slow down now.
Back. Right. Left. Parry. Slash. Another step back. They're gaining ground. Left leg. Sweep again. Focus. Focus.
The final one was ready to charge. It was faster than the others, but reckless. He couldn't allow it to close the distance. He couldn't let it get too close. One mistake, just one—
No.
Keep moving. Keep moving.
The strike was perfect—straight through. The Claw's form crumpled.
It was done.
Silence.
Glorious silence, for a full second.
And then, the battle resumed.
-------------------------------------------
More creatures arrived, madness shining in their eyes as they approached him.
He avoided the first one and countered the blow. From the corner of his eye, he saw the progress made by Saint and determined that it was time.
He ran as fast as he could, chest and legs burning like they were on fire.
What felt like hours, but was mere seconds later, he arrived—the leftmost statue standing tall and proud ahead of him. He took hold of its string of life—big enough to do so even at a distance—and started channeling essence into it.
His grip did not waver as he danced between nightmare creatures, dodging claws and hooks while continuing to pour essence into the string.
A minute passed.
That was all.
It was enough.
He was already bleeding, wounds carving themselves into his body, the inability to retreat costing him dearly.
Then—
A groan.
Deep.
Ancient.
That sound was all the reward he needed.
Stone groaned once more as the statue tipped, the sound deep and ancient, as if the earth itself recognized the surrender. The divine posture broke mid-fall, symbolism stripped away, leaving only mass and inevitability.
The statue toppled and fell, right onto the still-ongoing battle between the leaders, Saint having led them there.
When it struck, the impact sent a dull tremor through the soil, a punctuation mark at the end of centuries of fruitless resistance.
Fragments scattered: a hand there, fingers still curled as if grasping for a future that had already passed; a face split cleanly in two, expression completely erased at last. Dust rose and settled quickly, as though the world were eager to forget the moment.
[You have slain a Fallen Tyrant, Azure General]
[Your shadow grows stronger]
The first leader to fall was the one belonging to the Claws. It was the weakest among them and had already been too wounded to avoid it in time, the fall of thousands upon thousands of tons too much for it to bear.
The Emotion Eater came out unscathed. It had been the farthest from the statue and too smart and healthy to be caught within the attack.
Wrath had been hit too, though unlike the General, he had received no damage from it—mere stone proving to be nothing but an inconvenience.
It had, however, trapped it under the remains of the statue, the wound he had delivered through the bow at the beginning of the battle, and the ones it had received during the struggle with Saint and the other leaders, proving too much even for the mighty Corrupted Beast to escape from.
He sent Saint to finish the Emotion Eater, while he sent Serpent to deal with the remaining nightmare creatures.
He, in turn, approached the trapped Corrupted Beast, still struggling against its stone bindings.
The burning orbs it had for eyes fixated on him and blazed alight. The aura of wrath that surrounded the creature surged, dragging him under its will.
Except that the anger had not arrived all at once. It had gathered quietly, folding itself into his thoughts until it spoke with his own voice. He felt it press behind his eyes, heavy and insistent, turning every memory sharp, every slight unforgivable.
He told himself it was justified. He had been wronged—again and again. The thought repeated until it drowned out all others. Reason tried to surface, but it was slow, fragile. Wrath was faster. Clearer. It promised certainty where doubt once lived.
The remembrance chain tried to fight it, sets of happy and sad memories battling the unnatural wrath. It fought it and was utterly defeated.
He summoned the runes, but even the conflict of emotions proved itself insufficient against the tide of wrath.
His hands trembled, not from fear, but from the strain of holding himself still. Every breath felt like resistance. Every moment without release felt like betrayal. The world narrowed, colors flattening, sounds dulling, until only the heat remained.
Somewhere, he knew this was not clarity.
Somewhere, he understood he was losing something.
But the anger did not care.
By then, it was no longer something he felt.
It was something he had become.
A scream died in his throat—too small, too weak to contain what raged inside.
Tears slid down his cheeks, mourning all the chances he had to end her life—and hadn't.
It kept building, feeding on all the anger and hatred that had been festering inside him for a year and a half. No— even from before.
His life had never been lacking in things to evoke anger in him.
The fury grew, an inferno building in his chest that threatened to come out and set the world aflame. And then, it happened.
The wrath grew so much that it burned itself out, leaving a chilling clarity behind.
"Who are you," Sunny asked softly, his face settling into stone, "to speak to me about anger, beast?"
Wrath recoiled as much as it could upon being addressed, realizing it had committed a mistake—pushed too far.
"I have lived with wrath for as long as I can remember," he whispered. "I have been betrayed more times than you can count."
The shadows around them trembled, stirring from their slumber, awaiting with bated breath what the heir of their lord would do.
"I have faced no less than two death zones as a Sleeper and survived."
The tremble of his hands settled.
"I have fought against creatures that, by all rights, should have killed me a thousand times—and by the end, stepped over their corpses."
The tears stopped on their own.
"I have sealed an ancient evil a whole civilization couldn't contain, then watched the death of a sun."
He raised his arm, the [Midnight Shard] shining sinisterly under the burning orbs that Wrath had for eyes.
"I have stared at an Unholy Titan's soul, and it did not dare to strike me down."
The tachi fell, a narrow wound opening on the creature's neck.
"I am Lost from Light, rightful heir of Death and beloved son of Fate. I have been wronged more times than there are stars in the sky, felt emotions so intense they could stop a man's heart, battled against my own mind to keep a sliver of sanity intact. So tell me, beast—who are you to lecture me about wrath?"
The tachi fell again. Again. And once more. It kept falling until the light left the eyes of the beast.
[You have slain a Corrupted Beast: Wrath, Vorthal of Aleras]
[Your shadow grows stronger]
[You have received a Memory, Crown of Wrath.]
He stared with cold eyes at the remains of the creature and felt nothing but contempt.
His gaze turned toward Saint, still battling the Emotion Eater, every second bringing victory closer.
"Saint," he ordered calmly. "Defeat it. Do not kill it."
He wouldn't risk another Crimson Spire situation.
Then he focused on Serpent, just in time to see him end the last of the remaining nightmare creatures.
It hadn't ended yet—but it was done.
Glory it is, he thought, a mirthful smile taking shape on his face.
-------------------------------------------
Sunny took in the remains of the battlefield.
It no longer resembled a place meant to exist.
The ground was churned into uneven ridges and depressions, as if the land itself had tried to flee and failed. Broken corpses lay half-buried in the soil—too large, too crude, too varied to belong to any single kind. Jagged armor fragments marked where three clans had collided, their shapes clashing even in death.
The remains were scattered without order. Some bodies lay where they had fallen, others crushed into the earth or pinned beneath debris. It was impossible to tell who had been winning. Whatever strategies once guided them had dissolved into chaos long before the end.
The air was heavy and still, carrying a faint, sour tang that clung to the throat.
Marks of different kinds scarred the terrain. Deep furrows where massive force had torn through the ground. Blackened stone where heat or corrosive power had lingered too long.
Nothing here spoke of victory.
Only persistence. Only destruction, repeated until nothing remained to fight for.
He inhaled and immediately regretted doing so.
This victory looked nothing like the ones he saw in the webtoons he liked to read as a child. There, it was a glorious moment, filled with satisfaction and joy.
Here? It was sad and depressing, filling him with nothing but the desire to curl into a ball and cry.
He shook his head to dispel the thoughts. This was not the time.
Serpent coiled around him, taking back his tattoo form to recover from whatever damage he had taken during the battle.
His shadows pooled around his feet, just as exhausted as he was, all of them too subdued by the events of the day to offer any reaction.
Saint stood tall and proud. Her armor was cracked in many places, covered in tears that bled ruby dust. Even her helmet was damaged, revealing the left side of her bewitching face.
At her feet lay the broken body of the Emotion Eater, limbs torn so that it could pose no threat, yet still clinging stubbornly to life. Even now, it tried to sap his emotions, to feed on him. Let it. Its life would soon end.
He turned around to face the Temple, its form miraculously untouched by the chaos of the battle that had taken place.
As if awaiting precisely the moment he would look at it, a quiet grinding sound could be heard.
Then the grind grew in volume, the wide doors trembling for the first time in eons. Slowly—glacially so—they moved, parting outward as if to welcome him into the interior.
The calling, vague and faint, grew tenfold. It wasn't his imagination; he was sure of it now.
Led by his own wish for salvation and at the urging of Fate, he approached and climbed the steps that separated him from the entrance. He advanced quietly through a long, narrow corridor, lavishly decorated, the interior perfectly pristine—at odds with the withered exterior.
At long last, the corridor ended, leaving him face to face with the main chamber. And what a beautiful sight it was.
The main hall stretched wide and luminous, as if the elements themselves had conspired to shape it. Blinding light poured from elegant chandeliers—impossibly burning still, eons after the temple was abandoned—scattering across the polished stone in shifting patterns that mimicked the rippling of waves. Above, the ceiling arched in graceful curves, painted in pale blues and soft whites, giving the impression of an endless sky bending overhead.
Columns rose like slender waves frozen mid-crest, adorned with filigree of clouds and flowing currents, spiraling toward the vaulted ceiling. Soft sprays of mist rose from hidden fountains, mingling with warm drafts that carried the scent of incense and the faint ozone of distant storms.
At the far end, twin altars faced one another across the hall. The goddess of water was carved from deep azure stone, fluid and flowing in every line, hands cupped as if holding the tides themselves. The god of the sky was sculpted in alabaster, light and expansive, arms raised as if lifting clouds, gaze eternally reaching toward the horizon. Between them, a raised circular platform made of polished glass shone mesmerizingly.
The platform… the platform was the Gateway.
He stepped toward it softly, carefully, fearfully.
Glacially slow yet blazingly fast, he arrived in front of it, the calling growing stronger with every step.
He stared at it for a long time, unable to believe that he had done it.
Tears prickled at his eyes, but he wiped them away before they could fall.
The aches plaguing his body seemed to disappear.
His heart swelled with emotion.
A wide smile appeared on his face.
For once, his hopes were proven true.
He climbed onto the platform, idly noting that it could hold dozens at the same time.
The glass started shining, revealing beautiful carvings carved into the floor.
The radiance slowly built up, his joy growing along with it.
And then—just as it was about to become blinding, just like the Gateway in the Crimson Spire had—
The light died out.
Leaving him in the exact same place he was.