Ruyu staggered as something slammed into her.
The air was ripped from her lungs, sharp and sudden. Before she could recover, a clawed limb pressed into her abdomen, pinning her against broken concrete. Pain flared—deep and searing—but she stayed conscious.
"Ashu—!"
Her voice cut through the chaos.
Ashu lay several meters away, twisted against the shattered ground. Every breath burned. His arms shook as he tried to rise. His body refused.
Nothing happened.
Between them stood the abomination.
It was tall but hunched, posture bent unnaturally forward. Limbs were too long, joints angled wrong. Pale flesh blended into deep shadow, rough and scarred. Its head was little more than a stretched maw, lined with jagged, irregular protrusions. Dark fluid clung to its mouth, dripping slowly as it breathed. Its long, jointed fingers scraped against the ground, tipped with curved, blood-dark talons.
It didn't rush. It simply watched, patient, calculating.
The creature shifted its weight and lifted Ruyu slightly, not violently—almost casually. She clenched her teeth, refusing to scream. Dust fell from the fractured building behind her.
"You will die worse death ever" she spits on his face.
The abomination reacted, flinging her aside. She crashed into a collapsed wall, debris scattering. Groaning, she rolled to her side. Vision spun—but she was alive.
Ashu's chest tightened. Something inside him twisted violently—not fear, not anger alone, but a suffocating helplessness that crushed everything else.
He had always been like this.
Watching. Enduring. Doing nothing.
The creature turned its attention to him.
It then moved towards ruyu ignoring him.
Ashu tried to move but a Black sword had pierced through him earlier during the confrontation, pinning him where he lay.
Suddenly the world paused.
He stood alone in a vast, empty void.
No sky.
No ground.
Only darkness—thick, endless.
And before him, embedded upright as if waiting, stood the black sword.
It looked wrong.
Not cursed. Not holy.
Just absolute.
Its surface resembled obsidian, but it drank in the darkness instead of reflecting it. Veins pulsed faintly along its blade, not glowing—beating. Like a heart.
Ashu stood there, breath ragged, heart hammering, surrounded by nothing he could recognize. The ruins were gone. The pain was gone. Only the sword remained—floating before him, impossibly close.
It pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Each beat echoed inside his skull.
"Ashu."
He flinched.
The voice wasn't loud. It wasn't even clear. It slipped between his thoughts, using his name like it had always known it.
"What… what is this?" he whispered.
The sword throbbed harder.
He could still see her in his mind—Ruyu thrown aside, struggling to move, the abomination walking toward her without urgency. That image burned brighter than anything else.
"Ashu."
"Stop," he said, clutching his head. "I have to save Ruyu—"
You don't have the power to.
The pressure increased. Not pain—urgency. Like time folding in on itself.
She is dying.
His breath hitched.
"I can't move," he said, voice breaking. "I can't do anything."
The sword drifted closer.
You can.
"I don't know how!"
The pulsing became violent. His thoughts blurred. The void seemed to close in, shrinking, compressing him.
Take me and you can save her.
"I don't care what you are," he said desperately. "Just—just save her."
It will hurt.
"I don't care."
You will lose something.
"I don't care!"Ashu roared desperately.
The sword slammed into him.