The way things happened so quickly was still a shock to Leo. The soldiers and their leaders were gone, just like that.
First, the Shadow had run them mad into killing each other, further spreading the madness; then, it killed each and every one of them with shadow tendrils, their flesh and blood disappearing after being massacred by the tendrils as if they had never existed.
Now, he and Lyra were embraced and dragged into the shadows, with the Shadow and countless dead incarnates of the soldiers and leaders staring at them with pure madness.
Leo was ready for battle, even though his sword skills were not near those each of the soldiers of the Great Sea possessed. Back at training with Yariel, he was almost flawless, but that couldn't be compared to the skills of veteran soldiers.
To add to it, the sword he had stolen had long disappeared after the final breath of its owner. It was a simple trait of a Vestige to disappear after its owner's death.
Then again, that wasn't what was holding him back.
"How exactly do we fight shadows?"
"Beats me." Lyra frowned. "I guess that's why the Spirit of Madness was such a feared creature. This thing I'm looking at is not even a Sagittarius."
Leo raised an eyebrow and gazed at the Shadow. "You sure?"
"Nope. But let's pray I'm right. I really hate people not fulfilling their promises," she said, and summoned a long tachi, which she threw to him.
He caught it and examined it. "You know what? My name is actually Leo Atlantis. I come from an era where Aura had taken a huge leap in evolution. I was supposed to awaken after reaching the age of thirteen years, but when I touched the Awakening Tree, I found myself in an obsidian desert in the shape of a mad snake. Then I found a ship just as this one buried under the sand. I entered the ship and fell into a vortex that was in it and found myself in the body of a young handsome man named Aquarius. I met with a giant man and then a beautiful lady. Oh, that was you. I guess you know the rest."
He turned at the countless shadows gazing at them like a dreadful audience.
"And yes, I have no abilities, and my knowledge of things is still premature considering my age."
Lyra didn't reply immediately. Instead, she laughed. Surrounded by assumed darkness and possible death, Lyra laughed, then suddenly paused, her expression turning dark and somber.
"So if all that you've said is true, then that means I'm in love with a kid. That means I have put all my hopes on a scrawny kid. That means I'm pathetic. Ah..." She clutched her dislocated shoulder softly and gazed at the embraced shadows above them, sighed, and a dark smile appeared on her face like a jagged chasm.
"...It's all over."
Then she turned back to Leo with a forced smile.
"Then again, what gives us the right to give up so easily? I swear on the Great Sea, I'll drag this damn Shadow with me into the embrace of death. Come on... Leo Atlantis, let's fight till our last breath."
The atmosphere on the deck shifted from cold dread to a frantic, burning defiance. Even with Lyra's shoulder hanging uselessly and her energy diminishing, she stood tall, the dark smile on her face shifting from one of defeat to one of absolute, suicidal aggression.
"Fight till our last breath?" Leo echoed, his voice low. He tightened his grip on the tachi, the hilt biting into the palm of his white gauntlet.
"Tsk. For once, I actually like your attitude."
The Shadow—the distorted entity wearing the King's face—didn't wait for them to finish their moment. It raised a hand, and the hundreds of dead incarnates lunged.
They didn't move like men. They moved like ink pouring across the floorboards, silent and blurring.
The first shadow-soldier reached the platform in a blur. It didn't have a weapon, but its fingers had lengthened into jagged, obsidian needles.
Leo didn't wait. He stepped into the creature's guard, his boots sliding on the slick, black-stained wood. He drove the tachi upward, which felt like slicing through thick, freezing water. The shadow-soldier hissed and dissolved into a puddle of ink, but the force of the momentum nearly pulled Leo off his feet.
Lyra was a whirlwind of desperate violence. Despite her dislocated shoulder, she used her good arm to swing her sword in brutal, heavy arcs. Every time she connected, a burst of heat flared from her blade, charring the shadows and sending them reeling. She was fighting like an animal backed into a corner, using her shoulders and hips to compensate for her dead arm.
Leo spun, narrowly dodging a clawed hand that whistled past his helm. He parried a strike from a shadow wearing the face of a sergeant he'd seen earlier that morning. The impact vibrated through his entire skeleton, the [Shell of Dread] groaning as it absorbed the shock.
He kicked the sergeant in the chest, sending the shadow stumbling back into the mass of reaching limbs below.
"They're too fast!" Leo panted, his lungs burning.
He wasn't a master of fighting. Every movement was a gamble. He was relying on the drills Yariel had hammered into his muscles, but the shadows didn't follow the rules of human anatomy. They bent at impossible angles, sliding under his blade and lunging from the floorboards.
"Keep moving!" Lyra yelled. She took a hit to her side, a shadow-claw tearing through her leather armor. She grabbed the shadow's head with her heated hand and crushed it until it evaporated.
"Don't let them circle us!"
Leo lunged forward, clearing a path toward the steering oar. A shadow-general—massive and broad-shouldered—blocked his way. The creature swung a shadowy mace that smashed into the deck, splintering the wood. Leo dived between the creature's legs, his white armor sparking against the floor. He came up behind it and drove the tachi through its spine.
The shadow-general didn't die. It spun its head and backhanded Leo across the face.
Leo hit the railing hard. The [Shell of Dread] hissed, its white metal dented. His vision swam. Through the red haze of his visor, he saw the main Shadow, the one wearing the King's face, slowly walking toward Lyra.
"Lyra! Behind you!"