As nightfall arrived, no light remained except the fire burning in a circle around the sun symbols on the tall banners behind them. The flames clung to the fabric without consuming it, casting a harsh glow across the bridge while everything beyond it sank into darkness.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Sora's breathing slowly began to steady, though the tension had not left him. His chest rose and fell unevenly as he tried to calm himself, uncertain of what the Sun Bull Knight would say next.
The Bull Knight turned his gaze toward him.
His eyes moved slowly across Sora's entire figure, studying every detail — his posture, the movement of his breath, the faint tremble in his hands — as if he were trying to see beyond him, searching for something hidden beneath the surface.
Then he spoke, his voice calm and steady.
"I don't think you have the ability to do that," he said. "So who ordered you to do it? Who told you to bring the bag here?"
For a brief moment, silence returned.
Then a strange sound echoed from behind the bridge, shifting and trembling through the darkness.
M-M-M-M-MEEEE.
A cold wave ran through Sora's body. His hair stood on end.
He recognized that voice.
But something about it was wrong.
The knight remained silent, his gaze steady.
In this world, what people called miracles or curses were often nothing more than the work of a discipline known as Arclumen.
Arclumen was the art of manipulating light and its reflection.
Human vision itself depended on this principle. Every object seen by the human eye existed in sight only because light struck its surface and reflected back toward the observer. The reflected light carried information — the object's shape, color, movement, and position. Without that reflection, the eye would receive nothing, and to the observer the object would be no different from something that did not exist.
Arclumen users learned to interfere with that reflection.
By manipulating the light that carried the information of the world, they could alter how reality appeared, and sometimes even influence the matter that produced that reflection.
The discipline was divided into four paths.
The first was Veyra, the path of reflection. Through Veyra, a user could gather reflected light and reconstruct the image it once carried. The result could appear as a duplicate figure, a projected form of something once seen, or a reflection of the surrounding environment itself. These reflections were not true bodies but structures of controlled light, shaped from the information carried within it.
The second was Oculis, the alteration of the environment. Instead of rebuilding reflected images, Oculis interfered with the interaction between light and matter. Because light carried energy and information about the state of an object, a skilled user could influence that state — softening solid surfaces, turning stone brittle, or forcing hardened material to behave briefly like wet earth or mud.
It was through this path that the Bull Knight had passed through the fortress wall earlier. The wall itself had not been destroyed. The knight had simply altered the state of its surface long enough to cut through it, after which the material slowly returned to its original form.
The third path was Lumara, the alteration of the body. Rather than changing flesh or bone, Lumara manipulated how light reflected from the user's body. Skin, eyes, scars, and even posture could appear different because the reflected light describing them had been altered before reaching another observer's sight.
The fourth and most feared path was Seryth, the definition of existence. By interfering directly with the reflection that allowed an object to be perceived, a user could suppress or erase that reflection entirely. When something reflected no light, the human eye could no longer perceive it. To those watching, it was as though the object had vanished from existence itself.
Yet all four paths obeyed the same natural rule.
Light never vanished completely.
Even the darkest surface reflected a small portion of the light that touched it. Black objects appeared black only because they absorbed most wavelengths while reflecting very little, but that small reflection was still enough for the human eye to recognize their presence.
Because of this, dark materials were harder for Arclumen users to manipulate, though not impossible.
Within every trained eye there also existed a crystalline sphere, invisible to most observers. At its center shone a faint light representing the remaining energy of the user. Behind that light moved countless thin lines, like threads drifting in a silent current. Those lines were the flow through which the user guided reflection itself.
Arclumen was powerful, but it was not limitless.
It relied on existing light.
Where light was scarce, the discipline weakened.
This was the reason nightfall carried a different kind of fear.
For when darkness deepened, the world did not simply grow dim. The night absorbed most of the light that once filled the land. What little remained sometimes carried fragments of older reflections — faint traces of creatures, people, and events long gone.
And sometimes, in rare moments, those remnants reflected again.
Repeating movements that had happened long ago.
As if the darkness itself remembered.
Sora recognized the sound , and this time he was certain.
It was Vincent.
But something about it was terribly wrong.
As the figure moved closer, the firelight from the banners illuminated him. Vincent's body was ruined. Blood had already dried across his clothes, and a hole gaped in the center of his chest. One arm hung nearly severed, his legs twisted and broken as if he had fought something far stronger than himself. It looked like the aftermath of a battle against a monster — a battle he had clearly lost.
And yet his face was untouched.
Not a single scratch.
Only his eyes were gone.
A strange feeling rose inside Sora, a mixture of uncertainty and sadness. The one who had always brought him cheese was gone.
The Sun Bull Knight erased all hesitation from his mind and prepared himself to fight. Raising his hand, he used Veyra and Oculis to gather the reflected firelight from the burning banners and the air itself. The light twisted and condensed, forming a blazing arc of cutting air and flame. With a single motion, he released it.
The burning slash tore through Vincent's body, cutting him cleanly in half.
But the knight did not relax. He already knew that thing was no longer Vincent, and it would not die from a simple cut. The flames within the slash ignited, spreading across the corpse so that even if it continued moving, the fire would burn it until nothing remained but ash.
Then the knight felt something.
A cold touch behind him.
It slipped through his armor as if the metal did not exist. He had not sensed her approach. Johanna had risen again, and she was standing far too close. She observed him silently as the light inside him began to fade, as if something was swallowing it.
The knight struggled, trying to draw upon the firelight from the banners, but it refused to answer him. It was as if no reflection existed within him anymore — as if he were not there at all.
Forcing his voice through the tightening darkness, he called out,
"Help me… get her away from me!"
Sora looked at him.