"Mala.... Malakor?...."
Squish... Squelch...
The heavy, rhythmic sound of boots sinking into the blood-soaked mud echoed across the smoking crater.
Valerius shifted slightly. His bruised, exhausted body instinctively forced him to take a step back. Every muscle in his legs burned with lactic acid and residual static shock.
Through the lingering, acrid smoke of the battlefield, a figure emerged.
It was Malakor.
But the Prince of Shadows was fundamentally broken.
His single visible violet eye locked onto Valerius. He didn't blink. He didn't speak. He just silently, methodically stepped forward, his boots crushing the charred remnants of the Hollow spawns beneath his heels.
The bond between the two brothers was the strongest among the Seven Princes. They had survived countless hells together. They had covered each other's blind spots in a hundred different war zones.
But right now, looking at the approaching figure, Valerius didn't recognize the man walking toward him.
The partial darkness veiling Malakor's face wasn't just an absence of light anymore. It seemed to actively swallow the ambient shadows around them.
It made the air feel unnaturally cold, dropping the temperature so rapidly that Valerius's breath plumed into white vapor. It turned the familiar, comforting darkness of his brother into something predatory, hungry, and deeply lethal.
"Broski..." Valerius stammered.
The slight Tamaskritian slang slipped out through his chattering teeth in a moment of sheer, unfiltered panic.
He was completely, utterly unsettled.
He had just regained consciousness from a near-death burnout after unleashing the Zeus Smash, only to find himself in the middle of a slaughterhouse with his closest brother radiating pure, murderous intent.
It was enough to make Valerius want to pass out all over again.
"Malakor, what is happening?" Valerius asked, his voice cracking into a pathetic rasp.
He couldn't even take another step back. His concussed brain and completely drained mana core left him entirely disoriented. The horizon spun dizzily around him.
His body, acting purely on primal survival instinct, covered itself in a shallow, frantic layer of violet sparks.
Every single muscle fiber, every nerve ending screamed at him to either attack or run.
But he couldn't. He couldn't raise his hands against Malakor.
Malakor closed the final distance.
He invaded Valerius's personal space, his towering, corrupted presence completely suffocating the younger prince. The smell of cold ash and absolute void rolled off his armor.
Slowly, deliberately, Malakor raised a hand.
The shadows around them darkened into a pitch-black, impenetrable void. The absolute darkness flickered, violently drinking the pale moonlight right out of the air.
A few battered Tamaskritian soldiers standing nearby froze in their tracks.
They couldn't take their eyes off the terrifying encounter. Their weapons lowered uselessly as they watched two of their own Princes locked in a deadly, incomprehensible standoff.
Valerius's heart pounded violently against his rib cage.
The thudding was so hard it actually vibrated the dented steel of his chest plate.
He squeezed his remaining unswollen eye shut. He gritted his teeth, bracing his broken body for whatever horror Malakor had in store for him.
Malakor placed his hand squarely on Valerius's shoulder.
It was the hand veiled in true darkness—the pure, corrupted ash of Vespera warring with his innate shadow.
Valerius's residual electricity flickered aggressively. The violent violet sparks warred silently with the suffocating darkness creeping over his armor.
The air hissed and popped.
Dead silence...
The wind howled mournfully through the petrified roots of the battlefield. The soldiers held their collective breath, their faces pale, waiting for the gruesome execution.
"Good morning...." Malakor said.
His voice was completely flat. Devoid of anger. Devoid of grief. Devoid of anything resembling a human soul.
Valerius froze.
"Eh?..." Valerius blinked, his eye popping open. "Huh? Ehhhh?...."
The sheer, absurd whiplash of the greeting completely short-circuited Valerius's concussed brain.
The terrified soldiers watching the scene looked absolutely baffled.
SNAP.
One of the soldiers, leaning entirely too heavily on his wooden spear in the crushing tension, suddenly fell face-first into the mud as the shaft broke violently in half.
SPLAT.
The comedic sound of the soldier eating the bloody dirt echoed loudly in the quiet crater.
Valerius's eye snapped open in pure, unadulterated confusion.
His mouth opened and closed like a dying fish on dry land. He struggled to find a single coherent word in the English or Tamaskritian language.
Malakor didn't elaborate.
He casually pulled his darkness-shrouded hand off Valerius's shoulder, as if he had merely brushed a speck of dust away.
Without another word, without even looking back, the Prince of Shadows turned around.
He began to walk casually toward the Whispering Hollows, silently following the trail of the Tamaskrit army that was already hunting down the retreating Elves.
"Brother, stop," Valerius finally said.
His tone was incredibly firm. For the first time since waking up, the electric spark of clarity and stubbornness returned to his violet eye.
The soldier who had fallen into the mud slowly looked up, his face completely covered in brown grime, his curiosity renewed.
Everyone held their breath once again.
Malakor stopped.
He slowly turned his head over his shoulder. His half-face, smeared with the dead assassin's ash, was illuminated by the pale moonlight.
"Yes?" Malakor asked, his voice still completely, infuriatingly devoid of emotion.
Valerius stood perfectly straight, ignoring the agonizing pain in his spine, his expression dead serious.
"It's night though, big brother. Say good night..."
Deadliest silence.
Not even the wind dared to howl. The absurdity of the correction hung in the air like a physical, suffocating weight.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL FU—"
The fallen soldier screamed from the absolute bottom of his lungs, completely losing his mind at the sheer stupidity of his royal commanders.
A few miles away, the comedy died. The slaughter continued.
Ignis was not saying good morning.
The Prince of Fire moved through the retreating Elven army like a localized, unstoppable natural disaster.
He didn't run. He didn't shout battle cries. He just walked.
His boots left glowing, glassy footprints as the extreme heat of his aura melted the wet mud and stone into bubbling slag.
"Hold the line! Protect the mages!" an Elven vanguard commander screamed, his voice cracking with terror.
The commander desperately raised a heavy, magically reinforced steel shield, trying to form a barricade with his remaining men.
It was utterly useless.
SLASH.
The Crimson Blade hissed as it cleaved through the cold air.
Ignis didn't even look at the commander. He didn't even break his slow, rhythmic stride.
The superheated katana sliced cleanly through the enchanted steel shield, the heavy breastplate, and the Elf's torso in a single, fluid motion of terrifying elegance.
The air smelled sickeningly of burnt ozone, boiling blood, and roasting meat.
The commander's upper half slid sickeningly off his waist, hitting the mud before his brain even registered the pain.
The remaining Elves broke entirely.
Their morale shattered into a million pieces. They dropped their heavy weapons, abandoned their shields, and sprinted in pure, animalistic panic toward the shattered Obsidian Gates.
Ignis just kept walking.
He was a living executioner painted in blood and ash, methodically driving the prey directly into the jaws of the predator waiting at the Hollows.
Aurelius finally set foot inside the Whispering Hollows.
It had been exactly ten years since he had last stood within the colossal trunk of the sentinel tree as a ten-year-old boy.
It felt exactly the same. Yet, it felt entirely, fundamentally different.
The massive, artificial waterfalls still rushed in the distance, their soothing sounds echoing off the wood. The polished marble pathways still gleamed beautifully under the soft glow of the bioluminescent flora hanging from the inner branches.
But the silence of peace was gone.
Aurelius stopped on the edge of the grand causeway.
He observed the massive, sprawling courtyard before him.
Thousands upon thousands of Elven swordsmen, elite mages, archers, and heavily armored war rhinos were lined up in a dense, desperate defensive formation.
It was an ocean of steel and magic, barricading the path to the inner sanctums.
Their faces were completely wretched in apprehension. They were gripping their spears and staffs so tightly their knuckles were bone-white. The war rhinos huffed nervously, pawing at the polished marble, sensing the unnatural dread rolling off the intruder.
They were an entire army making their final, desperate stand inside their most sacred sanctuary.
And they were absolutely terrified of the single man walking toward them.
Aurelius remained completely stoic.
The ambient, soft blue light of the Hollows reflected off the jagged edges of his pitch-black Dark Mantle armor.
Through the narrow, dark visor of his heavy helmet, his golden eyes flickered softly.
He took in the sheer numbers. He analyzed their formations, the archers on the high roots, the mages in the backline, the heavy infantry waiting to crush him.
He was about to extinguish thousands of lives.
He slowly reached across his body.
With a heavy, metallic clank, he lifted his massive broadsword.
He didn't flourish it. He simply rested the flat of the heavy blade against his armored shoulder.
Sparks of golden kinetic energy softly grounded out from his greaves as he settled into a flawless, unbreakable battle stance.
Beneath the cold steel of his helm, Aurelius closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
He let out a long, heavy, exhausted exhale that fogged the inside of his visor.
I want to sleep....