Anguish

The night devoured them.

The sky that had never truly existed was now as distant as light itself, and the Raven King reigned supreme over that hopeless chasm. His presence was a decree, and his enemies were nothing more than fragile arguments trying to refute an inevitable truth.

The judgment had begun.

Kiyoshi gripped the hilt of his katana tightly. His entire body screamed that fleeing was the only rational option—that no warrior, no matter how skilled, could pierce the living darkness surrounding them. But fleeing was never an option for him. The weight of his blade was familiar, and his breath anchored him in the abyss.

Beside him, Zeta 4 adjusted its systems. Its sensors scanned the entity before them, searching for weaknesses, seeking patterns. But there was no logic, no flaw. The Raven King was a concept, an inexorable force that could not be broken—only denied.

If no opening existed, they would create one.

The first impact came as a blow that should not exist.

The Raven King's black blade was already descending before Kiyoshi could react. Its speed was not natural; it wasn't an accelerated movement but a sentence being pronounced. The strike was inevitable.

But Kiyoshi blocked it.

Metal against metal.

No sound was produced.

The impact drove his legs into the ground, his sword trembling under the weight of that blade's existence. The strike didn't just cut him physically—he felt his name slip from his lips. He sensed his history unraveling for a moment, as though each slash from the monarch's sword erased a part of his being.

And then came the voice.

Low, insidious, toneless, emotionless.

"Do you remember them?"

The shadows stirred. Figures emerged from the darkness, molded into familiar shapes. Kiyoshi's master, his clan, the warriors who had fallen before him. Their faces were empty, but their voices echoed in his mind.

"You forgot us."

His chest tightened. His mind faltered.

And in that instant, the Raven King advanced.

Intervention came like a thunderclap.

Zeta 4 launched its plasma blades, interrupting the shadow monarch's movement. Its sensors registered the flow of the illusion, and within fractions of a second, it understood.

"Identified: past projections. Purpose: psychological destabilization. Countermeasure: neutralize the source."

If the Raven King manipulated concepts, Zeta 4 would respond with absolute logic.

Its cannons fired upon the wall of shadows. Bursts of light burned away the figures from the past, dissolving the illusion. But the Raven King remained motionless, unperturbed. He merely raised his blade and spun through the air.

The Raven King's first strike was a silent cut.

No air displacement, no sound of metal slicing through space. Only the trail of his black blade gliding through the void, erasing the very idea of resistance.

Kiyoshi dodged at the last moment, but his reflexes weren't fast enough to avoid it entirely. The slash passed mere millimeters from his skin, and for an instant, he felt nothing. A void where there should have been impact. His body wasn't injured, but something within him seemed to fracture. A sensation of absence, as though a piece of reality had just been erased.

The Raven King did not retreat; his sword was already descending again—fluid, unhesitating—like a dance with no beginning or end. His swordsmanship was impeccable. No wasted motion, no exaggeration. Every strike was a decree, and every decree, a sealed fate.

Kiyoshi raised his blade and intercepted.

This time, there was sound.

The sound of silence breaking.

The impact created an invisible fracture in the air, a vibration that made gravity waver for a moment. Kiyoshi slid to the side, spinning on his axis, and delivered a swift strike toward the shadow monarch's flank.

But his blade met no resistance.

It passed through the Raven King's form like slicing through a distorted reflection.

Then the void answered.

The Raven King's blade emerged from nowhere, appearing from an angle it shouldn't have. Space did not follow logic; there was no warning. The strike came from Kiyoshi's blind spot, and for an instant, he knew he could not evade.

But a shot pierced the darkness.

A blue burst illuminated the night, forcing the monarch to retreat.

Zeta 4 was already in motion.

Its calculations ran in overdrive. Every fraction of a second, every variation in the creature's swordsmanship was analyzed, recorded, computed. But there was no absolute pattern.

The Raven King wasn't just fighting.

He was passing judgment.

And judgments did not follow predictability.

Zeta 4 altered its strategy. Its plasma blades shifted shape, transforming from straight swords into curved, scythe-like weapons, adapting in real-time to counter the enemy's fighting style. It charged with impossible speed for something of its size. Its thrusters ignited, propelling it forward as a metallic storm, a perfect fusion of machine and blade.

The Raven King responded effortlessly.

The black sword rose, spun once through the air, and then all sound ceased.

The silence wasn't just the absence of noise.

It was the absence of existence.

Zeta 4 felt its systems hesitate. Its internal engines whirred, but they emitted no hum. No sound from the thrusters, no vibration from impact. The world was suspended in absolute stillness.

Then the Raven King attacked.

His black blade came from above, below, from every direction. Strikes impossible to anticipate because they didn't cause motion or friction—they simply appeared.

Zeta 4 barely evaded.

Its body reconfigured every second, metal plates forming momentary shields only to be shattered instantly. The Raven King dismantled its structure piece by piece, erasing components without even touching them.

Fighting him was like resisting a concept that denied battle itself.

But Kiyoshi saw an opening.

He didn't strike the Raven King directly.

He struck the silence.

His green blade glowed against the vacuum and slashed through the air. The strike wasn't an attack—it was an assertion, a declaration of defiance in the silent night.

The void trembled.

For a moment, muffled sound returned to the world.

Zeta 4 advanced.

Its body pulsed with blue light.

Its systems were overheating, but that no longer mattered.

It couldn't miss this opportunity.

Its arms reshaped into plasma blades, its cannons releasing their maximum energy in a single, focused shot.

A spear of light surged toward the night's monarch.

The blast struck his chest, tearing through his feathered mass, scorching concepts, forcing the darkness to recoil.

The Raven King did not scream.

But his form dissipated.

The shadows around them shuddered.

The night retreated… for a moment.

The judgment was not yet over.

But for the first time…

The Raven King felt the weight of his own tribunal.