CHAP.0-10: The Last Days of the Darknessday (10)

The black mist... thickened in plain sight.

A tide of shadows swallowed the battlefield, swallowing all light and heat. The wind itself seemed to retreat, fleeing this presence.

In the center of it... floated Myrren.

His white strips waved slowly, like hypnotic snakes. Each movement seemed calculated, almost divine... or demonic.

She was levitating. Barefoot. His face barely lit by the pale light that filtered through the mist. A slow, almost affectionate smile appeared on his lips. Her gaze was that of a sweet funeral mother, but cruelly indifferent to the pain of her children.

"Don't die too fast..." she whispered, in a tone that was both tender and icy

And the next moment, everything exploded.

In a beat, his strips exploded around her, unfolding like cursed wings.

They multiplied, forming a hundred sharp moving blades, ready to split the air.

"Fffhhhhh— SHHHHHING—!! "

The ground was torn off by strips. The silent witness trees were swept and cut clean, some cut in half in a sinister cracking.

A new hurricane of sharp strips fell on the battlefield.

Nesha was the first to react. His sword split the strips, defleating them into a series of metal ricochets. She para, deviated, and dodged each strip but it was not enough.

So, with her gaze sharp as a blade, she swept the battlefield, watching her comrades.

Kael, the knight with black hair and blue eyes, tried a counterattack, but several strips emerged from behind. His sword split the air tracing a blue luminous arc pushing back the strips. But a strip took him with speed emerging from the ground, piercing his left shoulder.

"Ghhh..."

He gritted his teeth, then cut the strip with a precise movement. He staggered back, his arm bloody.

On his left, Liora blocked attacks by hitting the strips with his spear. But a strip manages to infiltrate her defense, grabbing her by the ankle and throwing her violently against a tree.

A brutal crack sounds.

"Aaarrhhh...! "

His thigh was pierced, and his flesh lacerated to the bone.

She screamed in pain, her face stooed, her eyes crazy.

But she remained conscious. His hands gripped the earth, his teeth clenched.

"Liora! " screamed Nesha

But the worst is yet to come.

Zek, a silver-haired soldier, tried to approach Myrren from the right. He launched an aerial strike with his sword, but his arms were caught on the fly. The strips rolled around his neck and strangled. In a dry noise, a crunch was felt and his head tilted, soft. Dead.

His body fell to the ground, lifeless.

Illan, behind him, wanted to fight back, but a strip pierced his belly and came out from his back, pinning him to a tree, before other strips came to pierce his chest and abdomen.

He suffocated and spat blood, before dying with a look empty of life.

Nesha's face froze, her eyes wide open, filled with horror.

"ZEKK! ILLAN!!" Nesha shouted, his rage in his throat.

She clenched her teeth. Their squad was not ready. Not for that. Not for this entity that floated like a black goddess above them.

"...Two dead in an instant..." she whispered, in a barely audible voice.

Myrren descended slowly, floating as if the world belonged to him. His smile did not waver. His strips retracted, gently wrapping around her.

"Is that all you have?" She said in an icy voice.

"You'd better run away... unless you want to join your friends. "

She pronounced these last words with an icy... slowness.

His words struck the knights like invisible blades. Their pride of empire prodigies was hurt.

Back up? Inconceivable.

These young knights, full of honor and promises, knew neither flight nor abandonment.

They had grown up with only one conviction: to win or die with honor.

And the death of their comrades, mowed down without having been able to prove their worth, only strengthened their will to bring down this entity.

Kael slowly straightened up, blood flowing down his arm. His enraged gaze riveted on Myrren.

"Guys... we stay there until the end and we hold her back," he said in a cold and resolute tone.

"No steps back are allowed! "

Nesha with a worried look says:

"But you're bleeding! "

"I said: no steps back," he replied firmly.

"Let's leave the captain... she will know how to take care of Cecilia. Even if it kills me to see her like that... we can't back down from this monster"

At these words, Liora leaned against a tree and straightened up despite the pain. His gaze, more vivid than ever, reflected a fierce determination.

One by one, the knights got up. Their auras seemed to escape slowly from their filament body and their eyes were anchored with anger and the will to survive.

Nesha, worried, glanced at Aryna. She still didn't attack. She dodged, again and again... and it worried her.

But suddenly, a hand gently rested on his shoulder.

"Don't worry, Nesha. Aryna is our captain. She will know how to go through this ordeal... And then, we all know her." said a calm voice.

She turned around.

It was Altheas, slender with brown hair, and green eyes, with a calm and reassuring smile on his lips.

"Altheas..."

He nodded, looking serene.

"We know what she's capable of. Trust him. "

Then he advanced, placing himself in front of her, his sword already drawn.

"Don't be distracted. Let's take care of this abomination... and survive. "

"Because you know... if we don't get out of it, Aryna would be broken." he added, his gaze on Myrren.

Nesha closed his eyes, then advanced to the side of Altheas to determine.

"All right... Let's take care of her first." she said calmly.

One by one, knights took position around Kael. Their armor and their bodies carrying several notches. But they had an indomitable will.

Kael raised his sword towards the sky.

"We're holding the line. Aryna takes care of Cecilia," he said in a firm and calm tone.

The remaining seven aligned, their auras intensifying, becoming almost visible: blue, red, white, silver, green.

Myrren felt a shiver of excitement run through his back.

"Oh... you're so gorgeous..." she said with a sadistic grin.

"I'm not going to complain about it... I can't wait to hear each of your screams and taste your pain. "

After her words, she opened her arms, and a tide of strips springs from the ground, from the sky, from the trees, as if the entire forest conspired to the loss of the knights

Kael was the first to charge.

The earth trembled under their steps. Nesha, Liora, Althéas, Maelis and two other knights rushed after him. Their weapons lit up with aura, lively and flaming. A last silent oath linked them all in this suicidal charge.

Myrren smiled.

Kael, in the lead, covered his blade with an incandescent blue aura. He parared a strip, pivoted, then sliced another in mid-flight. He then sways towards Myrren, blade forward.

Liora, despite her injured leg, jumped into the air and covered her back, her spear drawing circular arcs to block the strips.

Nesha emerges from the shadow with lightning speed, his sword targeting Myrren's neck.

But smiling Myrren turned around without a word, and stopped the blade with two strips. She began to dodge each attack with almost divine grace.

His strips metamorphosed, becoming sharper and more numerous. Waving like snakes, they blocked every attack and struck without respite.

The fight turned into a deadly ballet, between the attacks of the knight's group and the responses of Myrren.

But during this time away from the group, another duel was being played.

Aryna retreated endlessly in a fluid way. She dodged Cecilia's blows with exceptional precision, her gaze still empty. His gestures were dry, minimalist.

Cecilia attacked him tirelessly, and methodically. His look, also empty, seemed to scream something.

Aryna was watching him. And the more she looked at Cecilia, the more her hands trembled. She continued to retreat, trapped in a spiral of emotions. Cecilia's sword cut the air without ever reaching its target.

"Why...?" Aryna whispered, so low that no one could hear her.

And that's when she heard it.

A soft but weak voice.

Similar to that of a suffocated person.

"Kill... me... Ary...na..."

Aryna's heart trembled, and an icy cold spread in her chest. His breath was short. Her pupils dilated and she looked up.

It was then that she saw a tear running on Cecilia's cheek.

Seeing this, something in her cracked.

His aura exploded, forming red and golden filaments that enveloped him.

His golden eye vibrated. His eight-winged stigma pulsated violently, and golden veins burst on his neck.

The air changed.

His golden eye turned red, and the golden wing that illuminated the corner of his right eye also took on a bloody hue.

An unknown power, even for Raiden, had just awakened.

A shiver crossed the battlefield.

His sword vibrated.

And without a word… she jumped.

But when her blade was about to brush Cecilia's throat... a mysterious golden light enveloped her, and the world around her dissipated

Aryna was transported to a timeless place.

Aryna fell to her knees.

She was in the heart of a field of golden flowers bathed in an eternal sun. The wind caressed the petals like a luminous sea.

His sword fell to the ground. A feeling of appeasement invades him.

She looked up... and in the distance, she saw Cecilia.

Smiling. Fulfilled. She ran among the flowers, surrounded by light. Her hair floating in the breeze with a crown of flowers on her head.

Aryna wanted to scream, run towards her, hold her against her but her voice remained silent.

A tear slipped on his cheek. Then she sobled. A torrent of tears burst, breaking the silence that enclosed his heart.

This place was not real. It was a vision, a gift offered by a powerful heavenly being.

Aryna got up slowly, her trembling hand stretched out towards Cecilia.

The figure in the distance stopped, turned, and smiled at him.

"Thank you... Aryna"

The words crossed the air like a caress.

Aryna crying wanted to run towards her, but the landscape tore abruptly and she returned to reality.

Back to reality.

SLASH!

His sword, flaming with red and gold, cut Cecilia's throat in a flash.

A clear blow. Without pain. A clean farewell.

Cecilia's head was carried away without a sound.

Cecilia's body regained its original hue. She collapsed slowly.

Aryna remained frozen. Silent. His empty gaze, turned to the ground. Her friend's blood was still running on her face.

At that moment everything was erased.

The din of the battlefield, the screams, the metal shocks... everything disappeared.

Then her gaze rose, and she saw Myrren.

His fists clenched.

BADUM

A beat.

Then another one.

Then another one.

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU"

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU"

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU"

His mind repeated these words over and over again like a cursed prayer.

His veins burned. A light of bright gold mixed with an abyssal blackness crossing them.

Aryna opened the doors of the void and had just entered into a trance.

With her head still down, a gigantic wyvern appeared and rushed at her.

Aryna didn't even look up, and with a single gesture.

She raised her sword and with a single cup, her sword drew a red and black line.

FSSSHHH— KRRSHH—!!

The creature was cut in half, his cry cut clean.

She advanced.

Step by step, towards Myrren. Her steps left shadows behind her.

And in his mind, a single sentence resounded:

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU. "

TO FOLLOW...