In the forbidden lands lies a fallen kingdom, sprawled like a corpse across the earth- its vast, silent remains stretched beneath a sky choked with ash-gray clouds and cascading moonlight. The streets, once alive thousands of years ago with market cries and the clatter of hooves, are now little more than veins of cracked stone winding through desolation. They twist and fork unpredictably, swallowed in places by creeping earth and the debris of ages, as though the land itself is trying to forget what once stood here.
Yet silence is rarely complete. The wind carries voices that no longer belong to the living- fragments of laughter, the echoes of battle cries, the faint tolling of phantom bells. The roads are strewn with bones- some human, others unrecognizable- half-buried beneath a carpet of black moss that glows faintly in the moonlight.
Down one of the many abandoned streets of this forgotten kingdom, a party of warriors fled. All four wore expressions of terror as they ran desperately for their lives, though whatever pursued them remained unseen.
The leader of the group- a youth clad in a full set of stainless steel armor gripped a longsword in one hand and a large, oval-shaped shield in the other. Being faster than the others, he was already a few strides ahead.
"We need to find the exit, or it'll find us!" he shouted, fear still clinging to his voice. He looked back at his companions: two fellow warriors and a young mage girl.
As the group of four raced through the ruins, something stirred in the shadows- a blur too swift to make out, its shape lost to the darkness.
"No… it's found us! Run!" the leader shouted, forcing himself to push harder, his armored boots pounding against the cracked stone.
Swoosh!
The blur streaked past again- this time, it didn't leave empty-handed. One of the warriors vanished in an instant, followed by a bestial snarl, a guttural scream, and the wet, tearing sound of flesh being ripped apart. The echoes of the attack rang sharply through the abandoned city, made all the more vivid by the hollow silence that surrounded them.
Moments later, another flash of motion, another blur and a second warrior was gone, snatched away into the shadows.
Only two remained now: the youth in full armor and the young mage, their hearts pounding as they ran through a land that no longer welcomed the living.
"I don't want to die!" the mage cried, her voice cracking with sheer panic as tears streamed down her cheeks, blinding her.
In her terror, she failed to notice the jagged stone jutting from the broken street. Her foot caught it, and she stumbled hard- hitting the ground with a gasp of pain and despair.
The armored youth skidded to a stop, heart pounding, and without hesitation sprinted back toward her. Just as he reached her side, the blur slashed through the shadows again- closer this time, taunting them with its presence. A low, guttural snarl echoed off the walls, thick with cruel anticipation.
Gripping her trembling hand, the youth yanked her to her feet and didn't let go. They ran together, boots slamming against the ancient stones as the echoes of the creature circled around them like a predator playing with its prey.
For a minute maybe two, the shadows stilled. The snarls faded. The silence crept back in, heavy and suffocating. And in that breath of quiet, they dared to believe the impossible.
Maybe it was gone.
Maybe they'd escaped.
But deep down, they knew better.
"It's gone… we just have to find an exit out of here—" the youth's thoughts shattered mid-sentence as his eyes widened in horror.
Towering before them loomed a crumbling structure, once perhaps a grand cathedral devoted to some long-forgotten faith. Time had not been kind to it- its spires lay broken, its walls collapsed inward, devoured by decay or perhaps torn apart by something far worse. Whatever sanctity it once held had long since rotted into ruin.
But none of that mattered now.
Because it was a dead end.
And just as the weight of that realization settled in, a presence stirred behind them.
From the shadows it stepped, silent no more- its monstrous form emerging into the pale light of the moon. Jagged limbs, eyes like dying stars, and a grin carved straight from a nightmare. The air thickened. The ground seemed to tremble beneath its weight.
It had not left.
It had been waiting.
It stepped fully into view, and the night itself seemed to recoil from its presence.
The creature stood impossibly tall, its skeletal frame wrapped in skin like stretched leather, pulled taut over jagged bones that jutted out like knives. Its limbs were grotesquely long- arms hanging past its knees, fingers ending in claws like curved obsidian blades. Ribs protruded from its chest in stark detail, as though its body hadn't known nourishment in centuries, yet it moved with a predatory grace that defied its ghastly form.
Its face was the true horror- a twisted mockery of a deer's skull, bleached and cracked, crowned with antlers that branched like dead trees against the sky. Where eyes should have been, only twin hollows glowed with a dim, sickly light-something ancient and ravenous flickering deep within.
Its mouth was the worst of all: no longer bound by flesh, it split impossibly wide, filled with needle-like teeth and a long, blackened tongue that dripped with some dark, viscous fluid. It didn't snarl. It smiled.
And then it let out a sound- a guttural, bone-shaking cry that wasn't a roar, but a mimicry of human voices, layered and distorted, like screams replayed over themselves until meaning was lost and only madness remained.
The mage whimpered.
The youth tightened his grip on her hand.
The dead end yawned behind them.
And the creature advanced.
A considerable distance away, atop the jagged remains of one of the few towers that still dared to stand, a cloaked figure observed the scene below.
His form was a silhouette against the moonlit sky, draped in dark robes that fluttered lightly in the wind. But it was his eyes that set him apart- striking, unnatural, and glowing with an unsettling hue of deep purple. They fixed on the duo below, their backs pressed against the crumbling cathedral, their desperate faces locked in terror as the monstrous creature drew nearer.
His gaze was cold, calculating- almost detached. He did not flinch as the creature's horrific, distorted form lurched closer to its prey. No, he simply watched, as though this were an inevitability.
But then, as the creature's skeletal jaws gaped wide, ready to claim its next victims, the cloaked figure sighed- a sound almost imperceptible in the stillness. He mumbled a few words under his breath, so quiet they could barely be heard above the wind.
"[Umbra: Dark Gathering]"
In the span of a heartbeat, his body seemed to dissolve into the very air, twisting into a swirling vortex of darkness. The darkness writhed, alive, and in the blink of an eye, it surged forward like a living storm, hurtling toward the grotesque creature with terrifying speed.
The collision was immediate- an explosion of dark energy that slammed into the creature with the force of a siege ram. The beast was sent tumbling backward, its unnatural screech ringing out as it was hurled several feet away from the two. The ground trembled as it landed, its jagged form skidding to a halt on the cracked earth.
For a brief moment, the creature laid still, its broken body twitching in the aftermath of the attack. But the silence was fleeting. The beast's eyes- those hollow, glowing sockets snapped open or in this case glowed brightly once more, furious and wild, as it rose slowly to its feet, the air around it crackling with violent energy.
The swirling mass of shadows condensed, folding in on itself until the figure took human shape once more. He stepped forward from the dissipating darkness, the night sky casting silver light across his face.
The youth and the mage stood frozen, wide-eyed- not just from the creature's interruption, but from the eerie presence of their savior.
His appearance was as strange as it was haunting. Long black hair flowed down his back in tangled strands, stirring slightly in the wind. A half-mask clung to his face, forged in the likeness of a demon's snarling mouth, its fangs permanently bared in silent menace. His skin was ghostly pale- so drained of color it seemed almost ashen, smeared with the grime of the forgotten lands.
But what held their gaze, what truly rooted them in place- were his eyes.
Not just the unnatural hue of violet, glowing faintly in the dark like coals left in a dying fire, but the pupils themselves: twin crosses carved into each iris, intersecting slits that stared with an otherworldly calm.
Those eyes were not human.
And yet… they were watching them.
"Purple eyes… ashen skin…" the mage whispered, her voice barely audible over the pounding of her heart. "It's him, The Nether. I thought he was just a myth."
The armored youth tensed at her words, eyes narrowing with a mixture of awe and unease. Myth or not, the figure standing before them was no ghost story.
The cloaked man seemed on the verge of speaking- perhaps to question them, perhaps to warn, but his eyes flicked toward movement behind them. The creature was rising.
His expression hardened.
Without a word, he turned to face the monster. One hand lifted, calm and deliberate, and as his fingers curled inward, the air above his palm began to twist.
Darkness gathered, dense and fluid, coalescing into a weapon that took form with unnatural silence. A shortsword- its blade only barely longer than a dagger, materialized in full, the edges gleaming with darkness.
The weapon was unlike any ordinary steel. Its curved blade and hilt were pitch black, as though carved from pure obsidian. It seemed to drink in the light around it. The only traces of color were the red, diamond-shaped sigils etched into the handle- glowing faintly like an ember trapped in stone.
It was a wakizashi, forged from something far older… and far darker.
Clearly enraged by the intrusion, the creature let out a distorted, ear-splitting shriek. It wasted no time- its grotesque limbs propelled it forward in a blur of movement, claws outstretched, aiming to tear the cloaked figure apart in a frenzy of rage and hunger.
But the figure didn't flinch.
He shifted his grip, holding the obsidian wakizashi with both hands, the blade angled downward like a ritual dagger ready to strike. His posture was steady-calm, composed, and deadly.
Then, he spoke. His voice was low, but it carried through the night like a whisper in a tomb.
"[Raven's Song: The Unkindness]"
The moment the words left his lips, the world seemed to pause.
The air stilled. The wind died. Even the shadows seemed to hold their breath.
Then—
A low hum filled the silence, like a thousand wings beating just beyond the veil of sight. The ground trembled beneath unseen weight. And in the next instant, something began to stir within the darkness surrounding the cloaked figure…