Night in Dirval is not the absence of light — it's a presence. It slithers through cracks, wraps around ribs, and tells you things you should never know.
Argus walked alone through a low valley beyond Kraven Keep. The ground was cracked and warm, like something breathing beneath. No birds flew overhead — something unseen was watching.
Each footstep was a verdict. The blade across his back remained wrapped, sleeping. Everything was dead — but not still.Then… the earth trembled.They came from the hills — things not quite human, not quite beast. Masked in stone, eyes glowing with the color of nothing. Their voices were like bone against rusted iron.One of them hissed: "Mirrorborn... your scent has been found."
Argus didn't stop. "Servants of the Mirror," he said coldly, "even you forget — I am not her child. I am her fracture."
He lifted his hand.Three shards of mirror glimmered beneath his skin.Each pulsed with a different light — red, silver, and violet.
The creatures charged.Four lunged from the cliffs, blades glowing with flame-black energy. Argus did not move. He closed his eyes — then opened them.
One attacker's image reflected in his pupils.A moment later — a chain of smoke and iron appeared in Argus's hand. The same weapon — but twisted, screaming.He spun once.
Threw it.The chain coiled around the attacker's throat.
His head left his body before his shadow realized it.
The others came.Argus smiled — barely.He stomped once.From his feet erupted a wolf-shaped shadow, skeletal and howling like time itself weeping."Come, Kai," Argus whispered.
The beast lunged. One creature vanished in an instant.
The rest… fell to their knees. "We were not sent to fight you," one whimpered. "Only to observe—"Argus knelt.
Touched his chest. "Those who watch the Copyist… copy his fate."
And the man gasped — as if his breath was pulled out through his shadow.
Later, Argus sat on a black rock
He unwrapped a cloth bundle.
Inside — a burned glass eye.
He stared at it in silence.
"He betrayed me… and I kept part of him anyway."
He looked up.
In the distance, a burning banner rose — inverted holy symbol ablaze.
"The Church moves…" he muttered.
He tied a dark ribbon around his wrist.
Blood dried on his palm.
"Let them come. They walk toward me… but I no longer walk among men."And he was gone —swallowed by the shadow he left behind.