The Dominion was silent except for the wet sound of blood hitting the ground.
Sylen's sword dripped red.
His fingers were half-dyed in Evan's blood.
Evan stood there, wounded beyond reason.
His stomach was pierced clean through.
Five finger-holes dug into his chest like someone tried to tear his heart out.
Yet he didn't fall.
He didn't even flinch.
He just breathed. Slow. Calm.
Sylen's voice trembled.
"Why… aren't you dead? My authority should have corrupted your body and soul. How—"
Evan exhaled.
"You don't understand... I'm just like you, and your brothers—perhaps even surpassing every single one of you, who holds this corrupted power..."
Sylen froze.
Confusion flickered into realisation.
Then dread.
"So you're the last—"
He didn't finish.
Evan placed his hand over his heart.
And whispered—
The Dominion changed.
White mist poured from Evan's body.
But it wasn't mist.
It was souls.
Hundreds of them.
Their screams were faint but real.
Grief. Rage. Pain.
Echoing around Sylen like the chant of the cursed.
Sylen stepped back without meaning to.
"What… what is that…?"
The souls spiralled around Evan.
Then compressed.
Not entering him.
Not draining him.
Armouring him.
Forming a second layer of bone-black, with purple streaks of line, protection over his necrotic armour.
Fusing into his greatsword, coating the steel like layered black and purple matter, while a red aura coats all around it.
Evan's voice was steady.
"Enchantment —
Arven's voice echoed inside his thoughts.
'Good. Now finish it. Before his soul collapses entirely. If he goes any further, he will erase himself from existence, wasting all your efforts.'
Evan nodded once.
"Yeah. This ends now."
He raised his sword.
Sylen lunged, panic cracking through his composure.
"I won't let you do it—DIE!"
His blade slammed into Evan's chest.
A sharp metallic clang.
And then— nothing.
His sword didn't cut.
It didn't dent.
It stopped like it struck an immovable world.
And Sylen realised—the strength behind his blow was fading.
His mana was disappearing.
It was being drained.
Evan looked him in the eye with a small smirk.
"Hehe... I've been siphoning your mana from the start."
Sylen's breath broke.
"No… no no no—"
Evan lifted the greatsword with one hand.
"It's over."
One of the orbs embedded in the blade cracked and dissolved into pure force.
The surge warped the space around them.
The Dominion trembled.
Sylen tried to move, but his body refused.
For the first time, he understood death.
'So that's the difference… between the prototype and the real one.'
A single strike fell.
Clean. Precise. Absolute.
No wasted motion.
No flourish.
No hesitation.
The blade passed through Sylen's neck.
A thin black fissure tore open behind him—space itself splitting—
Then, closing as if nothing ever happened.
Sylen's head fell.
His body followed a second later.
Evan exhaled through the pain.
His armour dissolved.
The souls faded.
Exhaustion hit hard.
'Backlash. Figures.'
He looked down at the corpse.
"A worthy enemy is still an enemy. Rest."
He turned.
"Arven. Drop the Domain. I still have work to do."
The Dominion shattered.
Outside~~~
The battlefield was almost silent.
The Twilight team was nearly wiped out.
The undead were endless — kill them, and they rose stronger.
Elya's sword hand trembled.
Blood covered her arms.
Her breath was shallow.
'If Sylen doesn't come out now… everyone will die.'
A colossal wolf skeleton lunged at her throat.
She barely cut it down.
It reformed again.
She looked toward the dark dome.
"Please… Sylen…"
A crack ran across it.
Everyone stopped fighting.
The dome shattered.
A figure walked out through the dust.
Sword in one hand.
A severed head in the other.
The battlefield fell silent.
No one breathed. No one moved.
Elya's knees buckled, and she hit the ground as if the weight of the world had struck her at once.
Her sword slipped from her grip, clattering beside her.
"No... no... no..."
Her voice broke.
Her eyes trembled.
Because the one standing… was Evan.
The masked reaper.
And in his hand, held like a trophy, was Sylen's severed head.
His eyes closed. Blood dripping. Lifeless.
"How can this be... He was the strongest... he was the captain..." an elite member stammered in disbelief.
Evan spoke, voice calm and unbothered.
"He was."
He carefully put the head onto the ground.
"And now he isn't."
His gaze swept over them, hollow and cold.
"Your turn will come. But not now."
He turned his head—towards Velma and Peyndral's battle, which was already tilting into a one-sided massacre.
That was the moment Elya snapped.
"You—"
Her scream tore through the air.
"
Wind and rage exploded toward Evan.
He didn't even flinch.
He raised one hand and swept aside the incoming blade of wind.
The shock crushed the bone armour along his forearm, yet his stance did not waver.
She was already in front of him, sword raised overhead, tears streaming.
"Die!"
Her blade came down.
Evan shifted one step, caught the strike, and with the same motion, clamped his hand around her throat.
Her feet lifted off the ground.
She struggled, fingers clawing weakly at his arm. Her sword fell from her grasp. Her breathing turned desperate and broken.
Yet her eyes—those eyes—burned with killing intent.
Evan let out a low, almost amused breath.
"Even on the verge of death, you still stare at me like that.
Pathetic.
But I'll give you this much—your resolve is real."
She tried to punch him.
Her fist barely tapped his shoulder.
"You... will regret... sparing me..." she forced out, choking, voice tearing apart.
Evan tilted his head, watching her like a specimen.
"Regret?"
He leaned in slightly.
"I don't regret anything.... I did what I had to do. If that left people with grudges, then so be it. Regret is for someone who doubts their own path.... I don't."
He released her, hurling her toward the remaining Twilight members. They scrambled to catch her before she hit the ground.
"Elya, stop! You'll die!" one of them shouted.
"Let me go!" she screamed, voice raw. "He killed Sylen! What else do I have left?!"
No one answered her.
She trembled, choking on sobs and fury.
Evan turned back to the main battlefield.
Peyndral was burned, cracked, and collapsing.
Velma stood silent, towering, eyes glowing like dying stars.
Evan stepped forward.
"Where is that arrogance now?" he said, voice quiet but sharp.
He looked at Peyndral with the look one gives to something already dead.
"You were supposed to be a Lord. A ruler. And yet here you are—fighting for your life against an undead."
Peyndral roared, voice cracking with fury and humiliation.
"Do not mock me! I can crush this entire region—"
"You talk too much."
Crimson Edge appeared in Evan's hand, coated in ashen death flames.
He vanished.
Peyndral's body jerked as a silent cut split him apart.
Flames surged.
Wood and essence scattered like ash in the wind.
A Lord fell, without ceremony.
Just another clone corpse.
"Evan. The core. It must still be here with the main body," Arven said.
Evan moved immediately.
He approached the shattered throne, tore it from the ground with one clean motion, revealing the dark shaft beneath—lined in vines, a descent into the lower sanctum.
He didn't hesitate.
He glanced once at Velma.
She lowered her head, silent and waiting.
He looked at his undead army.
"None of them leave."
His voice was flat. Command absolute.
He stepped off the ledge and dropped into the darkness.
Above, no one dared to breathe.
Velma stood like a deity watching lesser beings struggle to justify their existence.
And Elya… knelt with Sylen's head in her lap, trembling, nails digging into her palms so deep they drew blood.
Her tears hit the ground quietly.
But her voice was anything but.
"I swear... I will kill you."
Her hatred burned like a curse.
A vow.
A wound that would never heal.
"Even if I have to crawl across hell itself… I will take your head."
Her eyes glowed with a fire that would reshape her.
This was the birth of something dark.
To Be Continued
The descent into the Lord's true domain?
A trap or something else.
The final hunt begins.
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