The sun was beginning to descend.
Slow.
Heavy.
As if even the sky understood that the day needed to end in blood.
Golden light cut across the ruined field in long bands, touching broken armor, forgotten bodies, and the dry red spread between stone and mud.
The glow of dusk softened nothing.
It made everything more cruel.
On one side, Aldric's knights held firm.
Shields raised.
Heavy breathing.
The blessing of war still vibrated low among them, like an echo that refused to fade.
On the other—
the Viscount Bragança's lines remained ordered.
Even after the losses.
Even after the halted advance.
Discipline sustained by the mere presence of a man who had not yet stepped back.
And, at the center—
Aldric and the Viscount.
As if the entire field existed only to sustain that point.
On the walls, Kael remained still.
He listened to what the stone carried.
Each impact.
Each fall.
Each step sinking into the ground.
Each vibration climbing the walls as if the castle itself were telling him of the war.
The wind passed through his hair without disturbing his stillness.
Beside him, Madéa watched the field below.
The light of dusk touched her silhouette with an almost cruel softness, as if the sunset refused to acknowledge the blood spread beneath it.
For a long moment, she only watched.
Men advancing.
Men falling.
Men killing without even remembering the face they struck.
Then she spoke.
Her voice low.
Serene.
But heavy.
"There is something deeply sad about war."
Her eyes did not leave the field.
"Men spend entire lives building names, oaths, promises…"
"—and, in the end, everything is reduced to the sound of metal against flesh."
The wind carried part of the words away.
"None of them entered this field believing they would be just another body among so many."
No answer came.
"And yet… that is exactly what they become."
Kael listened without haste to answer.
Like someone who understood the time between thought and truth.
When he spoke, his voice came low.
Calm.
"War does not turn men into monsters."
A brief pause.
His hands rested on the cold stone of the wall.
"It only strips them of the luxury of pretending they never were."
Madéa turned her gaze to him.
Kael continued.
"The field does not create cruelty."
"It only chooses who can still hide it."
The silence between them was not uncomfortable.
It was mutual understanding.
Below, Aldric and the Viscount fought.
Madéa returned her eyes to the horizon stained in gold and red.
"And yet…"
Her voice nearly vanished in the wind.
"they still call this honor."
Kael tilted his head slightly.
Almost a gesture of regret.
"Because men need to give beautiful names…"
"to the tragedies they cannot prevent."
The sun sank lower.
Shadows stretched across the field.
And with them—
something older began to awaken.
Kael took a deep breath.
Feeling.
The stone.
The air.
The shift.
Then he stepped away from the wall.
Just one step.
But final.
"Night is approaching."
His voice came out lower.
Deeper.
"And with it… my role here ends."
Madéa did not ask.
She watched the field one last time.
As if she wanted to carve that moment before it ceased to exist.
Aldric.
The Viscount.
The men.
The blood.
The sunset trying, uselessly, to make everything beautiful.
Then she turned.
Her garments followed the movement like dark water.
And she walked beside him in silence.
Unhurried.
Because both of them knew—
when night finally fell,
the field would no longer belong to men.
Below—
the duel still endured.
Aldric and the Viscount stepped apart a few paces.
Only a few.
Just enough for the steel to stop touching.
Neither lowered his guard.
Neither looked away first.
The Viscount breathed in a controlled rhythm, but there was weight in his shoulders now.
Not exhaustion.
Recognition.
His eyes lifted for a moment.
To the top of the walls.
He saw the two figures slowly moving away in the dying light of dusk.
He watched in silence.
Like someone who finally accepts that there is a piece on the board that had not yet been revealed.
Then he returned his gaze to Aldric.
His voice came low.
Precise.
"What does he intend with all this?"
There was no need to say the name.
Both knew.
Aldric planted his sword into the ground for a brief moment.
His gaze remained hard.
"I do not understand everything."
Dry.
Honest.
"It was never my role to understand."
A short pause.
"My duty is to stop his advance."
"To hold this field."
"And to ensure that night arrives."
His eyes did not waver.
"That is enough."
The Viscount watched him for a longer moment.
Then, a small smile appeared.
Subtle.
Without joy.
"A piece, then."
"One of those that only move when someone above decides to move them."
His voice came almost light.
"Men like that are usually the first to fall."
Aldric did not take offense.
There was not enough vanity in him for that.
He simply replied:
"If you make it through this night…"
His hand returned to the sword.
Firm.
"then we can discuss philosophy."
The silence between them lasted only as long as necessary.
Then Aldric advanced.
Steel sang again.
A heavy strike.
Direct.
The Viscount slipped aside at the last instant, his blade answering in a clean cut that met the shield and slid without opening space.
Another impact.
Another.
No spectacle.
No fury.
Just two veterans confirming, once more, that neither would yield easily.
Aldric advanced again.
Heavy.
Direct.
The sword came down like a sentence, seeking to crush defense and man in the same blow.
This time—
the Viscount did not retreat.
He turned his body at the exact moment of impact.
Not to block.
To guide.
The force of the blade was diverted by inches.
Enough.
Enough to break the axis.
Enough to open space.
The counterattack came immediately.
Short.
Precise.
Cruel.
The Viscount's sword found the opening between shield and armor with the coldness of someone who had seen that mistake before.
The impact was dry.
Violent.
Not deep enough to kill—
but perfect to interrupt the advance.
Aldric was thrown back.
His feet dragged through the dirt.
Two forced steps until he regained balance.
The shield dropped for a moment.
His breathing grew heavy.
The soldiers around felt it.
Because in that instant it became clear—
this was not strength against technique.
It was experience against experience.
The Viscount did not advance.
He remained where he was.
Blade low.
Eyes fixed.
As if saying, without words:
I am not finished either.
Around them—
the field was changing.
Slowly.
Almost invisible.
Aldric's knights were beginning to withdraw.
Little by little.
Without rupture.
Without disorder.
Measured steps.
Like a tide pulling back before the storm.
The Viscount noticed first.
A brief glance beyond the line of combat.
The ranks.
The movement.
The pattern.
It was not disorganization.
It was preparation.
His eyes lifted.
To the sky.
The last bands of light were dying on the horizon.
The shadows finally covered the field.
Entire.
Complete.
Night had arrived.
And with it—
something.
Without sound.
Without a familiar presence.
Something older.
Deeper.
The air changed first.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
As if the world itself were holding its breath.
The Viscount's eyes narrowed.
For the first time, calm failed.
Feeling.
Recognizing too late.
His whole body understood before the mind accepted.
It was not reinforcements.
It was not strategy.
It was something else.
Something that did not belong to the war of men.
His voice came louder.
For the first time without control.
"Fall back."
The soldiers hesitated.
He took a step forward.
The intent now visible.
Urgent.
"Run to the forest—"
Before he could finish—
The guards saw it.
Only for an instant—
the Viscount's body being violently thrown into the trees.
Something took its place.
A wave of energy crossed the ground like a sentence.
Heavy.
Absolute.
The earth trembled.
The air bent.
Breath itself seemed to fail inside the men's chests.
It was not magic.
It was presence.
It was death walking without needing steps.
In that instant—
everyone felt the same thing.
Death had arrived at the barony.
And it was not there to negotiate.
One of the horns sounded.
Loud.
Urgent.
The sound cut across the field like a final warning before collapse.
Retreat.
The soldiers reacted immediately.
Shields abandoned.
Orders broken.
Men running not as an army—
but as creatures trying to escape something instinct recognized before the mind.
The forest.
They needed to reach the forest.
It was the only thought left.
A knight ran across the field in desperation.
The heavy armor already felt like a prison.
Breath failing.
Heart pounding too loud.
He did not look back.
Because he knew—
if he did, his legs would give out.
He ran among fallen bodies.
Men who, moments before, were still fighting.
Now motionless.
He saw it first on the ground.
A shadow.
Not cast.
Alive.
It moved against the direction of the nonexistent moon, crawling over the corpses like spilled ink over flesh.
The bodies began to sink.
Not as if being pulled.
As if being accepted.
The shadows climbed slowly over the legs, the torso, the faces of the dead, swallowing them in absolute silence.
The knight slowed a step.
Stopped.
Horror froze the blood before fear could tell him to run.
A fallen man beside him still breathed.
Weak.
Trying to lift a hand.
The shadows touched his fingers first.
Then the arm.
Then the face.
His eyes met the knight's for one last instant.
Plea.
Terror.
Swallowed.
Gone.
The knight felt his stomach twist.
One step back.
Another.
Too late.
Something touched the back of his neck.
Cold.
Light.
Almost gentle.
For a moment, there was confusion.
He was still standing.
He could see the field.
The forest ahead.
His own body—
still upright.
His head still seemed attached.
The world did not immediately understand what had happened.
Then came the shock.
The body fell to one side.
The head to the other.
The ground took his face with silent violence.
The sky became ground.
The blood, warmth.
A tear slipped down.
Silent.
Involuntary.
His lips moved, but no sound came.
Even so, the thought came.
Clear.
Cruel.
Human.
"I'm sorry…"
His vision was already failing.
Dark at the edges.
"I won't be able to see her in a wedding dress…"
In his final moments of consciousness, he managed to cast one last look at the form slowly advancing toward the forest.
It did not walk like a man.
It seemed to emerge from the night itself.
The body was ethereal and shadowed, covered by a living mantle of metallic darkness that moved as if it breathed, as if each shadow possessed a will of its own.
Upon its head, horns and golden adornments rose like ancient symbols—something between royalty and calamity, as if chaos itself had chosen a crown.
The presence crushed the air, bent perception, made it impossible to distinguish where reality ended and where that nightmare began.
Each step radiated pure terror.
Men ran.
Screamed.
But even the sounds seemed wrong near it—distorted, drowned, too small before that existence.
The trees of the forest received it in silence.
The mist closed around it as if the world itself wished to hide it… or protect it.
And still, the sensation remained.
Like an invisible hand tightening around the throat of everyone still alive.
The knight felt the void take his mind.
Darkness rising.
Cold.
Absolute.
He would be the last to witness that horror.
The last man to behold the true form of that being.
And in the final instant, he understood—
that was not just an enemy.
It was an omen.
The living promise of a brutal hunt about to begin.
And before that,
no wall,
no army,
no prayer
would be enough to save them.
The forest swallowed the fleeing men.
Branches broke under desperate steps.
Heavy armor trapped movement.
Short breaths.
Panic.
None of them knew what they were running from.
And that made everything worse.
The mist spread between the trunks like a living veil, too thick to be natural, too cold to belong only to the night.
Some men abandoned weapons just to run faster.
Others prayed.
Low.
As if there were still time left.
The voice came.
Not loud.
Not distant.
Too close.
As if it had been born inside their own minds.
Soft.
Almost gentle.
And precisely because of that, worse.
"I have always found this human need to run… curious."
The men stopped.
Not out of courage.
Out of instinct.
Because some part of the body understood that fleeing no longer made a difference.
The mist moved among the trees.
Slow.
Deliberate.
"As if that were capable of erasing what has already been marked."
A knight raised his sword with trembling hands.
Eyes searching for a source.
There was nothing.
The voice smiled before its owner appeared.
"So diligent…"
"So obedient…"
"And yet, so desperately useless."
A hand emerged through the mist.
Ethereal and shadowed.
Almost elegant.
It passed through a soldier's chest as if through water.
The fingers disappeared inside the armor, between flesh and bone, until they found the heart.
The man choked.
Eyes wide.
No scream came.
When the hand returned—
the heart came with it.
Still warm.
Still beating.
She observed it for a moment.
Almost disappointed.
Then let the organ fall to the ground like something without value.
The figure finally stepped out of the mist.
Tall.
Elegant.
Terrible.
The metallic darkness still moved over her body like a living mantle, embracing each step with a beauty too wrong to be human.
The golden adornments and the horns made her less a creature… and more a sentence given form.
She looked at the men like one watching children hide an obvious crime.
Then sighed.
"I really did not want to be doing this."
Her voice came soft.
Almost tired.
As if it were a personal inconvenience.
"I didn't want to hear screams."
Her lips curved in slight disdain.
"And above all, I did not want to answer the whim of that damned Éreon."
The name came out like elegant poison.
No explosive anger.
Worse.
Irritated intimacy.
She tilted her head slightly.
A smile appeared.
Beautiful.
Predatory.
"But I suppose this is the price of freedom."
Her eyes gleamed in the dimness.
"If I wish to escape the chains of the Abyss…"
Her voice lowered.
Sweeter.
More cruel.
"then I will have to endure small inconveniences."
One step.
Then another.
Slow.
Certain.
Like a queen crossing her own hall.
"And you…"
She opened her arms slightly.
As if offering shelter.
"just had the misfortune of being exactly in the wrong place."
The first man tried to attack.
Late courage.
Desperation dressed as honor.
She smiled before the blow even arrived.
The forest learned to scream.
Blood touched the trees.
Bodies were opened like paper.
Throats vanished before sound could finish being born.
No haste.
No excess.
Each death seemed chosen.
Personal.
Intimate.
She moved among them like one dancing to a song only she could hear.
Behind each step, the night left fewer survivors… and more silence.