The beast's body dissolved and reformed between strikes, as if its flesh was smoke given hunger. Each movement shredded the air, dragging trails of darkness that bled light from the world.
Arka's sword met its claws — sparks burst, but no sound followed. The silence itself devoured noise.
He pushed the creature back, its chest splitting open like a tear in reality. Inside, nothing — just a void, deeper than space.
Arka grimaced. "You're not alive."
The creature hissed, voice splitting into many:
We are what remains… when gods forget their names.
It lunged. Arka turned his blade, twisting through the attack, cutting through shadow — but the wound healed instantly, pulling the darkness together again. The air itself refused to remember the cut.
He jumped back, scanning its movement. No heartbeat. No aura. Not even time flows right around it.
This was not a beast. It was absence made form.
From the treeline, more shapes emerged — crawling, slithering, walking upright. Dozens of them, all flickering at the edges, their outlines struggling to exist.
Each whispered the same fragmented plea:
Feed… feed… feed…
Arka steadied his stance. His sword flickered — the last fragment of Balance light he still carried.
"If the world forgot the stars," he murmured, "then I'll remind it what burned first."
He thrust the blade into the ground. A pulse rippled outward — faint, silver, defiant.
The shadows recoiled, shrieking in distortion. The grass beneath him turned to glass, the air humming with residual memory.
Arka's scar flared painfully. The mark of the Balance glowed faintly again — incomplete, fractured, but alive.
He realized then: the Balance hadn't vanished. Kael hadn't destroyed it completely. She'd hidden a spark within him.
The creatures sensed it. Their whispers turned into roars.
Bearer… incomplete… finish… the cycle…
They charged.
Arka met them head-on. His blade tore through the first — its form exploded into dust, the second burned in silver flame, the third crumbled into silence.
But with every strike, the mark dimmed. The light drained from him.
When the last creature fell, he dropped to one knee, breath ragged. The night air was still — but the world itself seemed thinner, like paper stretched too far.
He glanced at his palm. The scar pulsed once, faintly.
"Kael…" he whispered, "what did you leave me?"
Then — a whisper, soft as starlight, brushed the edge of his mind.
"A key."
The voice was hers.
He looked up sharply. Across the clearing, faint motes of light drifted — forming the outline of a woman. For a heartbeat, he saw her standing there, smiling through the glow.
Then the image fractured, and the light scattered into the wind.
Arka stood, his resolve hardening.
If Kael's spark remained, then so did her will.
And if these shadow-born were the price of a world without Balance…
He would find the truth she hid — and finish what neither of them could.
He turned toward the distant lights of the village. Behind him, the forest whispered with unseen motion.
Above, the empty sky trembled — and for the first time in a thousand years, one star flickered back to life.