The sound of the chains binding Sayuri still echoed like a dead whisper. The temple of the Eda clan, with its moss-covered columns and tapestries torn by time, seemed to observe Akira like a mocking ancient spirit.
— She refused — the voice repeated.
The man descending the steps carried himself with a regal and cruel posture. He wore the clan's traditional black cloak, but the symbol embroidered in blood pulsed with living energy. His eyes—once brown, now tinged with black and purple veins—glittered with the glow of corruption.
— Kaien… — Akira murmured.
The firstborn.
Kaien Eda, the eldest, was a general of contained destruction. His dark hair was shaved at the sides, scars visible on his neck, and his bare arms marked with demonic inscriptions. His right arm had been replaced by a flaming spiritual arm that seemed fused with dark steel. He manipulated hellfire, and the heat he emanated distorted the air around him.
— You were always dead weight — Kaien said. — The heir to what you couldn't comprehend. The favorite shadow of the dead.
From the left side of the altar, a nearly imperceptible silhouette emerged, shrouded in spiritual mist.
Rin Eda, the second. Long, platinum hair floated in slow waves as if gravity couldn't touch her. Her body seemed to dematerialize with each step, and her eyes—a spectral purple—betrayed her new essence. She had made a pact with the illusory spirits of the gloom and could pass through matter, manipulate memories, and make her enemies fight illusions as real as physical pain.
— You didn't even deserve to be born — she whispered. Her voice seemed to echo in multiple layers. — Not even when we were children… you were just a broken reflection of what we should have been.
Akira remained motionless.
And then, with heavy steps, came the last.
Raizo Eda, the youngest of the three. A brute. His hair was tied in a tight ponytail, his face covered by a mask with demonic teeth. His muscles were wrapped in living tattoos—marks that moved, contorting with his own life energy. Raizo channeled the Demonic Body style, a forbidden technique of spiritual absorption. With every enemy defeated, he grew stronger, more bestial. And now… he no longer seemed human.
— 'Heir' — Raizo snarled. — I call you that and taste vomit in my mouth. You're just that veil's puppet. A disgrace who ran while we burned and bled here.
Behind them, dozens of shinobi—the younger ones, clan students, old training partners—took position wearing the Eda family's ceremonial masks. Many had eyes altered by pacts, flaming marks on their necks, or tongues cut as offerings. All had fallen. Corrupted.
Akira didn't move.
The demonic symbol still burned in his palm. The spiral tattoo pulsed like a red ember, as if alive.
But his expression was inert. Not a muscle trembled.
His right eye began to glow—the iris subtly spinning like a dark whirlpool. Lines of energy became visible in the temple, like silver threads stitching the world together.
Spiritual flow detected. Unstable current. Four primary threats. Dozens secondary.
They are fast, Akira thought. But not clean.
— You talk too much — he said finally, coldly. — But you were always good at that.
The blade emerged from the shadows.
Akira drew his silver kusarigama from a portal that opened in his own shadow, appearing with a sharp crack. The chain spun in a circle, gleaming.
And the ground shook.
Raizo was first.
He charged like an animal on all fours, cracking the ground under his weight. Akira evaded with minimal movement, spinning the kusarigama so the blade grazed his brother's shoulder. But Raizo didn't stop—he absorbed the blow, laughing like a starved dog.
— MORE, LITTLE HEIR!
Rin appeared behind Akira in silence. An illusion? No.
Akira spun at the exact moment, driving the kusarigama's blade into the floor. The surrounding shadow exploded in a defensive wave, pushing Rin back, but she dissolved into lilac smoke.
She swapped places with a spiritual form. Damn it.
Kaien then advanced, fists wreathed in black flames. Each punch tore holes in the ground. Akira teleported between the shadows of the columns, appearing behind one of the younger shinobi and taking him down with a sharp kick.
The fight spread.
The temple became a warzone.
Columns fell, tapestries caught fire, the floor cracked, and shadows danced like serpents among the ancestral steps.
Akira was just a silhouette amidst the destruction. Cold. Lethal.
He avoided summoning the Shadow Realm.
He was afraid. Of losing control. Of not being able to return.
But his eyes… saw everything.
He dodged kunai thrown from blind spots. Deflected spells before they were uttered. Knew the exact point where Raizo would concentrate his next punch, and made Rin collide with him, tearing screams from both.
— I'LL KILL YOU, BASTARD! — Raizo shouted, spitting blood.
Akira spun his kusarigama's chain and launched the blade toward Kaien.
Kaien blocked with his demonic arm—and the silver blade cut through the spiritual flesh like butter.
Kaien screamed. A guttural sound. But the next instant, he rose again, even more inflamed.
— YOU…! — his voice exploded.
The surrounding shadows vibrated.
Akira felt it. Something… something was trying to break through from the other side. From the veil.
Sayuri coughed up blood behind him, the seal on her body pulsing in sync with the mark on Akira's hand.
The entire temple seemed on the verge of collapse.
— COME ON, AKIRA! — Kaien bellowed, spreading his arms, the black flames like a mantle around him. — SHOW US WHAT THE HEIR OF THE SHADOW REALM IS CAPABLE OF!
Akira closed his eyes for a second.
And when he opened them again, his right eye was ablaze. The spiritual lines spun uncontrollably.
The temple was split between the light of the flames and the deep shadows. A vortex formed in the ceiling, the ancient stones groaning.
The climax approached.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vernasha remained serene atop a mountain forgotten by time. The temple where she stood was a vestige of lost eras—a sanctuary carved from raw stone, with gigantic pillars marked by ancient runes only she understood. The structure was open to the dark, motionless sky, as if time were trapped there. The air was dense, laden with the dust of history and the breath of something far older than humanity itself.
In the center of the sanctuary, Vernasha stood immobile, like a priestess on the brink of apocalypse.
— We are in the final stretch… — she murmured with a slight smile, as if speaking to herself or to the echoes of the past. — Not long now…
Ever since she had sealed Mei Nuhay in that dimension isolated from time, something within her had fallen silent. She could no longer feel the vibrant flow of Mei's energy pulsing inside her. The bond had been severed. And though it relieved her… it also left her unsettled.
The dimension created to contain Mei was perfect: no water, no food, no heat, no stimuli. The cold corroded bones. Hunger tore at the soul. Human science said the body couldn't survive three days without water.
Weeks had passed.
Yet, something gnawed at Vernasha's core. A fragment of uncertainty. An irrational dread.
With a careful gesture, she opened a tiny rift in reality—just enough to peer into the ethereal prison she had created. The light from that spectral world leaked out like a blade cutting through the temple's gloom. Her heart raced. The chances of Mei still being alive were negligible. And yet, Vernasha trembled. She felt burning in her chest the memory of the blow that had nearly destroyed her—Mei Nuhay's punch, which seemed to have come from the very heart of a star.
She hesitated, but finally looked.
And found.
In the center of that formless gray void… a figure.
Serene. Silent. Static.
Mei Nuhay.
Seated in a meditation posture, her body seemed fused with the very energy of the void. The aura surrounding her was so subtle and delicate it barely moved—like the lightest breeze between dead worlds. She looked like a statue of flesh and power, immobile, unreachable. But alive.
— I-impossible… — Vernasha whispered, instinctively recoiling. — What is this woman…?
As if hearing, Mei slightly turned her head. Her eyes met Vernasha's.
They were no longer amber.
Now, they burned like liquid gold, piercing the soul with a light so intense it seemed unnatural. It was like staring at the sun through a spiritual lens. The force of her gaze made Vernasha recoil violently and immediately seal the rift, as if she had opened a portal to the abyss.
She panted.
— …She is an aberration… — she murmured, eyes wide, feeling her conviction tremble. — Even Dante's power might not be enough…
Yet, she knew. No matter what happened. The plan would continue. Mei might kill Dante. Or die trying. But what Vernasha had always planned would unfold like destiny traced by dead gods.
Because something darker was rising in the shadows…
An entity even more terrible.
Underground Laboratory – Black Tower
Meanwhile, in one of the towers erected by Vernasha in strategic regions of the world, Dr. Isha worked incessantly. The accumulated demonic energy pulsed around him like a heart of darkness.
— The levels are rising faster than predicted… — he murmured, typing nervously on the console. — We need another tower. I must inform Vernasha immediately.
He supervised all the towers—colossal artifacts channeling demonic energy from the seals. In one of them, recently, he had captured one of his own: a traitor. He had delivered him personally to Hazau.
Information had leaked. Many knew more than they should.
Occupied Zone – Reaper-Controlled Camp
Levi walked through dark alleys and degraded streets. The houses were covered in soot. The smell of death and abandonment saturated the air.
The camp was like a distorted mirror of the society that once existed—now corrupted by fear, oppression, and despair. The Reapers patrolled the streets, their presences suffocating like armed specters. The citizens barely dared to lift their eyes.
Hunger. Pain. Concentration camps.
Demonic energy hung over everything like an invisible mist.
Levi, however, was like a ghost. He knew how to suppress his spiritual aura masterfully and moved unnoticed among the rubble of civilization. An infiltrator. A survivor.
He reached his apartment. Climbed the steps slowly, looking around cautiously.
As soon as he crossed the door… something changed.
An icy shiver ran down his spine.
He flipped the switch. Nothing. No light.
He turned. The door had vanished.
The entire apartment had disappeared, swallowed by a living, pulsating darkness. His senses were ripped away, as if the world had collapsed into absolute silence. The floor, the walls, the air—everything was gone.
He tried to move… but could no longer distinguish reality from illusion.
A voice emerged from the shadow.
— Sleep well, little rat?
Hazau.
His malevolent laughter filled the void. He appeared slowly, like distorted mist, eyes gleaming in the abyss.
— Your mental seals are good… tricky, even — he commented mockingly. — But without the Sif suppression barrier… I can invade any mind I want.
Levi tried to react, but he was paralyzed. His thoughts being scratched by presences that didn't belong to sanity.
— I found you, you filthy garbage… — Hazau hissed, baring his teeth in a hungry smile. — Now, you will tell me everything. Where are the remnants?
Terror spread through Levi's mind like poison.
The war wasn't just physical.
It was spiritual. Psychic.
And the shadows were winning.
To be continued…