The dawn was still shaking off the torpor and the rancid echoes of the past night. Under a pale amber light that bled across the horizon, a young man of noble features—clad in tattered leather and a crimson mantle—was running for his life, as if he were fleeing Death itself.
Or perhaps, one of its emissaries who ring the bell.
His right hand gripped the hilt of his sword with white-knuckled desperation. From the tip of the blade, a viscous, visceral substance dripped copiously, tracing a scarlet line that began at his right shoulder, ran down his arm, and marked the frantic path he had carved through the snow. Fear and despair hollowed out his noble face, his skin turning a sickly pallid hue from the blood he had lost.
Along the jagged trail, the Hero had encountered other feral beasts—the surviving sycophants of the Mountain King. With no other choice, Auro had been forced to cut his way through them, sustaining grevious wounds as the exhaustion of a night-long slaughter finally took its toll.
Yet, by some unmerited grace—or perhaps a twisted joke of Fate—he was still alive.
His ragged breath, met by the mountain's frozen bite, erupted from his mouth in thick plumes of white vapor. His armor grew heavier with every step, his limbs turning to lead, while the surrounding shadows seemed to fester at his passing.
The shadows mocked him relentlessly. For Auro of the Nine—the child who once dreamed of becoming a legend, the man destined to reach the heights of Godhood and wage war against the Heavens and their Creators—was now a fugitive, hunted by a mere whelp of shadows.
The gloom around him seemed to sprout a thousand eyes and hundreds of maws filled with scythe-like teeth. Every patch of darkness felt like a tripwire, waiting to send him tumbling into the abyss to his right. Auro dared not even look down at his own shadow, fearing a traitorous blade might emerge from it at any moment.
As he flee away, his mind raced, thinking back the words that demon had hissed at him before letting him slip away into the morning light.
***
"Because this is my story now."
Sunny's laughter rang out again, dark and jagged. His black dagger remained driven into the white, three-quarters of its blade buried deep within the frozen mantle of snow.
Auro watched the boy laugh in perfect unison with the surrounding shadows. The scene was as mystic as it was macabre, sending a violent shiver down his spine.
"Enough of this madness!" he finally snapped, his voice cracking the tension.
Auro leveled his sword once more, the tip trembling slightly as it pointed at the boy's chest. "Pick up your weapon, demon. Let's end this! Once and for all!" he commanded, though every instinct in his body screamed at him to turn and run.
Sunny's laughter died instantly. The shadows froze with him, returning to a deathly, expectant silence.
He raised his arms in a mock gesture of surrender.
Slowly, with an unnerving lack of haste, he took a few small steps backward, distancing himself from the dagger still piercing the snow.
Auro watched him move away from his steel. In that moment, the Hero was the only one with cold iron in his hands—so why did he feel like it was his throat currently pressed against a blade?
"I have no intention of fighting you, Auro of the Nine. Quite the opposite," Sunny said, his hands still raised in plain sight before the Hero's stunned eyes. "I am here to tell you that you are free to go."
"What?" Auro couldn't process the words.
"You heard me. You are free to leave, if you wish. I have no valid reason to strike you down," Sunny countered.
In truth, Sunny had no desire for a direct confrontation. Not because of a gap in skill or rank, but because Auro was [Fated].
In this world, Fate was an absolute law.
And this meant, that even if the heavens spontaneously collapsed, even if the Gods unleashed their most withered plagues upon him, rest assured that Auro would survive anyway. At the eleventh hour, he would inevitably pull an ace from his sleeve that would flip the script and save his neck.
The original Sunless had defeated him only because he, too, was [Fated]. This Sunless, however, did not hold that card in his deck. He had something else—something that might be its equal.
Attribute: [???]
However, those question marks were a double-edged blade, a gamble too volatile to bet his life on. Sunny preferred to win without a toss of the dice.
Seeing that the Hero had not yet grasped the olive branch offered to him, Sunny's lips curled into a predatory smirk.
"Make no mistake, Auro of the Nine," he added, his voice dropping to a gravelly, eerie whisper. "I said you are free to go. I did not say you could escape. No matter how fast you run, no matter how far your legs carry you... you cannot outrun the inevitable. After all, no man can flee from his own shadow."
No man can flee from his own death.
Auro fell silent. Slowly, without lowering his weapon, he began to back away. He kept his eyes locked on the boy's until the falling snow and the jagged terrain began to swallow the silhouette. Only when he was certain he was out of immediate reach did he turn and break into a frantic run.
He fled upward, completely unaware that by the shadow's grand design, he was sprinting straight toward the jagged peak of the black mountain.
***
Auro continued his desperate ascent, drawing closer to the summit of the Black Mountain. Alone and on the precipice of despair.
At last, his frantic pace faltered. He had arrived.
Before Auro, the highest point of the black mountain revealed itself in all its desolate magnificence. A vast expanse of flat rock was covered with snow. At its center, eclipsing the pale rays of the sun, stood a temple as ancient as time itself.
The structure had been hewn from black marble, its columns and walls scaled for giants. Now, it lay in ruin. Fissures and jagged cracks decorated the stone, turning the sanctuary into a crumbling sarcophagus dedicated to a dark God.
Staring at the ancient shrine, Auro couldn't help but think that he'd had quite enough of temples and alike. Yet, there was no turning back. He could not afford to retrace his steps.
Auro took a breath and moved forward, half-running toward the ancestral ruin.
***
The white sun had reached its zenith, yet the mountain's frozen bite did not waver.
Auro stood before the sanctuary. Its immense portals looked cracked as though they had been trampled by the hand of a giant. He stopped just a few paces from the ancient staircase, his heart skipping a beat.
A figure was sitting on the lowest steps.
It was a man draped in a red rag that had once been a majestic crimson cloak. His chestnut hair spilled over his shoulders, and a wide, upward-curving smile dominated his face. His lone left arm rested atop a greatsword that stood upright, driven into the stone beside him.
Before Auro could utter a single word, the man spoke.
His voice was thick with enthusiasm and a hollow kind of hunger—the voice of a phantom rising from its own grave.
"I've been waiting for you, shadow."
Auro froze. His eyes trembled, and the hair on his neck stood on end as if Death itself were breathing down his collar.
Turning slowly, he saw a boy with pale skin and ebony hair, clad in a dark grey shroud, crawling out of his own shadow like a serpent from the abyss—or a Grim Reaper come to claim a debt.
"Why. Are. You. Still. Alive?" Sunny hissed at Goliath, his voice ragged and trembling with fury. Only now did the cold realization hit him: the Spell had never announced the kill of the Champion of War.
Goliath had used his Enthralling to deceive him.
Failing to break Sunny spiritually, the giant had instead fed Sunny's ego, making him believe he had delivered a mortal blow.
Goliath stood up, laughing heartily. He wrenched his massive greatsword from the stone step and rested the blade across his shoulder as if it weighed no more than a feather.
"I warned you, shadow," he said, baring his massive chest. "If you're going to kill me, make sure you do it right."
He pointed to a jagged puncture wound directly over his heart. It was deep, yes—but not deep enough.
Sunny wasn't entirely surprised that Goliath had regained his strength. He had felt the resilience of [the Heart] himself. If a mere aspirant could knit skin and muscle overnight, a Master blessed by two deities was a different breed of immortal altogether.
"How— how?" Auro finally stammered. His gaze darted between Sunny and his general, unable to fathom how the demon had bypassed his senses.
Sunny didn't even look at him. His eyes remained locked on the giant, his knuckles white as he gripped the hilt of the [Deplorable Dagger].
Goliath, seeing the Hero's shock, let out another thunderous, violent roar of laughter.
"You're quite the naive one, Rookie," Goliath mocked, glancing at Auro. "Haven't you realized? The brat here is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He used you as a mine canary to reach the peak."
The Champion of War turned his full attention back to Auro, his voice dropping into a persuasive, honeyed tone. "Hey, Rookie! Why don't we join forces and end this demon's life? You and I... what do you say?"
A flicker of hope ignited deep within Auro. He looked at his general, a desperate thought forming: 'Yes... that makes sense. If not for this boy, the legion wouldn't have fallen. We can fix this.'
SPLAT "Ah!"
A snowball struck Auro square in the cheek. The sudden cold snapped him back to reality.
Turning toward the boy on his left, Auro saw Sunny casually wiping his hand against his dark grey shroud.
"Don't let him play you, Auro of the Nine. He uses his voice to broadcast his Enthralling," Sunny warned, his voice sharp and clinical.
The puzzle pieces finally fell into place. Goliath's voice was the medium for his power; he used that mesmerizing resonance to keep his troops in line and stoke their morale. A subtle, treacherous trick for a man who boasted so much about honor.
Now it made sense why Thene had interrupted Goliath so abruptly before their duel. Had it been instinct, or the terrifying versatility of the Shadow Dance?
It's hard to understand.
The harsh, white light of the midday sun carved a jagged line across the horizon.
Next, high upon the peak of the black mountain, accompanied by the choir of the undying breeze and under the gaze of the invisible, formless guardian of a long-forgotten God...
A Shadow, a Hero, and a Giant clashed.
The winner would see the dawn of a new day. The vanquished would be devoured by the first upon his wake.