In the vast plains of white sand, three colossal walls made of pristine white marble stood. Enclosed within them were four fortresses located at the four cardinal directions. In the centre stood a citadel.
In the gaps between the walls and in the empty spaces within the entire structure were camps and barracks.
Near the outermost wall, a woman walked out from the entrance of one of the camps. Her hair was auburn-red, her skin olive. She wore plated armour over tight black undergarments, with shoulder and wrist guards. Behind her back, she carried a quiver filled with arrows, holding her long bow in one hand.
It was her time for guard duty. She liked her job because she believed she was fighting for a noble cause. Standing on top of an altar, she spoke a few runes, and she was transported to the top of the wall. Walking along the path, she reached the guard post. Climbing through the stairs, she entered the post and greeted her comrade.
The second sentry, dressed in heavy battle robes, pulled back her hood, and a warm smile broke across her scarred face.
"That look of determination on your face makes me envious," the robed woman said, stretching her arms toward the sky. "How do you not get tired of this? I feel completely drained after weeks of the same routine."
The auburn-haired archer chuckled, shrugging her shoulders. "Maybe I am built differently." Both women laughed softly, and after a few moments, they returned to their watch. Hours passed until the bright sun reached its zenith. The two of them remained vigilant.
Her gaze locked onto the horizon.
Her Aspect granted her sight that stretched far beyond human limits, piercing through distance, heat distortion, and even shadows. But the shadow approaching now refused to be dissolved. A figure moved across the distant white sands, shrouded in an unnatural, creeping darkness. The archer knew only one being capable of wielding such shadows, but this was not him.
Fixing her sight, she peered through the dark visor of the intruder's helmet. Two vermilion eyes stared back, locking directly onto her. She felt death's hand at her throat and could only gulp. Beside her, the robed sentry noticed the sudden panic and shook her roughly, snapping her out of her stupor.
"What is it? Do you see an enemy? Say something, dammit!"
The archer's breath came in ragged, terrifying gasps. The colour drained completely from her olive skin, leaving her trembling against the stone wall. When she spoke, her voice was a broken, terrified whisper.
"Call... call the forces... it's... THE BLADE OF THE NORTH!!"
...
Melina looked through the visor of her helmet. Through her shadow sense, she felt multiple shadows gathering at the top of the wall, extending forward, with more incoming. But it didn't matter to her.
Shadows began to escape from her own shadow, blotting out the incandescent sun in the Hell of Ariel. Shadows enveloped her body, growing large enough to take the form of a giant resembling her; the shadows rippled beneath her before coalescing into a massive spear.
Her colossal hand gripped the spear as she shifted her body and stretched her arm, manoeuvring the spear before launching it straight toward the wall. The forces rushed to stop her, but it was already too late. The spear collided with the wall, shattering it, then struck the middle wall as well. Before it could advance further, it was halted by the enemy forces.
The giant form dissolved, shadows snapping back to her feet. She landed softly on the white sand, looking straight through her visor.
"Only you three?" she asked.
Three transcendents stood before her, ready to fight and, if given the chance, to kill. One of the three transcendent warriors, his eyes exhibiting heterochromia—with one black and one red—answered in a coarse voice as his white hair flowed toward the blazing air.
"It's the bare minimum we can give for a witch like you. What can even a lone wolf of the divine legion do against us? You will die before reinforcements arrive. Has the Shadow Lord lost his mind after ascension, to send just one transcendent at us?" He laughed, but Melina's laughter echoed louder, mocking them.
A shadow blade manifested in her hand before she stopped laughing, fixing them with a wicked smile.
"Alone? Who said I was alone?" She paused as the sounds of explosions and raging battle echoed from within the walls. The confused expressions of her enemies made her laugh again before she continued:
"Did you think three would be enough to fight me? You and I both know your place. Three transcendents against me? The Shadow Lord has gone senile! It's your lady of repose, that wretched demon, who has lost her mind. Do you really think you can face me? I, who have slaughtered more than fifty transcendents in a single battle?"
The white-haired man gritted his teeth at her words.
"Your arrogant mouth, people of shadows can only talk and do nothing, no wonder your God is such a weak and—" Before the man could even finish his words, his head flew from his shoulders, and his lifeless body fell with a heavy thud into the sand.
Melina flicked her blade with a sharp snap, painting a dark streak of the arrogant warrior's blood across the white dunes.
"Foolish like your lady, battle is meant to be fought with blades; even the war maidens seem much better suited to fight. Now..." She looked at the remaining two transcendents, who were already lunging directly at her.
Smirking, she muttered.
"Indeed, death is the only answer."
She leapt back, slamming her blade against the sharp claws of the beast-like woman, aiming for her arm. A shadow snapped into place beneath Melina's foot, forming an artificial step as she twisted her posture and drove her blade forward in a tight, ripping spiral.
The beastwoman relied on her swiftness, sliding clean off the path of the piercing steel to launch a kick straight toward Melina's head. But a shadow chain snared her ankle mid-air, snapping tight and plunging her directly back toward the sword.
The blade was a breath away from ending the beastwoman's life when the last transcendent seized his opening, driving his warhammer straight for Melina's spine. The shadow beneath her feet erupted, launching her upward in the nick of time.
Melina rotated her body in mid-air. With a violent yank of the shadow chain, she dragged the beastwoman beneath her, forcing her directly into the arc of the raging warhammer, which crushed her head into a visceral mess.
As the beastwoman's mangled body crashed onto the sand, Melina shifted her weight, easily dodging the residual momentum of the transcendent who had just obliterated his own comrade. She slid a few paces backwards before planting her boots firmly in the white drifts.
"Considering your scrawny frame, you should have used a spear," she said, her voice echoing coldly through the dark visor of her helmet. "Then, perhaps your comrade wouldn't have turned into such a visceral mess, although I would have done it to her later anyway."
The shadow blade in her hand dissolved, its dark mass stretching and locking into the lethal silhouette of a long spear.
"Now, let me show you a valuable lesson; consider it as a farewell gift from me." Her form disappeared, then reappeared behind the scrawny transcendent.
Her sudden movement made the transcendent use his unnatural strength to swing his heavy weapon at her. Instead of retreating from the upcoming attack, she used the shaft of the shadow spear and rotated it, causing the weapon to be deflected.
Before the transcendent warrior could retreat his weapon, she kicked him with a heavy blow to the chest, causing the scrawny man to be thrown backwards as his boots dragged deep ruts through the white sand.
Melina didn't give him a second to breathe. She rotated her spear at high speed, the whirling weapon creating a shield of solid darkness before her. An instant later, the shadow beneath her feet erupted, launching her forward like a black streak across the drifts.
Screaming through the air, she brought the spear down in a brutal, descending arc, smashing it with the sheer strength of her one hand.
The transcendent managed to react, raising the heavy shaft of his warhammer just in time to block the heavy blow. The shockwave of the impact tore through the sand beneath their feet, sending a massive cloud of white dust exploding outward into the burning desert air.
The transcendent felt his breathing becoming heavy; the force of her attack was far more harrowing than he had thought. He gritted his teeth and tried to push her backwards, but then...
His body lost all of its strength as a sharp, agonising pain tore through his chest—straight through his heart, or what remained of it. Blood dripped from his mouth, staining his chin and marring his breastplate as five onyx claws pierced through his armour and held his heart, which was still beating wildly.
He looked behind him, his eyes widening in absolute shock. The entity standing over him was identical to his dead comrade, the very one whose head he had just crushed into pulp. It was her shadow, pulled from the corpse.
"I was going to fight you for some more time, but my superiors wouldn't really like it, so find it in your heart, and don't forgive me. Also, I don't like warhammers; they are too annoying," she spoke coldly. Melina stepped forward as the transcendent enemy fell lifeless onto the white sand, his spilling blood tainting the pristine drifts with deep crimson.
The divine legion was here, and so was the daemon legion.
On one side stood a single Divine, two Sacreds, ten Supremes, and a hundred Transcendents, backed by roaring battalions of Ascendeds and Awakeneds. Against them was an even more overwhelming number: a Divine being, ten Sacreds, over a hundred Supremes, and countless Transcendents.
Today, it would be a feast for the Shadow God.