As the forbidden cloth settled against his forehead, the world around him shifted.
A voice slithered into his mind.
"Darion... I've waited so long for this moment."
Darion spun wildly as dread clawed at the edges of his sanity. The world tilted with each breath. It felt like death itself had arrived.
"Who the hell was that?!"
The floor split. The shrine walls twisted inward. Everything shifted to darkness.
Then the whispers appeared once more. Darion, gripped by terror, yelled out in fear, "Shut up! Who are you? Show yourself!"
A tall, slender figure emerged, it had no legs, just tendrils slithering from its torso across the ground. The top of its head flared outward like hellish fire, and a pair of sharp, glowing white eyes.
Before Darion could react, it spoke, revealing a sinister smile.
"If my knowledge serves me right, you may be aware of who I am, isn't that right, Darion?"
Darion, speechless and lost in thought, tried to process the events that had happened too fast.
Until he finally came to the terrifying realization.
"Y-You… you're Kurai..."
"Pleased to meet you."
Darion dropped down in fear as Kurai towered over him with a dreadful grin.
Kurai's laugh filled the silence, echoing throughout the endless void.
The air thickened, and an immense aura filled the city of Valnera. Everyone within the city was trembling not by choice, but by instinct. Was it the breezing wind? Danger? Maybe fear?
But fear of what? A monster? Worse, the incarnation of all that was evil had been reawakened, and it was ready for a massacre.
At a nearby cafe, Rex and Tarin froze as a spine-tingling presence washed over them. It had happened, a lost prophecy, a fate much worse than death. They both rushed towards the source of it.
Cael and Silas were arguing foolishly over a stupid prank before they were affected, too.
Silas muttered, "Do you feel that?"
Cael replied, "Oh, you mean the fact I'm struggling to breathe out of my nose, no, I don't."
"Now's not the time for sarcasm, let's go, it's coming from the light temple," Silas said.
"Wait, it's not coming from the light temple, it's coming from the tomb where the darkband resides...!" Cael yelled.
"Oh no."
As Rex and Tarin met with Cael and Silas at the entrance of the tomb, all they could hear were screams of pure agony. As they discussed the presence, a spear of light stabbed down from the sky.
"Hey, Lucien, do you know what's going on?" Rex said.
"I might have an idea, but if it's true, we may be doomed," Lucien replied.
"You don't mean..." Cael said, trembling.
The stone blackened before Rex's feet as he was ready to fight, even with his own life on the line.
Tarin saw as the air around Rex warmed up.
"Seems like we're ready to face whatever enemy awaits us, huh?"
Rocks clustered around his fists, forming jagged spikes along his knuckles.
They were all ready to fight the source of this deadly threat.
They walked in only to see a troubled Darion panicking for his life as the darkband was found on his head.
Everyone stared in stunned silence, pure fear written across their faces
"D-Darion. What the hell is going on?!" Rex yells
"I have no idea, I just heard some bizarre whispers and then I woke up like this!"
"How is that even possible? There hasn't been a darkband user within the entirety of its existence!" Lucien said.
As the band users all discuss the possibility of the darkband having a user for the first time since the Big Bang. Darion collapsed.
Rex and the others rushed over, shock and worry etched into their faces due to Darion's sudden collapse.
Rex runs up to him and tries to wake him up until Darion's eyes open, but it isn't him on the other side.
"Salutations. Fireband user."
Darion's eyes were replaced with an endless void with a white light at the center of his pupils.
"W-What the hell? Darion, is this a joke? Please tell me this is a joke." Rex says hesitantly.
"Darion can't come to the phone right now, he's currently taking a nap. Might be a long one."
Rex jumped back, but not in fear for himself, but for his friend. That was no longer Darion.
"Give us Darion right now!" Rex says confidently as his hands go ablaze, ready to fight for his friend.
Before Rex could act, Lucien stopped him and offered that he would be the one to challenge Kurai himself.
"Kurai, you have been waiting to fight me for a long time, haven't you?"
Kurai looked at Lucien, and all he could see was Solas within him. He was alive, but had taken a different approach with his vessel.
"Lucien, the vessel of the great light Solas, I have been wishing for a rematch against you, Solas, but your vessel may suffice that thirst of mine. I can't wait to kill him and take you down alongside him."
Lucien's gaze sharpened. Light gathered at his fingertips as he stepped forward.
"Bring it on!"
Lucien did not wait.
The moment the words left his lips, the light shifted towards him. It surged from his body in a sharp bloom, washing the tomb walls in an engulfing white light. The shadows recoiled, but only for a second.
Kurai stepped forward through the flare as if it were mist.
Lucien met him halfway.
Their fists collided. A pulse rang out across the chamber like a church bell underwater. The stone beneath them fractured. Both unfazed.
Lucien spun and dropped low, sweeping with one leg. Kurai drifted backward, his form shifting with unnatural fluidity. His counterattack came without wind-up, a backhand laced with compressed black matter that crackled with an unstable force.
Lucien caught the blow with a shield of light that arose from his palm. The shield vibrated from the contact, fractures spreading across it like frost. He reinforced it and pushed back.
Kurai smiled.
"You've improved. Still not enough."
Lucien formed a second barrier behind his elbow, using it as leverage to pivot and release a palm strike to Kurai's chest. A flash of heat and radiance burst from his hand, slamming Kurai back several paces.
Dust rose.
Kurai straightened, brushing stone from his shoulder. Smoke curled from his ribcage, where Lucien's light had scorched through Darion's shirt. His grin did not waver.
Light circled Lucien's fingers as he raised his hand, forming spinning rings of radiant spirits.
Kurai tilted his head. The smile faded just slightly.
A beam of pure light shot from Lucien's fingertip, straight and clean, moving faster than sound. Kurai raised both hands. Darkness erupted from his palms, thick and pulsating, not like smoke but like gravity made visible.
The beam hit the darkness and slowed. It twisted as it pierced through, contorting like it passed through water. The tomb shook. The temperature dropped.
Lucien whispered.
The beam snapped, condensed into a single point of light, then exploded outward in a spiral. It tore through Kurai's defense and clipped his side. A chunk of matter was erased.
Kurai hissed, staggering.
For a second, his form flickered. The illusion of control slipped. Something else shimmered beneath Darion's skin.
Lucien saw it and hesitated.
That pause was enough.
Kurai lunged forward. His arm blurred with motion, and his fist collided with Lucien's chest. The blow was laced with concentrated dark energy. It bent the light around them. Lucien was flung back, his boots tearing through the stone until he stopped against a column.
He coughed once. Blood touched his lip.
Kurai walked calmly now, his aura warping the space around him. Dust floated upward in his presence. The air behind him shimmered as if burned by flames.
"You are a fine vessel," Kurai said. "But you are not him. Solas is in you, yes, but afraid and weak."
Lucien wiped his mouth. "Then let me show you what fear can do."
He raised both hands.
The tomb turned bleached white.
A sphere of light engulfed him. It pulsed with rhythm, each beat in sync with his heart. His outline vanished behind the glow. When he stepped forward again, he left afterimages behind. His movements bent time.
Kurai blinked.
Lucien moved.
He appeared above, below, and beside. A flash of light preceded every strike. His palm connected with Kurai's shoulder, his knee with his ribs, his heel with the side of his face. Each blow erupted with precise force, leaving burns and fractures.
Kurai stumbled. His foot slid across the floor, leaving a black smear behind.
Lucien raised one finger. A single ray formed at its tip.
"This is judgment," he said.
He fired.
The ray carved a silent path through the air and pierced Kurai's chest.
Kurai grunted. He looked down. The hole glowed faintly. Then it began to close.
He laughed.
The sound echoed with something ancient, something hollow.
"You strike like him," he said. "But you are still bound by mercy."
The tomb began to warp. The stones under Kurai's feet cracked. The walls shifted, pulling inward.
A mixture of dark matter and dark energy coiled around his arms. It spiraled and condensed into two spheres, one black as pitch, the other a pulsing void that bent light toward it. He threw both forward, one pulling like a vacuum, the other repelling with violent force.
Lucien created a lattice of light. The twin forces struck it and exploded, one collapsing into itself and the other rupturing outward. The shockwave shattered the remaining pillars. The ceiling moaned.
The roof split open.
Lucien staggered, his shoulder scorched from the last pulse.
Kurai stepped into the light. His shadow stretched unnaturally long behind him.
"You are strong," he said. "But the world no longer belongs to light."
Lucien raised one final seal. It floated before him, ancient and alive, pulsing with layered runes.
"No," he said. "It belongs to those who protect it."
He touched the seal.
A burst of light erupted, and the world was silent.
When the light faded, Kurai suffered the same fate.
Darion collapsed.
Lucien caught him.
The others entered the chamber seconds later, arriving in silence.
Rex knelt first. He stared at Darion's unconscious body, eyes wide.
"He survived," he whispered.
Lucien nodded in agreement.
"He endured the Darkband."
The others said nothing.
Far below them, a voice spoke with no mouth.
"One fragment walks. Seven remain dormant."