The world was gone.
No stars. No moon. No sound.
Only the weight—heavy, crushing—pressing down on Russ's lungs.
Then came the whisper. Not from the Seal. Not from Ravien.
From something else.
Feed… on them both…
Russ's instincts screamed as the ground beneath him began to breathe. The soil shifted like a beating heart, and a crack split open, spilling out a red-black mist that reeked of iron and rot.
Ravien's eyes narrowed. "We've woken it."
---
The Hunger Rises
A shadow, older than shadow itself, rose from the crack—a humanoid mass of dripping, congealed blood wrapped in threads of living darkness.
Russ's Seal pulsed violently, almost tearing his chest open.
"That thing… it's connected to me?"
"No," Ravien said, summoning his void blade again. "It's older than you. Older than the Seal. The Seal was made to chain it."
The thing moved. Not walked—moved. Its shape blurred, and before Russ could blink, it was right in front of him.
---
First Blood
Claws like jagged obsidian tore across Russ's side, and a river of blood followed. But instead of spilling to the ground, the monster drank it mid-air, the wound on Russ's body sizzling with pain as if the blood itself were being burned out of him.
Russ staggered, gasping. "It's… stealing my qi!"
Ravien's void aura surged. "Then we kill it. Now."
---
Blood, Shadow, Void
Russ and Ravien didn't speak again—they just moved.
Russ's Bloodshadow Overdrive roared back to life, shadows lashing out in a net of spikes while his blood formed into jagged spears. Ravien's Abyss Severance sliced through the darkness like a cold star, each swing bending reality around its edge.
The monster screamed—a sound that wasn't sound at all, but pressure, vibrating through their bones. The mist thickened, and with it came visions—cities burning, oceans of corpses, a sky split open by crimson light.
---
The Seal Breaks
The Bloodbane Seal on Russ's chest cracked. Not fully—just enough for black-red liquid fire to spill into his veins. His strength spiked, his vision sharpened, and for the first time, the shadows didn't just follow his command… they anticipated it.
The shadows moved like hunters, ripping into the monster's limbs, while Russ's scythe carved deep enough to reach the core of its swirling mass.
Ravien forced a rift in reality itself, his void blade striking from inside the creature's chest outward, detonating a hole in its body.
---
The Unfinished Death
The thing collapsed into the ground, melting into the same mist it had risen from. The battlefield was silent.
Russ fell to one knee, panting. Ravien lowered his blade.
"That," Ravien said grimly, "wasn't the whole of it. That was only its… shadow."
Russ's Seal pulsed again, harder, hotter.
"You mean—"
The ground shook—no, the world shook—as something bigger began clawing its way up from below.
In the black horizon, a single crimson eye opened.