The knight lunged.
His blade caught the sun, flaring in my eyes like divine arrogance made manifest.
"In the name of the Dawn—!"
I didn't bother letting him finish.
A tendril of shadow coiled from my palm, slicing through the air like a whip. The metal shrieked, split in two, and his blade fell in glittering fragments.
He froze, staring dumbly at the broken hilt in his hand.
I almost felt bad for him. Almost.
"Light is quick to judge… yet too slow to understand."
I twisted my wrist. Shadows speared the ground and erupted beneath him, slamming the knight into the air. He hung there for a heartbeat — just long enough to see his reflection in my eyes — before crashing into the dirt with a dull thud.
The other paladins flinched. Their formation broke. Fear — that familiar, delicious scent — began to spread.
The captain barked an order.
"Hold! The Sovereign is but one! Form the Blessing Circle!"
Golden light burst from their hands, intertwining into radiant sigils that hovered above the ground.
I smiled thinly.
"Oh, a circle. How quaint."
The radiance surged toward me — blades of light, spears of prayer, all blinding, furious, holy.
But I moved through them like water. Each strike dissolved into vapor before it could touch me. The shadows obeyed my thought, flowing and bending, curling around each beam like serpents dancing in a storm.
"You swing light like a hammer," I said, stepping closer with each word, "but I wield shadow like a whisper."
A sudden flash — their priestess stepped forward, her staff glowing white-hot.
"Holy Seal!"
The sigil detonated, flooding the battlefield with light. For an instant, everything was gone — sound, sight, thought.
Then silence.
The dust parted.
And I was still standing.
"…That tickled."
My eyes opened, irises burning with violet fire. Shadows burst from me in a violent bloom, coiling skyward like a storm reborn. The priestess fell to her knees, her staff cracking from the backlash.
I appeared before her, a mere breath away.
My voice dropped, low and cold.
"Return to your gods. Tell them this — shadow kneels to none."
Her lips trembled. She nodded weakly. I turned away, and with a flick of my hand, the shadows retreated — sparing her, for now.
The captain, scorched and trembling, looked up at me from the dirt.
"W-why spare us?"
I smirked, the faintest curl at the corner of my lips.
"Because mercy… is the sharpest blade."
And with that, I vanished into the forest — the sun dimming behind me, as if even daylight itself dared not shine upon my path.