They say fate likes to toy with mortals, putting them in despair, then hope, then even deeper despair, again and again, until the cycle becomes so dark it feels like the abyss itself.
That was what every Outcast on Nevermore felt, exhausted, hopeless, with no help coming their way. Morale kept sinking into the abyss, and most of the students had already lost the light in their eyes. Yet, a few still clung to hope, desperate to see the light at the end of the tunnel, refusing to give up.
But refusing to give up doesn't mean you win. Sometimes it only means you're standing still, waiting for the inevitable.
At the four cardinal points, the cultists kept chanting to their god, tearing apart the barrier between worlds so their master could be summoned. Then, suddenly, all four of them kneeled and took at the heart beside the candle, and placed them into their shadows.
The four cultists' shadows began to move. The sound of beating hearts echoed from inside the darkness. Their shadows expanded, slithering like snakes across the ground until they all converged at the quad. The fifth cultist pressed his heart into his shadow, absorbing the others. All five hearts merged, and a louder, thunderous heartbeat echoed across Nevermore like the trumpet of the world's end.
The shadows grew, and grew, until countless eyes opened across their surface. A gigantic hand emerged, followed by the rest of its monstrous body. A colossal shadow creature rose, towering over Nevermore. Its form was nothing but writhing darkness and hundreds of blinking eyes. The earth itself shook.
And despair, true, crushing despair, finally spilled into the world.
The cultist at the center laughed maniacally.
"Your servant has finally entered this world! Now, we are waiting for you my lord!"
Once the servant of the god was summoned, the cultists moved to their final step: slaughtering every sacrifice within the academy to complete the ritual and call their lord from beyond reality.
To summon a god, they had prepared countless sacrifices and chosen six locations for the rite: the four cardinal points, the very center, and the final point above.
Above… where their god dwells.
Beyond the veil of existence.
No place other than The Outside.
The students and teachers who saw the monster collapsed into despair. Tears streamed down their faces. Some who had been fighting moments earlier now fell to their knees.
"God, why is this happening?!"
"We're going to die!"
"Jerome, I cheated on you!"
"Fuck this school! I never even liked it , my parents forced me to come here! Home? Friends? It's all bullshit!"
Some screamed their regrets, their last confessions, their raw feelings into the night.
Agnes grabbed her phone and called her brother, but it just kept ringing.
At last, with trembling hands and a screen blurred by tears, she typed a message:
"Big brother… I know I've said cruel things to you, and to your friends. I was jealous, afraid you'd leave me behind, so I lashed out. But it looks like I'm the one leaving first.
Tell Enid I'm sorry.
I love you. You're the best big brother I ever had.
If there's another life… I hope we end up as family again."
She hugged her friends through her tears, all of them trembling together.
"You guys really are good friends," Agnes said, her smile tight and wavering. "Shame we didn't have more time… I had so many pranks left to pull."
Her friends laughed through their tears, hugging again before closing their eyes as they waited for death.
But at that moment, green flames erupted from nowhere, lashing into the shadow monsters attacking the students. They shrieked as the fire spread, devouring their endless forms until the entire night sky burned with emerald light.
Everyone was shocked as they looked outside. Their faces grew even more horrified, at first, they thought another enemy had appeared. But through the emerald flames, a figure emerged, walking calmly. White hair, green-glowing eyes, a phantom sword resting across his shoulder.
His gaze swept the crowd until it landed on Agnes. Once he confirmed his sister was safe, he turned toward the towering shadow monster. Viktor swung the sword once, leapt forward, and the ground split behind him with a shockwave.
No one spoke. They could only stare, stunned by what they were witnessing, until someone finally whispered, "Why does that guy look so familiar?"
Jass narrowed his eyes. "…Viktor?"
His voice snapped everyone out of their shock. They burned the image of the man who had just saved them into their minds, recognition spreading like wildfire.
But something about Viktor had changed. His presence was heavier, his aura sharper. He didn't look like the Viktor they once knew.
"If that's really Viktor… did he just save us?"
And with those words, the tension broke. Students began sobbing with relief. Some hugged each other, laughing through tears, finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
"My big brother?"
Agnes, who had heard everything, spun around. She hadn't seen what happened, but she heard everyone saying her brother's name. Her hands trembled as she grabbed Jass by the arm.
"My big brother's here?!"
"Yes. Viktor save us!" Jass grinned, raising his hand in triumph. "We're saved!"
But before anyone could celebrate further, the earth shook violently. A deafening roar echoed across the sky, freezing everyone in place. They rushed outside just in time to see Viktor battling the giant monster.
Jass frowned and turn to the students, he shouted, "Guys, we need to help Viktor!"
"Why?" someone blurted out.
"Are you stupid?!" Jass snapped. "Viktor might be strong, but if he fails, we're all dead! We can't run, we're surrounded! If he falls, we're doomed!"
The fear in his words hit them like cold water.
"Then how do we help?"
"We find its weakness! There has to be one!"
Under Jass's lead, the students reorganized. The wounded were sent to the basement, while those still able to fight set out to search for the monster's weak point.
With Viktor's return, hope had begun to grow.
---
Above, Viktor soared through the air, phantom sword blazing in his grip. He swung it down, and emerald fire erupted from the blade, crashing into the giant's chest. The explosion of light seared away chunks of shadow, making the beast shriek. The roar was so loud it split the ground beneath its feet.
The servant of the gods raised an arm, and its countless eyes opened wider. From them poured a flood of living shadows, warriors, beasts, and monstrous shapes clawing their way into existence.
Viktor's grip on his sword tightened. His glowing eyes burned brighter, and he dove into the swarm. Every slash sent arcs of green flame slicing through the air, burning not flesh but soul. The creatures screamed as they dissolved into glowing ash, fading into the wind. Viktor spun, cutting through dozens at a time, rising higher and higher.
But the monster grabbed the clock tower and hurled it straight at him. Viktor dove, cleaving it in half midair, but before he could recover, the creature's massive arm shot toward him. Frost bloomed across the sky, time itself seeming to slow. The cold bit into Viktor's skin, freezing him mid-flight, creeping up his arms. His sword grew heavy as ice crawled toward his chest.
With a roar, Viktor ignited himself, wreathing his entire body in green fire. The ice shattered. He thrust forward, stabbing his blade deep into the giant's arm. Flames erupted along the wound, searing through shadow, flesh, and spirit alike.
The giant monster howled, its countless eyes bleeding black ichor. From that blood, shapes began to form, humanoid figures that gathered together, merging. A second pair of arms sprouted from the monster back.
Then, with four colossal hands, the creature struck, four arms slamming into Viktor mid-flight and hurling him across the sky.
Viktor's ears rang as he slammed into the ruins below. The breath tore from his lungs, blood spilling from his lips. Pain flared through his ribs like fire, and his vision blurred at the edges. Inside him, hairline fractures splintered across his soul, cracks threatening to shatter him entirely.
But he stood.
He wiped the blood from his mouth, his legs shaking, and raised his sword once more.
The two blood-forged arms rippled, unraveling into hundreds of humanoid abominations that swarmed toward him in a tide of shrieking flesh. Viktor gritted his teeth, planted his feet, and whispered to his blade.
The sword answered.
Emerald fire exploded outward in a spiraling wave, consuming everything in its reach. The swarm screamed, a choir of death, before collapsing into glowing ash.
From above, the giant's countless eyes flared, flooding the battlefield with a black light. A ray of petrification shot down, turning the earth into lifeless darkness. Viktor barely rolled clear, but the beam grazed his leg.
Darkness crept up his calf like living frost, heavy and suffocating.
He snarled, stabbing his sword into the ground, green fire erupting around him. With a scream that split the night, he poured his will into the flames, burning the curse from his flesh. Skin blistered, muscle seared, the smell of charred blood filling the air, but the corruption was gone.
The flames roared higher.
Viktor launched himself skyward, his body trailing green fire. The giant swung, a fist like a falling mountain, but Viktor weaved aside, carving through its wrist in a blazing arc. Black ichor sprayed like a storm of ink.
He soared above its head, gripping his sword in both hands. The emerald fire stretched, shaping itself into a greatsword of pure, searing soul-flame.
And then he dove.
The monster opened its vast, fanged maw, spewing legions of shadows in a last, desperate surge, but Viktor's fire sliced through them like silk.
He drove the blade into its neck, carving a burning wound down to the bone, severing eyes along the way. The fire erupted outward, crawling across its skull, consuming its countless eyes. The giant shrieked, clawing at itself, staggering as shadows writhed like dying serpents.
But Viktor was faltering.
Blood streamed from his mouth, his strength bleeding out with every beat of his heart. The fire flickered, dimming, threatening to go out. His body trembled, every breath a knife in his lungs.
And yet he raised his sword.
Above, the sky split apart. A single, colossal eye opened in the heavens, staring down with godlike contempt.
Viktor did not look away.
A scream tore from his throat, part agony, part defiance, as his very soul cracked under the strain. His flesh blistered and burned away, until only bone remained, a blackened skeleton wreathed in emerald fire.
The sword blazed like a dying star, so bright it seemed to burn through the fabric of reality itself.
No longer a man, Viktor stood as something else, a revenant forged of fury, bound to one final strike.
With a roar that shook the heavens, he hurled himself forward, roar of fire spreading behind him. The giant swung its colossal hand, but Viktor didn't slow.
He dove straight into its open maw.
The shadows inside writhed and clawed at him, but his flames devoured them. He pressed on, down its throat, carving a burning path toward the monstrous, black heart that thundered within its chest.
Countless shadow-beasts swarmed him, clawing, tearing, trying to drag him down, but nothing could stop his descent. Cracks split across his skull, bone fragments falling away like glass, yet his grip on the sword never wavered.
With a final, soul-rending scream, Viktor drove the blade into the monster's heart.
The sword sank deep. Emerald fire erupted, detonating outward in a storm that consumed flesh, shadow, and spirit alike. The heart split in two, and the giant convulsed violently, its roar shaking the earth and rattling the very heavens.
Above, the great eye in the sky narrowed in fury. Its voice rolled like thunder, shaking the world itself:
"You think this victory is an ending? Foolish mortal… it is but the opening breath. My servant is ash, but my dominion is endless. What you burn today will be reborn tomorrow."
The monster's chest erupted with green fire, searing through every vein until its entire body blazed like a pyre. It collapsed to its knees, its form breaking apart, until the colossal servant of the gods crumbled into ash, cinders scattering like black snow on the wind.
When the smoke finally cleared, Viktor hovered in the air, a burning skeleton, his soul-fire still raging within empty sockets.
"The flame you wield cannot cleanse the void. The void devours flame. The day will come when my legions will rise again, unnumbered, and this fragile world you cling to will drown beneath their shadow."
Slowly, Viktor tilted his skull upward toward the eye in the heavens.
And then, with a hollow, echoing laugh, he raised his bony hand… and gave the god a middle finger.
"Mark this well: you have delayed eternity, not destroyed it. And when I return, I shall not send servants… I shall come myself."
The world fell silent.