The courtyard reeked of blood and dread. Kiasin's sword shook in his hand, ribs splintered from Walderin's cruel blows. Still he stood–though barely–because a commander of wars does not kneel until the world itself forces him.
Walderin, half-demon now, hovered with his black staff, its white stone pulsing with ninth-tier inscriptions. The air crawled with his demonic aura, heavy, suffocating, omnipotent. He smirked, playing, toying, using no more than a fraction of his strength.
"As expected," Walderin drawled, eyes flashing crimson. "The famed Eighth-Ranked Sword Master bleeds like a butchered pig."
Kiasin's lungs burned. He steadied his grip. Brilliant SwordDance flared once more, light streaming into his blade. ShadowSupreme split him into seven, two techniques at the same time. Steel sang–a storm of white figures collapsed upon Walderin.
And Walderin lifted one finger.
Just one.
The storm broke like glass. The seven became one again–crashed, broken, hurled to the stone. Kiasin hit the courtyard with a sickening crack. Blood sprayed across the flagstones. His sword clattered from his grip.
"Kiasin!"
Asaira's cry split the night. She rushed forward, unarmed, unarmored, only a wife, only a mother. She threw herself between Walderin's looming shadow and her broken husband.
Her eyes blazed, her voice shook, but she stood tall. "You will not touch him!"
Walderin's form flickered. In a blink, he was before her. A single backhanded strike–nothing more than contempt–sent her sprawling. Her body slammed into stone with a thud that hollowed the air. Blood spilled from her lips, red threads staining her robes.
Kiasin crawled to her, dragging himself despite broken bones. He caught her as she sagged, her body trembling violently. His hands shook as he cradled her head against his chest.
"Asaira… no, stay with me–stay with me," he begged, voice raw.
Her hand rose weakly, fingertips brushing his cheek. Her eyes were glassy, but they burned with love even as life ebbed away. She whispered, lips trembling: "Protect… child."
And her hand fell. Her chest stilled. The strategist, the mother, the woman who had stood like a wall beside him in every storm–gone.
Kiasin's scream tore the sky. His voice cracked, dragged across stone. He pressed his forehead to hers, tears falling onto her still face. "I failed you… and I failed him… Sixth Brother… I could not keep my word…"
Walderin's mocking laugh cut through the grief. "Weakness runs in your blood, Kia. Even your wife was nothing more than a dying shield. And this child–" he turned, his gaze sliding to Kiaria–"this child is no blessing. He is nothing."
Kiasin's head jerked up, fury and despair mingled. But before he could rise, before his sword could be lifted again–something changed.
Kiaria stirred.
The boy's tiny hands clutched at the blood-stained robe of his mother. His round face scrunched, no longer smiling, no longer soft. His skin flushed red as fury that belonged to no child twisted inside him.
The gentle white sparks that had floated from his scar for months–the healing aura that soothed and concealed–flickered once. Then stopped.
And in its place… darkness.
The scar split open, a thin crack glowing violet at the edges. From it bled a purple miasma, thick and writhing, a darkness alive with hunger. It pulsed outward, swallowing the white motes as though purity itself could not exist in its presence.
The courtyard froze. Soldiers stared, fear carving their faces. Kiasin, holding his wife's lifeless body, could only watch as the child's aura twisted into something monstrous.
The miasma surged.
It lashed out like tendrils, snatching air, stealing heat. It wrapped first around the bodies of the fallen soldiers. Screams erupted as flesh dried in an instant, blood pulled from veins as if by invisible hooks. Faces shriveled, eyes sank, bones cracked audibly as skin tightened. Men fell where they stood, transformed to brittle husks.
Kiasin clenched Asaira's body tighter, feeling the pain tear through his own flesh as the miasma drained him too. His skin burned, dried, cracked. He grit his teeth and forced words past the agony. "Sixth Brother… forgive me. I could not fulfill… your last wish."
Asaira's final look–lifeless, yet still turned toward her son–burned into Kiasin's sight as darkness devoured him.
Then the miasma reached Walderin.
He staggered back, staff raised, inscriptions blazing to life. The demonic aura that cloaked him thickened in desperate defense. But the miasma sank its teeth even into him. His skin blistered, his veins blackened, his breath faltered. For the first time, his arrogance shattered, fear seeping into his eyes.
"This… can't… be…" Walderin gasped, blood spilling from his lips. His staff quivered, runes breaking one by one under the corrosive tide. His form shriveled, flesh withering, bones groaning. A half-demon, once untouchable, now crumbling beneath the wrath of an infant.
His last scream split the courtyard before his voice cracked into silence. His body collapsed into a husk, robes slumping to the stone.
The miasma did not spare him.
It consumed him too.
Only then, when every life had been devoured–parents, soldiers, servants, sorcerer alike–the scar pulsed once more.
And from Kiaria's sea of consciousness, the Earth Core Green Fire burst free.
Jade flames roared across the courtyard, consuming what remained of the miasma's feast. Where bloodless husks and brittle bones had lain, the fire burned until there was nothing but drifting ash.
The courtyard became a furnace of silence.
When it ended, only dust remained. Where warriors had stood, where parents had lived, there was nothing but pale residue floating on the breeze.
The miasma retreated, slithering back into the scar. The green fire dimmed. And Kiaria collapsed, unconscious, chest faintly rising.
No laughter. No mockery. No voices.
The commander, the strategist, the loyal soldiers, the servants, even the traitor-brother–erased in a single breath.
Only the child remained.
The silence afterward pressed like a held breath.