Dice stood frozen, terror coursing through his veins as his legs refused to obey. The shadows peeled away from the wall, and something—no, someone—took their place. A man materialized before him, clad in pitch-black armor that seemed to absorb light itself. Dark waves of hair framed a face dominated by shadowy eyes and a wide, unsettling smile.
Sin stepped forward with deliberate slowness, savoring each moment. He lifted his hand and conjured his Shadow blade from the darkness itself. The weapon gleamed with an otherworldly sheen as he twirled it between his fingers, his smile widening at the fear blazing in Dice's eyes.
Dice couldn't afford fear. He wrenched himself from his frozen state, summoning every ounce of demon energy he possessed. Power surged into his fists, crackling with raw force.
"Demonic Strike!" he yelled, launching his fist forward at the Shadow Demon.
His punch connected—or seemed to. Sin's body dissipated into wisps of shadow, and suddenly the demon stood right behind him. A clone. Before Dice could react, Sin shoved the Shadow blade toward his throat. Dice jumped back instinctively, grasping the blade, but the weapon dissolved into shadows the moment his fingers touched it.
Then came the laughter—multiple voices, all identical, all mocking. Dice's heart sank. Four clones and one real Sin encircled him, blocking every escape route. They all wore that same unnerving smile, their eyes gleaming with malicious delight.
Desperation sparked an idea. Dice activated Demon Stare, feeling his eyes bulge with strain until they threatened to burst from their sockets. As one Shadow demon rushed toward him, he locked his gaze onto it. The clone froze for precious seconds—just enough time. Dice surged forward and kicked the immobilized demon into the wall, where it exploded into shadows. Another clone.
The remaining three attacked in unison, firing volleys of Shadow bullets while opening dark portals to disorient him. Then came the hands—menacing appendages formed of purple and dark shadow auras that erupted from the floor.
The shadowy hands clamped around Dice's legs with crushing force. He couldn't move—couldn't even twitch. The grip extended up his entire body, paralyzing him completely. He looked up in horror as the clones vanished, leaving only the real Sin standing before him. The demon's black armor reflected no light, and those shadowy eyes promised pure nightmare. Sin stood there, smiling, clearly savoring every second of Dice's helplessness.
Shadow chains materialized around his arms, bolting them to the floor with supernatural strength. He was completely at Sin's mercy now.
The Shadow Demon reached down and grabbed him by the throat, choking him. Shadows spread from Sin's fingers like living things, seeping into Dice's skin. The sensation was cold, invasive, wrong.
Suddenly, someone burst through his door.
"Get off my brother!" Kylie yelled, her voice fierce with protective fury.
She thrust her hand forward, launching a dark orb that struck Sin squarely. The sphere expanded, surrounding the demon's entire body and rendering him immobile. Sin struggled against the containment, cycling through multiple Shadow abilities in an attempt to break free. He even tried to teleport, but the orb held firm.
Trapped but undefeated, Sin simply smiled—that same wide, uncanny stare. His laugh echoed through the room, a staticky, deep voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
Kylie didn't waste time. She grabbed Dice and pulled him to his feet, and together they ran from the room. They sprinted down the demon hall, Dice's legs barely keeping pace as adrenaline pushed him forward. Finally, they reached the medical facility.
Kylie placed Dice gently on a bed, and doctors immediately swarmed around him, examining every inch. After several tense minutes, they delivered their verdict: nothing appeared wrong with him.
But there was one thing. Where Sin had touched his neck, Dice's cells were changing. Slowly, inexorably, they were turning into shadow. The doctors admitted they had never seen anything like this—an infection, though not yet severe. Later they discovered these shadow cells could not be cured, and if they multiplied, there would be a problem. The immune system wasn't helping. Dice's body would fail unless they could surgically remove all the corrupted cells, but they lacked the technology to do that. They didn't possess the skills to extract individual cells from someone's body, especially corrupted Shadow ones.
One doctor even had the audacity to suggest that if the cells touched them or their equipment, both would turn to shadow—spreading the infection further. That made them even more skeptical of attempting removal. Dice was a sitting duck, condemned to die.
Meanwhile, Shadow Demon Sin had broken out from Kylie's orb, quickly sinking into the shadows. He was never seen. Kylie didn't see him. Dice, bedridden, didn't see him. In fact, no one knew he'd even broken out.
Back in the mindscape, someone appeared. Sin rematerialized, though it took him several hours. All the memories rushed into his head—what happened while his body was being controlled. This was the first time memories actually came back. He remembered everything: the fight between his body and Dice, Kylie trapping him, him breaking out and going into shadows, his clones, his body holding Dice by the throat.
"No, no. I have to take control of my body right now," he said. "I can't let it hurt anyone else."
He tried to take control, but how could he? He was trapped in a black, featureless void that stretched out for infinity—at least he thought it did. This was his mindscape, which contained nothing. He couldn't even find a way to get back into his own body unless someone knocked out the Shadow Demon that had taken control. Then he'd probably be able to regain access, but until then, he was nothing but a sitting duck in his own body, only able to look helplessly into the void. He didn't even know what his body was doing at this very moment besides traveling through shadows. A few minutes later, his body could be killing someone, and he wouldn't even know. He couldn't do anything to see what his body was doing besides knocking himself out and getting the memories back again, but doing that repeatedly would be very tedious.
Sin honestly didn't know what to do at this point.
A system message came into his mind. "You have created a Shadow Bond," the message said. He knew that blood messages had a red background with white text, and shadow messages had a black background with white text. Since the shadow messages were popping up, he knew exactly what this was, but then he paused. A Shadow Bond? What in the world did that mean? Had the thing infected someone or something?
"No, no, no," he whispered.
Sin was really panicking now. If this thing continued wreaking havoc, things wouldn't look good. Maybe he'd be executed. Maybe he'd die by someone being heroic. If he died, would he be trapped in his mindscape forever? Being trapped here was basically death itself—at least he thought so. But what was the worth of being thought when he was trapped inside his own mind in this featureless void, stretching out for eternity, doing nothing, utterly nothing?
The father of the demon family sat in his room, relaxing. Today he had nothing to do—no paperwork because he'd signed everything, nothing else for him to do but watch over the demon family. That's exactly what he did when he saw shadows rise from the ground. The shadow pool stretched and widened, and something emerged from it: the Shadow Demon Sin, clad in black armor with dark purple and black shadowy eyes and a wide, uncanny smile.
The Shadow Demon version of Sin looked at the father of the demon family. Knox looked at the demon and stood up from his chair.
"You know why they call me the father of the demon family?" Knox said. "Because not only am I the oldest, but I am also the most powerful member."
He conjured demon energy in less than a millisecond toward his fingertips.
"Do you know why I'm the strongest?" he said, stepping closer to the shadowy demon. "Because I am above everyone else. I am stronger than everyone else. I've always had high potential and high resources to come with that potential. You see—"
The demon Sin quickly created a clone in its place, teleporting behind Knox. Knox, not knowing that was a clone, simply fell for it. The demon Sin quickly created multiple gigantic Shadow hands and positioned them on both sides of Knox's head, planning to crush his skull. But Knox quickly turned around and shot off a gigantic demon claw at the Shadow Demon. The claw hit, cutting through shadows and a little bit of flesh. The Shadow Demon just laughed at its own pain and moved forward, lifting its head and creating multiple Shadow bullets, thrusting them all at the same time toward Knox.
Knox, using his demon energy, created all ten demon claws around his fingers. He shot them all off, destroying all the Shadow bullets. He moved his legs, kicking at the Shadow Demon. As soon as he did, a demon beam came out from his leg. The Shadow Demon dodged it, leaping up and grabbing the beam, possessing it with his bare hands. He condensed it toward Knox and fired it, adding a little bit of Shadow to make it more powerful and lethal.
Knox dodged his own attack and used Demon Stare to hold the Shadow Demon in position for at least two minutes—how long he could use the ability. He could use Demon Stare for five minutes on a normal target and three minutes on a strong target, but with this one, he could only manage two and a half minutes.
While the Shadow Demon was immobilized, the wide, uncanny smile still plastered on its face, Knox jumped forward, bashing Sin's body over and over again for two minutes. Before the demon could finally move, it quickly punched Knox in the stomach. Knox grabbed his stomach in pain, and the demon created a shadow fist, punching Knox in the face with enough strength and power to knock him out.
The shadowy demon walked up to Knox, grabbing his ears. He ripped them off. Grabbing his eyes, he ripped those off also—same with the nose and the tongue and his hands and his legs, leaving Knox fully without senses, fully destroying him and ending the battle for good.
"The reason I chose to become the father of the demon family was because—"
The Shadow Demon ran forward, not caring about the old man's backstory. It conjured up a Shadow blade and thrust it toward Knox, but Knox grabbed it and broke it in half.
"There's a reason why they call me the strongest, you know," Knox said.
The demon just laughed. "Come here," it said, grabbing Knox's leg and touching it.
But Knox easily leaped back. Not giving him a second, Knox kicked Sin far off into the far wall. Before he hit—
The wall exploded outward in a shower of debris. Sin's body hung suspended in mid-air for a heartbeat, then dropped into darkness. Knox stepped forward, breathing hard, peering into the gaping hole where the wall had been.
Silence.
Then, from the shadows below, that staticky laugh echoed up—multiplied, distorted, coming from everywhere at once.
Knox's eyes widened as he realized: Sin wasn't alone anymore.
A dozen pairs of glowing purple eyes opened in the darkness beneath him, and the laughter grew louder, hungrier.