Sasha opened her eyes, dazed. She saw the concern in Shadow’s face and whispered, “You came back…”
Shadow nodded, tension in his jaw. “You shouldn’t have fought that thing alone.”
“I didn’t know if you’d return in time.”
The memory shattered like glass.
Shadow’s eyes went wide in horror as Adi and Hugo’s blades slashed through Sasha, their weapons laced with divine venom. Her light began to fade, her energy unraveling with every passing second.
“No—!”
Before Shadow could react, the twins moved again—fluid and merciless. They drove their next strike straight toward him, and the force of the impact launched him across the battlefield, sending him crashing through stone and sky, buried beneath the earth itself.
As the dust settled, Varn stepped between Sasha’s fallen form and the twins. His expression was colder than usual, his eyes narrowed.
A slash of pure starlight erupted from his palm, slicing through the space between him and the twins, radiant and beautiful.
Adi smirked, circling him. “So... you've chosen your side.”
Hugo’s voice echoed, darker. “You stand with Shadow. Pity. That means we have to kill you, too.”
Varn held his blade steady, starlight glowing across his arms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He took a step back, angling himself between the wounded Sasha and the twins.
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“But right now, I’m not interested in your riddles or your past. My job is to keep them alive.”
Far away, buried beneath rubble, Shadow stirred.
He coughed, blood in his mouth, dust in his lungs. And then... a memory surged.
Sasha, smiling, beneath a moonlit sky.
“If anything happens to me,” she whispered, “you’ll find me, right?”
“Always,” Shadow had replied. “Even if the stars forget us—I won’t.”
The memory ignited something deeper.
His body burned. His heartbeat quickened. His divine blood responded.
And something ancient awoke.
With a deafening roar, Shadow rose from the rubble, his form shifting violently.
Fur erupted across his limbs. Claws lengthened. His eyes glowed like molten gold. His body expanded, reshaped—a monstrous, godly werewolf form, carved with divine runes..
He launched forward, reappearing in front of Adi and Hugo in an instant.
“You’ll pay for what you did to her.”
With no warning, he struck.
A crushing blow to Adi’s ribs, cracking divine bone.
A sweeping claw tore through Hugo’s shoulder, sending him flying.
“Death Touch.”
A wave of withering energy spread from Shadow’s palm, sapping their strength, fracturing their divine cores.
“Death Claw.”
Black flames ignited across his arms as he unleashed a storm of slashes, each one faster, heavier, more precise than the last. It was not a fight—it was a reckoning.
The twins, bleeding, stunned, barely managed to mount a defense. But Shadow gave them no chance.
A thousand cuts. A thousand cries. Rage turned to precision. Pain into fury.
Adi collapsed. Hugo staggered. Their divine forms were cracked and flickering.
“He wasn’t supposed to have unlocked this yet!” Adi gasped.
“We underestimated him...” Hugo growled.
Their powers—halved.
Their pride—shattered.
Knowing one more blow could mean death, the twins retreated in panic. Adi tore a dimensional gate open, and the two of them vanished into it, bleeding light.
But Shadow didn’t intend to let them escape so easily.
He sniffed the air once, low and sharp, tracking their divine scent.
“You don’t get to run.”
With one swift motion, he sliced open the veil of space, stepping into the rift they had just fled through.
In the distance, the twins stumbled into a broken sanctuary to hide, wounded and barely breathing.
And from the darkness beyond the veil, they heard the voice.
Cold. Clear. Inevitable.
“Got you.”
To be continued...