Every hard-won instinct Daine possessed screamed at her to rise, to charge headlong into the slaughter.

  But this was no ordinary scene of violence. The air itself felt wrong, thick with an unnatural malevolence that tainted everything it touched. The bones, the blood, the twisted remnants of life—there was something fundamentally corrupted about what lay before her.

  This wasn’t just death; it was a perversion of life itself, a stain that had spread like a poison through the land. Whatever dark force had seeped into the Bloodspires needed to be excised, cut away from the world like a festering wound.

  And now.

  Poising before beginning her attack, she felt Donal shift at her shoulder and turned to look at him. The man's bearded face was white, his eyes haunted, but there was something else there, too. A deep, anxious concern that was almost alien to his usual confident persona.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Whilst a lot of fun for cross-mountain treks, this Class doesn’t give me anything like the Skills I’d need to be remotely helpful here. I’m not going to be much use against so many of them."

  "Then I’ll take them on my own. It’ll hardly be the first time."

  As she moved to rise, however, Donal’s grip on her arm shot out like iron, unexpectedly firm. For a moment, she thought she could shrug him off—but his fingers tightened, sending a spike of pain shooting up her arm.

  "Donal," she warned. "Let go."

  For a heartbeat, the world seemed to stand still. The usual easy camaraderie between them hung in the air. Donal didn’t flinch, though, his gaze steady but filled with something unreadable. “You do not want to do this alone.”

  "You are right; I do not. However," she gesticulated towards the prisoners, "I cannot leave them in that state for a moment longer. An end needs to be brought to this."

  Daine again tried to stand, but this time, Donal pulled her back to the ground. Her eyebrows shot upwards. The Frontiersman may not possess the Skills to assist her in melee combat, but he was undoubtedly Goddess-damned strong.

  "Listen to me, will you!" Donal hissed. In the same breath, she felt the subtle shift of magic, a Skill flickering to life, pulling them deeper into the shadows. The air around them thickened, the world around them dimming as if the darkness itself was closing in, swallowing them whole.

  "I’m not saying we leave these people to their fate," he continued, his grip still firm. "I just need you to appreciate that resolving this situation is going to take a little more subtlety than your usual ‘wade on in with a broadsword and let the Goddess choose her own’ approach."

  Daine bristled at the comment. For sure, her usual instinct was to charge in, weapons drawn, a simple solution for a complicated world. But for once, Donal may well be right in giving a reminder that not every battle could be fought with strength alone.

  Daine ground her teeth in frustration but stopped attempting to free herself from Donal's grip. "So speak!"

  He held up three fingers. "Consider the following." His voice was calm, measured—each word deliberate. "Firstly, there is no sign that the group below us is awaiting the return of several hundred warriors. This is not the same group of mountain men whose attack we recently repulsed."

  Daine opened her mouth to argue, but Donal’s glare silenced her before she could speak. "Less talk, more listen."

  She bit he tongue.

  "If that is so," he continued, raising a second finger, "we can reasonably assume there are more travesties like what is unfolding below playing out across the Bloodspires."

  Daine looked down at the path ahead, her thoughts turning with quiet urgency. The idea that the depravity here was not an isolated horror shocked her, but she could follow Donal's reasoning. There would not be room for those they had defeated back at their own camp amongst these tents and shelters. This was a separate group.

  "And three?" she asked.

  "We’ve been attacked by one feral war party. This is a second," Donal said. "It hardly takes an intellect of my extraordinary ability to predict there will be more. In fact, it seems almost inevitable. And at this point, I can't shake the feeling that something is rotten at the very heart of the Bloodspires. We're not just dealing with a few rogue bands, Daine." His gaze darkened. "I fear we've traded the slaughter at Swinford's gates for something even less palatable."

  Before Daine could reply, a hooting shrieking from below grabbed her attention, and they both crawled forward to investigate the cause of the commotion.

  Careful, the Goddess whispered, causing Daine to grip the handle of her sword even more tightly.

  Undoubtedly, something had shifted in the air below. But it wasn’t until Donal pointed it out—his hand raised, directing her gaze—that she finally saw it. At the edge of the camp, a portal had begun to manifest, its presence slicing through the surrounding darkness.

  Daine squinted to focus on the swirling oval shape. It was taller than a man, its surface slick and jet-black, as though it had been smeared with the very oil of the void itself. This was no ordinary gateway; it was nothing like the travel portals she had seen Eliud conjour before.

  As she stared at it, the sensation of wrongness deepened, coiling in her gut. It reminded her less of a passage and more of a wound—an open gash in the fabric of reality, oozing something dark.

  “What is it?"

  Donal shook his head. "I do not know. But I will happily tell you this for nothing. We do not want any part of what may come through there."

  Almost as soon as Donal spoke, the campfire’s flicker dimmed, casting long shadows that stretched nightmarishly across the ground.

  Then, from the heart of the rippling blackness, a tall figure emerged, its presence sending an unnatural chill through the air. The mountain men, their eyes wild with savage hunger, fell into an uneasy silence, their gaze drawn inexorably toward the being that stepped from the depths.

  It was cloaked in a hooded robe, the fabric so dark it seemed to consume the light around it, leaving the figure as little more than a shifting void, a presence in which all detail was swallowed. The air itself seemed to bend in its wake, rippling with an unsettling quiet that pressed against Daine’s chest like a weight she couldn’t shake.

  Daine’s heart pounded with a fear so primal she couldn’t rationalise it. It was not terror born of any mortal threat, but something far older—something that stirred deep within her, untouched by reason.

  The Goddess, as if sensing this, reached out, her presence settling like a comforting hand on Daine’s shoulder. Had she ever offered such a gesture before?

  The thought flickered through her mind, but it was swept away by the overwhelming sense that now was not the time for such questions.

  There was something profoundly wrong about this being, a sense of fundamental discord that clawed at Daine’s mind. It wasn’t just fear; it was an unshakable certainty that this presence was not meant to exist in the world she knew.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Her skin crawled, and a cold, sour knot twisted in her stomach, threatening to rise. She reached out instinctively, her fingers tightening around Donal’s arm, her knuckles whitening with a grip that betrayed her unease.

  As the dark figure stepped forward, its robe—if such a thing could still be called fabric—did not move in the way cloth should. Instead, it shimmered and rippled as though made of some living, oily substance. The air around it bent and distorted, light scattering in unnatural patterns, shadows stretching and recoiling from its touch.

  The fire closest to it flickered violently, the flames hissing and shrinking back as though trying to escape the presence’s grasp. It was as if the very nature of fire, of warmth and light, could not bear to be near this thing.

  Daine felt the world tilt, the ground beneath her feet unsteady, and she knew—somewhere deep within her—that they were on the precipice of something far darker than any of them could have imagined.

  In the presence of this dark figure, the mountain men, once wild and feral in their savagery, now seemed to shrink into themselves, their former ferocity melting away. They dropped their weapons as if at some unseen command, their bodies bending low, crouching before the being in complete submission.

  It was as if the very sight of it had drained the violence from their bones, leaving them stripped of their primal hunger, reduced to mere children awaiting the wrath of a brutal teacher.

  Their heads hung, eyes cast downward in silent reverence or fear, as though the figure before them commanded not just respect, but a deeper, more primal obedience.

  The air around them was thick with a strange, suffocating stillness, and for the first time, Daine saw them not as marauders, but as broken creatures—subjugated and small before something far older and far more dangerous than anything she had ever faced.

  Eventually, their leader, a hulking man with a necklace of teeth, approached the hooded being, its head lowered in submission.

  After a long, silence, an arm slowly unfurled from the depths of the cloak as though it was emerging from some forgotten abyss. The hand that appeared was anything but human—skeletal, its bones angular, the skin stretched taut and thin like parchment, almost translucent.

  Beneath the delicate membrane, black veins pulsed and writhed as if alive with some dark, forbidden current. The fingers ended not in nails, but in curved talons.

  The sight of it sent a chill through Daine's marrow, her response to that hand being both horrified and yet mesmerised.

  It reached forward, its movements slow, almost contemplative, as if the figure were savouring the effect it was having on them all. The claws reached forward to touch the mountain man's forehead lightly, convulsing him, a low moan escaping his lips.

  Instantly, the talon’s touch sank deep into the mountain man's flesh, and where it met him, the skin began to blister and bubble as though it were melting from the inside out. It split wide, revealing raw, throbbing muscle beneath, slick and glistening. The man’s body shuddered in violent spasms, his muscles seizing as if every fibre of his being was being consumed by an unseen fire.

  A writhing mark crawled across his skin, a searing brand spreading like ink in water. The mountain man’s face collapsed into a nightmare of molten flesh and exposed bone, the features warping as though caught in the throes of a brutal, unrelenting transformation. His eyes lay empty – hollow pits of despair – the light drained from them as if all hope had been scourged away.

  The air buckled around the pair, as if the wind itself recoiled from the unspeakable wrongness of the touch, leaving only the man’s screams—twisted and broken—as the last testament to his suffering.

  This should not be, the Goddess whispered. What has my son done?

  Daine could feel the bile rising in her throat, barely able to acknowledge her worry at her patron's evidence concern.

  Donal stirred. "I have seen such as this before. Believe me when I say things are going to get worse before they get much better.”

  "What is it?" Daine asked

  "Skuggaseier," both Donal and the Goddess said at the same time.

  With a reptilian swiftness, the figure flowed forward, passing through the ranks of submissive mountain men. It approached a smaller, more fragile figure. One of the prisoners, Daine, realised and tried to make herself stand. To charge. To save them from the fate she knew was coming. But something - was it fear? - prevented her.

  As she watched, the unfortunate soul whimpered as the Skuggaseier loomed over him, its form towering and oppressive. With a slow, deliberate motion, the hand extended from the cloak again, the air around it shimmering as if with heat. Clawed fingers were placed on the prisoner’s chest, and the man’s scream tore through the night.

  The flesh beneath the Skuggaseier's hand began to twist and contort as though the bones were breaking and reassembling themselves in grotesque patterns. The prisoner’s skin turned a mottled black, spreading outwards in a spiderweb of rot. His eyes bulged, blood vessels bursting, filling the whites with a hideous crimson. Daine could hear the wet, tearing sounds as muscles were shredded and reformed.

  The mountain men watched in silence as the Skuggaseier finally released the prisoner, who collapsed in a heap, his deformed body twitching, his mind shattered by the agony inflicted upon him.

  Then the hood turned slightly, and for a moment, Daine felt its gaze sweep over her hiding place. Though its face remained hidden within the cowl, she could sense void-like eyes penetrating the darkness, reaching for her. Her heart felt like it might stop from the sheer force of its regard, an ancient, unfathomable evil that saw her, understood her, and found her wanting.

  No, the Goddess said firmly. Mine.

  The moment passed as suddenly as it had begun. The Skuggaseier turned away, its attention returning to the mountain men who awaited its next command. It lifted both arms, the motion causing its cloak to billow unnaturally, like wings of darkness. The air around it cracked, and the ground beneath shuddered in protest.

  Daine and Donal, trembling and nearly paralysed, watched as the Skuggaseier began to chant in a guttural language. The sky seemed to pulse with each syllable, the camp bathed in an eerie, shifting light.

  As the chanting reached a fever pitch, the shadows around the camp deepened, swallowing the light entirely. Daine felt a scream rise in her throat, but no sound escaped. The terror was complete, an all-encompassing absence that left no room for thought or action. The Skuggaseier presence was a black hole, drawing in all light, all hope, all life. Daine pressed her eyes together, willing the horror to subside.

  And then, as soon as it had begun, it was over.

  Daine opened her eyes, shocked to see the camp standing in an eerie, unnatural silence. The air still felt heavy with whatever dark power had been unleashed by the Skuggaseier, but there was no sign of either the hooded figure or the mountain warband.

  Only the body of the tortured, transformed prisoner remained. His body twitched and convulsed, his eyes empty sockets oozing out some black substance.

  Donal stood, eyes widened with sudden realisation. "My Lady Darkhelm, that is not just a prisoner anymore. It is a vessel for the Skuggaseier. We cannot let it leave this place. We must not let this spread further!"

  Before Daine could fully process the Frontiersman's words, Donal charged forward, drawing his short sword as he ran. As if sensing the impending threat, the creature let out a guttural, inhuman scream that echoed through the clearing. It rose to its feet, its movements jerky and unnatural, like a marionette controlled by unseen strings.

  "Donal, wait!" Daine shouted, her mind racing to catch up with the unfolding danger. But Donal was already upon the creature, his blade swinging in a wide arc aimed at its neck. But the former prisoner moved with a speed that belied its grotesque form, dodging the blow and lashing out with a clawed hand that caught Donal across the chest, leaving deep, bloody gashes.

  Donal staggered back, gritting his teeth against the pain. Activating a Skill to increase his Speed, he swung again, this time catching the monster in the side. The blade bit deep, but instead of blood, a thick, dark fluid poured from the wound, hissing and steaming as it hit the ground, some of it splattering Donal and causing him to shrink back in pain.

  Help him, the Goddess intoned.

  Daine, finally shaken from her paralysis, drew her weapon and rushed forward. She did not know how, but she could see the dark energy coursing through the monster's spirit, its movements fuelled by the power left behind by the Skuggaseier. She had never been able to see mana in this way before, but perhaps this was a new function of her Templar Ascendant Class?

  When she was only a few steps away, the creature lashed out at Donal again, but this time, he was ready, blocking the blow with his sword and countering with a swift strike that severed one of its arms.

  It let out another horrifying scream, its remaining hand clawing at the air in a frenzy. Daine closed the distance, her heart pounding in her chest. She could feel the oppressive weight of the mana radiating from the creature, a palpable force that threatened to overwhelm her.

  As she reached Donal's side, the creature turned its empty gaze upon her, its twisted mouth opening in a ghastly grin. Its body seemed to glow brighter, and Daine felt a wave of nausea wash over her as the air around them seemed to shimmer and warp.

  "Daine, we have to end this now!" Donal shouted, his voice strained with effort and pain. He lunged forward, his blade aiming for the creature's heart, but it swatted him aside, sending him sprawling to the ground.

  Daine tightened her grip on her weapon, her eyes locked on the monstrosity before her. She could feel the raw fear coursing through her veins, but she pushed it down, drawing on every ounce of courage she possessed. With a primal scream, she charged at the creature, her blade aimed at the pulsing, dark heart.

  The creature's grin widened, jaw dislocating, its body tensing as it prepared to meet her attack head-on. Just as her blade was about to connect, the creature's eyes flared with a sudden, terrifying light, and the ground beneath them began to tremble. Daine could feel the power surging within it, a last, desperate attempt to unleash its fury. She gritted her teeth, readying herself for the impact.

  And then . . .

  Nothing.

  here.