As the earth trembled with the echo of Xhu, the dark sky cracked apart, screaming as if torn from the inside. Pegwalsge spat blood onto the ground. For a moment, he wasn’t merely a creature who had seen death but the very embodiment of disbelief and chaos.
Creasya gripped his spear once more. His breathing was uneven, his eyes bloodshot, yet his will remained unbroken. What burned within him was not only loyalty it was a fury that surpassed the self. The silence of the gods, the screams of his comrades, and the rotting truth within Pegwalsge they had all descended upon him at once.
Pegwalsge dragged the tip of his blade across the soil. The black flame still coiled around the steel, whispering death with every step.
The two warriors clashed again this time in a rhythm more savage, more primal. Pegwalsge staggered backward from a crushing kick to his leg, bone crunching beneath the impact, but he did not stop. Even when Creasya's spear grazed his abdomen, pain could not slow him. It was as if hatred itself sustained him, raw and animalistic.
In the distance, the panorama of war screamed into the night. Panega’s axes had carved a deep gash across Savael’s face, yet his daggers had inflicted grievous wounds in return. Laera was channeling the light from her eyes to blind Karra’s mind, but the price was high so much of her Xhu burned with every beam that it began to consume her from within. Enlurr’s breath was shallow, but Vorun’s blood was warm against his chest, a cruel form of absolution. He had mortally wounded Vorun, yet before the final blow could fall, Narth had reached them.
At the center of it all only a few steps between them Creasya and Pegwalsge stood on a patch of ground that felt like a world unto itself.
Pegwalsge struck again. His blade skimmed Creasya’s face, drawing blood. Creasya was forced back. That single lapse was enough. The black flame now engulfed the entire sword.
“You lived like a dog,” Pegwalsge snarled, “and you’ll die like one.”
He raised his sword overhead. Creasya was on his knees, one hand pressed against the ground to steady himself. His vision blurred.
But the sword never fell.
Yuhen rose, spending the last of his Xhu, and drove his ice blade into Pegwalsge’s back. The man’s eyes widened with a jolt of agony, and his sword slipped from his grasp as he fell to his knees. Yuhen was barely standing yet another ice dagger began to form in his hand.
“Die, you bastard,” he growled.
Pegwalsge knelt in silence. His eyes stared at the earth. Then, a black flame ignited in his left hand. He placed his palm on the ground. As it touched the soil, he whispered not a word, but a curse:
"Nhoria Rakaries Kraxhil."
The ground cracked open not with fire, but with a shadow blacker than the blood that had spilled from the sky. Pegwalsge had invoked his Senkai Zenxhu.
All sound vanished. The clash of swords, the screams of dying soldiers they all fell silent. A spiritual weight descended upon the battlefield. The sky woven with Xhu didn’t shatter it recoiled inward, as if the universe itself held its breath.
Then… the cracks widened.
From beneath Pegwalsge’s palm, darkness pulsed like veins of tar, spreading outward. But this was no ordinary shadow it moved with intent, with consciousness. It slithered around soldiers’ feet, cold and adhesive, and undeniably cursed.
The spreading gloom blinded all eyes. No one could look directly at where Pegwalsge knelt. This wasn’t energy. This was will. A primeval malice that belonged not to man, but to demon.
From within the heart of that darkness, a form began to rise.
At first it was merely shadow. Then... a body emerged. Scales black as night, eyes glowing with an ashen light death incarnate. A beast from the depths of Hell itself: Kraxhil, the Shadow Dragon.
Its arrival wasn’t an event it was a prophecy unraveling. When its wings unfurled, half the sky vanished. Every beat of its wings shook the land, made Xhus tremble, pulled minds taut.
Panega dropped his axe. Laera froze in place. Enlurr forgot how to breathe. The battlefield halted. All eyes fixed on Kraxhil.
The dragon turned its gaze to Pegwalsge. A bond pulsed between them ancient, accursed, and absolute. Pegwalsge, still bleeding, stared into the dragon’s eyes.
The beast answered with a roar that shattered not only eardrums, but bones and breath. It surged upward like a black pillar from the depths. Its gaze swept the battlefield.
For a moment Creasya had forgotten his comrades. His eyes clung to the abomination in the sky.
“This… this is something else,” he muttered. “Not a beast. A forgotten invocation.”
Yuhen struggled to swallow. His fingers, encased in ice, trembled violently.
Kraxhil opened its mouth. Within it swirled a spiral of darkness. Not flame but a devouring void. Like Pegwalsge’s own black fire... but more final.
Pegwalsge rose. Still bleeding, but somehow... more alive. He raised his hand to Kraxhil.
The dragon’s first wave of shadow split the battlefield in half but it did not stop.
At Pegwalsge’s command, Kraxhil soared into the sky. Its massive form cast a second darkness over the land. Then it unleashed another wave this time aimed at Yuhen and Creasya.
The black fire ripped through the sky like a jagged blade. Even the air recoiled. All things were melting into shadow.
Creasya and Yuhen didn’t run. They couldn’t. The flame moved faster than anything alive.
Then from across the battlefield Laera gripped her staff in both hands. She poured every last drop of her Xhu into its tip. It shone like a star born within the abyss. Her lips moved not with a spell, but a prayer. A sacrifice.
A white beam erupted from her staff like lightning splitting the heavens, colliding with Kraxhil’s black flame. The impact detonated the earth. Soil exploded upward, soldiers were flung, the wind carved into lungs like blades.
Yuhen and Creasya watched as the flame parted. The white light, for a moment, had held back the abyss.
Laera, clutching her fading staff, didn’t see the shadow behind her.
Karra rose. Still half-blind, but thirsting for blood. He lifted a spiked mace, and as Laera turned
He struck.
The mace crashed into her skull. Flesh and bone shattered. Blood fountained.
The final light from Laera’s eyes drifted upward like a dying star.
Her staff fell. It flashed one last time then went dark.
Darkness had not only spoken it now reigned.
Panega froze, she stared at Laera’s body. Her crushed skull. Her mind screamed against it, but the truth seared itself into her. A scream caught in her throat neither spoken nor swallowed. Her knees buckled. Her axes slipped from his hands.
“No…” she whispered. “No. No, no!”
She ran.
Enlurr, too, had broken. He had seen many die. Lost many friends but Laera’s death tore something out of him. His eyes filled not with tears but with raw terror. He forgot the enemy that lies behind him and forgot the war. Time itself had stopped.
Creasya felt something shatter inside. Guilt overtook him. If Laera hadn’t intervened they’d be dead, yes but she wouldn’t be.
To him, her light had never been just magic. It had been belief.
And now, that light was gone.
Only darkness remained.
Panega dropped to her knees beside her sister. Her hand touched her blood-matted hair, gently, almost lovingly. She wept.
“Don’t leave me…”
She couldn’t rise. She collapsed over her, broken.
Then four more figures stepped onto the battlefield: Mallroth, Doera, Erlrun, and Sindra.
Pegwalsge saw them. A twisted satisfaction crept across his bloodied face. He straightened his back and reclaimed his sword.
“Right on time,” he said, surveying the shattered balance of the battle. He turned to Mallroth.
“What now?” Mallroth asked, voice flat.
Pegwalsge pointed at Yuhen and Creasya.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkijjqiByZr
“We take them to Haxar. Kill the rest.”
The order cut the air like a blade.
Mallroth nodded. The others didn’t speak. They moved.
Doera stepped behind Panega still collapsed over Laera’s corpse. She didn’t speak. Didn’t show mercy. She didn’t even draw a blade. Instead, she lifted one of the great axes lying on the ground and drove it into her back. Bone cracked. Blood sprayed. Panega collapsed without a scream. Even in death, her hands still held her sister’s hair.
Enlurr screamed. He rose with fury but Erlrun was faster. His daggers struck Enlurr’s eyes. As the warrior howled, Erlrun twisted the blades free and buried one in his throat. He killed him brutally.
Narth, one by one, awakened Palir, Shuan, Sennre, Guroa, and Eliar each of them bloodied and unconscious and butchered them before Yuhen's eyes with merciless brutality.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0ItbC4OFgt
Creasya tried to move but his legs had no strength. He could only watch, as one by one, his comrades were destroyed. He wept. Not out of grief but because he felt he no longer deserved to live.
Yuhen placed a trembling hand on his shoulder while crying. He tried to comfort him but he is no different than him.
Pegwalsge raised a hand.6Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGjvIaRhPwB
“Chain them.”
Then, Pegwalsge climbed onto Kraxhil with his crew behind them Mallroth, Doera, Erlrun and Sindra following with Yuhen and Creasya
They departed toward Haxar.
The sun no longer rose.
Only the rain fell.
And as the sky wept upon Pegwalsge’s wounded skin, he smiled for the grief of the heavens had become his pleasure.
ns18.116.80.77da2
