The silence in the war room stretched like a blade.
Bren stood stiffly, shoulders squared, hands clenched so tightly his nails pierced skin. Blood beaded in his palms, unnoticed. He could still hear it... the final, broken message from the comms.
"This is Squad Seven… we need reinforcements, the sector is…"
Static. Screaming. Then
Nothing.
Just like that, silence.
"They're dying out there. And I'm in here. Doing nothing."
He stared straight ahead, but the walls were gone. His mind was elsewhere. Burning streets, torn bodies, that captain's voice cracking mid-sentence. The hum of mana lamps, the shuffle of boots, the barked orders, they all faded beneath the roaring in his skull.
Useless. Weak. Caged.
Then it came.
That voice.
Velvet. Venomous. And always waiting.
"They leave you behind like broken weaponry… so why not show them how sharp you really are?"
A shudder ran down his spine. A pulse throbbed behind his eyes, dark and hungry.
[WARNING: RESONANCE LEVEL INCREASING]
[Nythor's Influence: 52%]
[Mental Barrier: CRITICAL]
"Bren?" Myla's voice was gentle, but her steps were hesitant. "You okay?"
He didn't answer. Couldn't.
His eyes were locked on the far wall, but he wasn't seeing it anymore.
He saw fire.
He saw ash.
He saw Silas turning his back. Cold. Final. The world burning while he watched from behind glass.
"You were made for more than this. Forged in shadow. Shaped by wrath. And now…"
The air warped. The walls bent inward, heat and pressure folding around him.
"...It is time to claim what was buried."
A shriek split the room like a thunderclap. The windows cracked. Mana lights flickered. Bren doubled over, clutching his skull. Darkness poured from his back, thick as smoke, writhing like it had a mind of its own.
"Myla, get back!" Kovan snapped.
"No, he needs—" She lunged toward him, desperation etched in her face.
A golden-violet shimmer flared as her hand brushed his wrist.
The soul-thread.
It burst into sight.
Frayed. Taut. Vibrating like a blade on the edge of snapping.
"Let go," Nythor whispered.
Behind Bren, his form began to shimmer. Horns wide, wings folded like black velvet drapes, eyes twin wells of void. Only visible in the cracks of reality.
Bren's arms rose, not his doing. Clawed veins spread, black and pulsing, up to his shoulders. A ring of shadow peeled open behind his head.
A crown of madness.
Myla gasped as the soul-thread snapped taut, trembling on the brink.
"No… You're stronger than this! Fight it!"
He screamed, and it wasn't human.
A sound like the void was trying to claw its way through his throat.
The tether frayed. Flickered.
Then—
Bren.
It wasn't Myla's voice.
It wasn't Nythor.
It came from within the thread. Feminine. Ancient. Gentle.
His eyes snapped wide. The void trembled.
Elira?
Myla's eyes locked on his, confused, but something passed through her. Her body glowed faintly, a borrowed light. One she didn't summon.
The veins on Bren's arms paused. The shadows shivered.
And for the first time in minutes, he breathed. A sharp, broken gasp. Like a man who had drowned and clawed his way back from the deep.
The darkness recoiled.
Nythor hissed. A low, guttural snarl, as he slithered just beneath the skin, banished but not defeated.
[SYSTEM STABILISING…]
[Resonance: 48%]
[Mental Barrier: Holding…]
Bren hit the floor hard, knees slamming down. Steam rose from his palms. His breath came in ragged heaves, each inhale fighting to exist.
"…What the fuck…" Kovan muttered, wide-eyed.
Silas had re-entered mid-chaos. Blade half-drawn, but not raised. His expression was unreadable, except for the calculation in his gaze.
"We can't contain this much longer," he said darkly.
Leia stepped back. Myla didn't. She dropped beside Bren, chest heaving, still gripping his hand like it was a lifeline.
"You came back," she whispered.
Bren didn't look at her. Couldn't. His voice rasped out like gravel. "No… you pulled me back."
A pause.
"…Who's Elira?" she asked, voice barely audible.
He flinched.
Bren sat hunched, skin slick with sweat, hair plastered to his forehead. His shadow lagged, flickering half a beat too late.
Silas's voice cut through the stillness.
"Escort him to containment. Now."
The words fell like a sentence.
Myla shot up. "He fought it! You saw it, he stopped it!"
Silas didn't blink. "And if he hadn't? You'd all be dead."
Two guards approached. Their movements were slow. Not hesitant. Tactical. Like approaching something they didn't believe was human anymore.
Bren rose, swaying.
"I'll go," he said. "Don't need the chains."
Silas raised a brow. "You expect me to trust that?"
"No." He smiled, faint and hollow. "But I'm still walking."
Below Forest Vale – The Vaults
The vaults weren't cells.
They were tombs. Carved from mountain stone, etched with wards and blood seals. Designed not to hold something…
…but to bury it.
Bren sat in the cold, barely lit by the pulsing containment runes.
"Why did she say her name?" he murmured.
Silence.
Then Nythor's voice slithered from the darkness.
"Because the soul remembers what the mind cannot. The thread between you and that girl… it is not new."
"She called me love…"
The truth dropped like a stone.
"You've been hiding this!?"
You were not ready. You are still not.
"She's not just my teammate…"
"No."
"She was my soul-bond. My Elira. And now she lives again, in her."
Bren's chest tightened. "Then why didn't you recognise her?"
A long pause. Then—
"Because hope… is a cruel trick. And even I am not immune to its sting."
No mockery. No venom.
Only grief.
And then—
[ALERT: PERIMETER BREACH – WESTERN SECTOR]
[UNAUTHORIZED PORTAL DETECTED]
[MULTIPLE HIGH-GRADE DEMON SIGNATURES]
Bren's head snapped up.
"No."
Another explosion rocked the compound.
"They're… close… or even worse—"
"They're here…"
"Let me in," Nythor growled. "Let me fight. Let them see what we are."
Outside, chaos. Screams. Alarms. Mana blasts.
Bren looked to the vault door.
Closed. Sealed.
"...Open the fucking door," he whispered.
Silence.
Then… he turned to the shadows.
And he let go.
The sigils flickered, then died.
The shadows curled toward him. Not cast, but born. His figure blurred, tendrils coiling like wings.
[WARNING: DEMONIC RESONANCE LEVEL—64%]
[CONTAINMENT OVERRIDE: FAILED]
[VAULT SEAL INTEGRITY: BREACHED]
The door didn't explode.
It imploded. Folded inward like paper swallowed by black flame.
Two guards stood beyond.
What stepped through wasn't Bren.
Not entirely.
He walked slow. Shadows clung to him. His eyes were twin voids, galaxies spinning in the black. Hair drifting as if underwater.
"Stay back!" the first guard yelled.
The other fired a mana bolt—
It vanished. Mid-air. Swallowed whole by the darkness.
The second turned to flee...
And froze.
His shadow held him in place.
"I'm not your enemy," Bren said.
But two voices spoke.
His… and Nythor's. Layered in perfect sync.
"But I will be… if you keep standing in my way."
They dropped their weapons.
And he walked past. A whisper of the void trailing behind him.
War Room – Forest Vale
As Silas and Squad Twelve prepared, an aide ran in.
"Report!" Silas barked.
"Vault Three. Breached. The door's gone, sir. Imploded inwards..."
Then it hit them.
A wave of pressure.
Bren entered.
Everyone froze. Weapons raised, but fingers didn't dare pull the trigger.
He walked to Silas.
"Let me fight."
"You're not stable."
"If I sit in a box while they die, Silas, what does that make you?"
Myla stepped forward. "You saw it. He stopped himself. Let him prove it."
Silas stared. Then his gaze shifted to Myla. Then finally said:
"Deploy with Squad Twelve. Under supervision. If you lose control—"
"Then shoot me," Bren said with a grin.
A pause.
"You won't be the first who's tried…" he said as he stepped out the door, shadows following.
Outside the Walls – 3:41 AM
The battlefield burned.
Buildings lay broken like bones, embers dancing in the wind. The sky above Harrowreach had turned a deep, bruised red, tainted by mana and ash. The air itself was thick with dread, clinging to lungs like oil.
Smoke curled upward in slow spirals, masking movement, hiding screams.
Then—
"Above!" someone shouted, voice shrill with terror. "There! Through the smoke!"
All heads turned.
At first… nothing.
Then the mist parted.
And there it was.
The Silent Priest. Grade-S demon from the depths of Limbo.
Hovering just beyond the veil of smoke. Its robes hung like drowned cloth, black silk soaked in void. It didn't move. It didn't breathe. It simply existed, wrongly, in a world not made for it.
A featureless porcelain mask sat where a face should be. Its surface cracked in fractal lines, bleeding faint silver light.
Then—
It turned.
Not its body. Only the mask.
Like its gaze alone carried weight.
A whisper slithered across the wind. No mouth moved. No lips parted. But every Hunter heard it, deep inside their bones.
"We remember you…"
The temperature dropped.
Frost laced the scorched ground. Mana dampened. Weapons faltered in trembling hands.
Bren stepped forward from the treeline, the flickering remnants of shadows peeling off his back like smoke-skin.
His breath caught.
He knew that voice.
His hand tightened at his side.
"…You," he whispered.
The Silent Priest did not answer.
But the mask tilted.
Like it was smiling.
Kovan swore under his breath. "That's one of them fucked demon's... from Limbo..."
"It shouldn't be here," Myla murmured, her grip white-knuckled on her blade. "It's not… it's not supposed to be real."
"It's worse than real," Leia said. "It's waiting."
The Silent Priest drifted down, robes never touching the ground. Wherever it passed, sound died. Screams, clash of steel, even the crackle of fire, all silenced in its wake.
Then—
It raised one hand.
Fingers bone-white and too long.
A Hunter bolted forward with a roar, blade drawn high.
He vanished.
No scream. No flash.
Just… gone.
"SHIT, FALL BACK!"
"No, hold!" Bren growled. "It's mine."
The shadows behind him rose, alive again.
Nythor stirred in his chest, voice low and ravenous.
"You feel it, don't you? That hymn of old. The buried blood. The recognition…"
"It knows us, Bren. Because we were once like it."
The Silent Priest drifted closer.
And then it sang.
No words. Just soundless, breathless harmony. A lullaby that pierced the soul.
Myla dropped to her knees. Others staggered, weeping without knowing why.
Bren stood firm.
Barely.
The mask turned again.
And this time…
He saw himself reflected in it.
But not human.
Not anymore.
Suddenly, a brute of a demon lunged at Bren... lava veining its skin, claws like jagged blades.
He didn't move.
Didn't blink.
He simply just reached out—
And touched it.
The demon froze mid-roar.
Then crumpled in on itself, bone folding into flame, essence erased.
Not killed.
Unmade.
Erased from existence.
The battlefield stilled.
Even the flames seemed to hush.
Then—
Laughter.
Low. Sharp. Wrong.
It came from Bren...
Not the boy they'd trained with.
Not the rookie.
This was something else.
A grin carved across his face, wide and wild... dripping with power, madness, and joy.
Glorious. Terrifying. Inhuman.
Around him, shadows writhed like worshippers.
And the Hunters of Forest Vale...
Did not cheer...
They stared.
Weapons lowered.
He stood alone, darkness billowing at his back, and whispered:
"Now do you see…?" followed by a psychotic laugh.