CORRIDOR OF SHADOWS — SLAUGHTER
Standing alone in the pitch-dark hallway,
Ivan roared into the void—blood swirling violently around his fists as he swung at the empty dark.
> "COME OUT! FACE ME, YOU CREEPING LITTLE—"
From the blackness, a blade shaped from living shadow snapped into existence and drove cleanly through his calf.
Bone cracked.
Flesh ripped.
His leg was severed instantly, tumbling away before dissolving into mist.
Ivan crashed to a knee.
> "Tch—DAMN YOU!"
The limb regrew at once—tendon, bone, and muscle curling back into place as he pushed himself upright.
A dagger slit his throat the moment he stood.
A wet shhk, followed by a spray of blood.
He clutched at his neck as it sealed shut again, fury boiling through him.
He spun, slashing—
Nothing.
Only cold air brushing past him like mockery.
Another slice—
His left arm flew from his shoulder.
> "AGH—!!"
The limb hit the floor, twitched once, then vanished.
He staggered, screaming into the void:
> "YOU LITTLE RAT! STOP HIDING AND—"
A blade burst from the shadows behind him, punching straight through his lung.
He coughed blood, gasping, shaking with rage. He forced the wound to heal, summoning a surge of crimson power—
A sword of shadow cleaved through his spine.
He collapsed, torso splitting open with a sickening crack.
Regeneration crawled to life… too slow… too agonizing…
The moment he rose—
Three blades drove into his ribs.
Two sliced through his waist.
Another severed his right hand at the wrist.
His scream echoed with helpless fury.
Ivan lashed out with a cyclone of blood-forged blades, filling the corridor with crimson arcs—
None touched her.
Shadows rippled.
He was stabbed through both thighs simultaneously.
His legs burst apart in a spray of gore.
He hit the ground again, body half-formed and twitching.
> "YOU—YOU INSECT— SHOW YOURSELF—!"
A shadow dagger carved down his face, splitting cheek, jaw, and teeth.
Before regeneration could finish, another blade pierced his neck from the side.
He gargled, choking as the darkness swallowed his breath.
Then—
the shadows erupted.
Ten blades.
Twenty.
More.
They stabbed into him from every direction—shoulders, stomach, spine, groin, throat, chest—
a relentless storm of slicing steel and living shadow.
shhk — shhk — SHHK — SHHK —
Ivan was lifted off the floor by the sheer number of blades impaling him.
His arms shredded.
His torso torn open.
His back flayed in strips.
Regeneration dragged behind, barely keeping pace.
He reformed an arm—
A shadow blade removed it.
He regrew a leg—
Another sword took it again.
He rebuilt his jaw—
A dagger shattered it.
He screamed and screamed—half-formed, choking on his own blood:
> "STOP—STOP HIDING— I'LL— I'LL RIP YOUR— I'LL KILL—KILL YOU—!"
A blade drove straight up through his jaw, silencing him mid-rant.
Another punctured his chest.
Another his stomach.
Another tore clean through his spine.
His pieces hit the ground, steaming, writhing, knitting themselves back together only to be annihilated again.
He was no longer fighting.
He was surviving.
Barely.
Then—
A whisper.
Cold.
Soft.
Right behind his ear.
> "Are you done?"
Ivan froze.
All the blood in his body turned to ice.
The shadows twisted around him—tightening like a predator's jaws.
They slammed shut.
Not one blade—
but dozens.
Every dagger of darkness buried in his flesh twisted at once, carving deeper. Shadow-forged steel pierced bone, tendon, and muscle. His body jerked violently, suspended by the sheer number of blades impaling him.
Blood poured down in black-red sheets, steaming on the cold stone.
And Ivan—
half-regenerated, half-destroyed—
grinned.
A slow, crooked, blood-smeared grin dragging across his torn jaw as mana began to leak from him.
At first a faint glow.
Then thicker.
Heavier.
A suffocating pressure seeping from his skin like molten crimson.
The air trembled.
The shadow blades pinning him vibrated—cracks crawling up their edges as the mana rolling off him thickened into a red haze that warped the corridor itself.
Ivan spoke through blood and broken teeth:
> "Enough."
His voice was ragged, furious—yet dripping arrogance, as if he were the one wronged.
The mana pouring from him surged higher, boiling against the shadows. The floor beneath him cracked. The walls buckled.
Shards of shadow shattered off the blades skewering him.
One by one, they exploded into black fragments.
Ivan dropped to the ground, staggering, blood still spilling from half-healed wounds—but power radiating from him like heat from a furnace.
He straightened.
Regeneration caught up.
His torso sealed.
His limbs knit.
And his eyes glowed—brutal red, pupils razor-thin.
> "This is pathetic."
Blood lifted from the floor at his feet, rising in swirling ribbons.
Drops gathered from the air, from the walls, from his wounds—until a vortex of crimson spun tightly around him.
Heavy.
Lethal.
His sneer sharpened.
> "You think you can bury me with little tricks in the dark?"
"Fighting you is like chasing away a pest."
A puddle of blood at his feet hissed, evaporating under the force of his rising mana.
He laughed—low, cold, mean.
The blood swirling around him condensed, stretching into the form of a Blades, far denser than anything he had ever shaped before.
The corridor shook with the pressure.
The shadows recoiled a fraction—
only a fraction—
but Ivan grinned as if he had already won.
He raised the forming blades pulsing red.
> "Come on, then."
"Stop hiding."
"Let me show you the difference between a rat…"
The blade throbbed with murderous light.
> "…and a predator."