The mist enveloped them like a living blanket, and the square transformed before their eyes. The buildings seemed to shift shape when not directly observed. The air was dense, almost liquid, and the whispers… they were closer now.
Kaellia kept her eyes sharp, her hand on the hilt of her sword, sensing something was about to happen.
"Stay together," she said. "Don't split up."
But it was too late.
Mireya stopped abruptly, her eyes wide. One step ahead of her, a figure emerged from the mist: her mother, dead for years, smiling with open arms.
"Mother…?" she whispered, her eyes welling up.
Tolen, meanwhile, fell to his knees. Before him stood an old childhood friend, bloodied, muttering for help. Tolen lunged to aid him.
"He's alive!" he shouted. "We have to help him!"
Saphira's eyes widened, spinning sharply toward Allan.
"What are you doing here…?" her voice trembled. "You… you died in that attack…"
"What?!" Allan growled, drawing his sword. "What are you talking about?!"
"Stay back!"
Across the square, Jin's group began to stir. Eira stumbled back, tears in her eyes.
"Frilia…?"
She saw the figure of her long-dead companion, smiling, reaching out. Lino clenched his fists, eyes fixed on someone invisible, while Ziek gritted his teeth, glaring around in fury.
But those unaffected by the illusions saw something entirely different: shapeless, black creatures with hollow eyes and grotesque mouths, slithering in the shadows, reaching for their victims.
And then, chaos erupted.
Mireya attacked Saphira, screaming that she was an impostor. Tolen charged at Lino, believing he was stopping the rescue of his friend. Shouts echoed. Swords flashed. The labyrinth fed on the confusion.
Kaellia tried to intervene, but it was impossible to tell who saw what.
"Stop! You're fighting each other!"
She turned for support, and that's when she heard it.
A single word cut through the chaos like a blade.
"Control yourselves."
The voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It was cold, metallic, distant, like the icy wind that precedes death. It echoed in her mind, reverberating like an ancient call.
She spun around. The voice came from Jin. But no… that wasn't Jin's voice.
His body stood still, but the mist around him trembled as if it breathed.
And then, every member of his group—Eira, Lino, Ziek—froze instantly. The illusions vanished like vapor in the wind, their eyes snapped back to focus, and in perfect synchrony, they returned to their original formation.
Not a word. Not a gesture of command.
The mist still surrounded them but seemed to no longer touch them. It was as if that single order had anchored them to the real world.
Kaellia watched, her heart tight, Jin's words still echoing in her mind.
She didn't recognize that voice.
And suddenly, she felt something she hadn't felt in a long time.
Fear.
The mist seemed to retreat of its own will, as if something older, more dangerous, was about to emerge. The air grew heavier. Then, a presence rose from the shadows—delicate, sinuous, and terrifying.
It was a feminine figure, made of pure darkness, her silhouette reminiscent of a woman with long, wavy hair and eyes glowing in spectral shades of gray. Her form rippled like living smoke, and the ground itself seemed to shrink from her touch.
"Jin…" her voice echoed, soft and morbid, laced with devotion and something deeper. "Control yourself. You're nearing the threshold. Beware what you awaken."
Everyone fell silent.
The illusions stopped instantly. The chaos ceased. Mireya dropped her sword, panting. Tolen collapsed to his knees. The world seemed to hold its breath in the presence of that ancestral shadow.
Kaellia, Allan, Lyn, and Saphira stood frozen. There was something about that shadow that made them tremble. It was familiar. Horribly familiar.
They couldn't recall where they knew her from, but they felt—deep in their souls—that they had witnessed that silhouette before. Somewhere. In some lost moment.
And then, in a gesture that shocked even Kaellia…
Jin's entire group bowed.
Lino, Ziek, Eira… even Jin. All lowered their heads in absolute silence before the shadow.
The silence broke when she spoke again, her voice now tense, as if sensing something approaching.
"He's coming. The fragment… it crawls toward us."
A chilling cold swept across the ground, climbing up everyone's spines.
The whispers stopped. The city fell silent.
And then he appeared.
At the far end of the square, emerging through the mist, a man.
Tall. Silent. He walked with the calm of a monk, his feet barely making a sound.
But in his hands, dragging behind him, was a colossal sword—larger than his own body. An ancient blade, cracked, somehow alive.
No one could look at the man directly. It was like staring at the sun—their eyes burned, their bodies froze.
Pure fear.
Even Ziek, who rarely showed emotion, took a step back, his eyes trembling.
The feminine shadow—the one that had silenced them all—advanced. Her body of darkness rippled and grew, forming claws, mouths, tentacles of shadow. She surged toward the man like a living storm.
But in the blink of an eye, she was shattered.
No fight. No sound. Just a crack in the air—and the shadow's body dissolved into millions of dark particles, like glass breaking in the void.
No words. No farewell to her maestro.
Jin didn't move.
He simply raised his face, his cloak swaying lightly in the labyrinth's breeze, and began walking, silent and resolute, toward the impossible man.
Kaellia looked at Allan.
"We can't let him go alone," she said, swallowing her fear. "This isn't just his fight."
Allan clenched his fists but nodded.
"Let's go."
And the two walked beside Jin, without a word exchanged. Only the sound of boots on stone and the sword dragging on the ground.
In seconds, Ziek and Eira appeared at Jin's side.
Saphira started running after them alongside Lyn. Lino grabbed them.
"I'm sorry, but I can't let you pass," his voice was calm, but his words felt like an order.
Lyn tried to argue—"We need to help, they can't—" but was cut off with a simple sentence.
"You're weak… You'd only get in the way."
Silence. Lyn and Saphira lowered their heads. Saphira nodded and just watched.
And the absolute silence of the City of Whispers seemed to await the clash of forces that didn't belong to this world.
In the next instant, the dust of silence exploded with a sharp, cutting sound.
Ziek and Jin surged forward.
More than speed—it was brutality with precision. In a single blink, they were already before the man with the giant sword.
CLANG!
The swords collided with such force that the ground shook. The enemy's colossal blade looked like raw iron but moved as swift as the wind. He wielded it with one hand, as if it weighed less than a feather.
Ziek spun low, slashing in an arc toward the man's leg. Jin, from above, struck like lightning—his sword cloaked in shadows, aiming for the collarbone.
The man merely shifted his shoulder.
And that was enough to parry both.
Eira appeared from behind. Her steps made no sound. She lunged with a lateral thrust, aiming for the exposed flank. The man spun his entire sword in a single motion, disarming her mid-air. She rolled as she fell but returned to formation with the others without hesitation.
Perfect synchrony.
They attacked without needing to speak. Jin with short, precise strikes, Ziek with relentless circular cuts, and Eira like a dagger always striking at the blind spot.
The enemy swung his sword in wide arcs, like a reaper cutting grass—each impact shattered stones, demolished statues, made the air hiss.
Saphira and Lyn tried to advance, but Lino held them back, gripping their arms firmly.
"You're weak," he said, eyes fixed on the fight. "Out there… you'd die in seconds."
The two shrank back in anger and frustration but knew he was right.
The shadow of Fliria, Lino's lost sister, rose behind Jin. Her movements had no weight—they were a mere reflection, like a living extension of the maestro's will.
She moved with him. Every strike from Jin was mirrored by her. Every retreat, every feint, every dodge. As if Fliria had never died.
On the other side, Kaellia, Allan, Mireya, and Tolen tried to find openings. They attacked from the edges with gusts of wind, lightning, and combined strikes, but it was futile.
The man ignored them.
Nothing seemed to touch him. It was as if time around him flowed differently. Spells exploded in the air before reaching him. Swords glanced off his giant blade or the black plates on his body.
And then…
CRACK!
Ziek screamed.
The man grabbed his arm mid-spin and snapped it like a dry twig. The sound echoed across the square.
Kaellia ran, sliding across the ground with her shield in hand, and pulled Ziek away before he could be crushed.
"Breathe. You're okay… you're okay…" she whispered, trying to stem the blood.
Jin stepped back.
He stopped a few paces from the man.
He took a deep breath.
The air around him grew heavy. A black aura began to swirl around his body. Shadows slithered from his feet, snaking across the cracked ground.
That's when Bouros appeared, leaning against a ruined wall, as if watching a spectacle.
"Hmph… Finally. These insects were ruining the show."
Jin opened his eyes.
"Get out of the way," he said, his voice empty, cold, cutting. "I can't fight… and protect you."
Allan stepped forward, but before he could respond…
Jin vanished.
Literally. A dark blur.
And then… the real fight began.
---
The ground exploded.
The colossal sword came down in a straight line, and Jin parried with the flat of his blade, his legs sinking into the ground from the impact's force.
Jin spun, Fliria's shadows moving with him, and his sword sliced through the air like thunder, striking the enemy's chest—but the man didn't even flinch.
They exchanged blows at such speed that normal eyes couldn't follow. Shadows twisted, stones flew. The sound of impacts was like a storm of thunderclaps.
The man's giant sword seemed like a toy in the face of his speed.
He spun, stopped, blocked, and struck with the cold precision of a predator. Jin danced around him, each step an explosion, each cut a gale.
Time seemed warped.
Flanks. Counterattacks. Reversed strikes. Jin fought with his whole body—spinning, leaning on shadows, throwing his sword and pulling it back with dark threads. The man simply… answered everything.
And then, with a horizontal slash, the giant sword struck Jin from the side.
His arm flew.
Silence.
Jin's right arm, sword and all, hit the ground like dead weight, blood gushing in a dark stream, staining the stones.
And then a voice cut through the silence.
Bouros smiled.
"Enough… I'll take control now… Jin."
The world froze.
Kaellia, Allan, Lyn, Saphira, Mireya, Tolen… All stared at the man cloaked in shadows.
That was Jin.
The same boy they'd set out with months ago.
But now… he was something else.