Shadows That Shattered the Sacred Temples
Sephist stood alone atop the ruin of the Second Temple. Moonlight glinted off his obsidian armor, his black blade still dripping with holy blood. The wind carried a silence so heavy it threatened to crush even memory itself.
Beneath his feet lay what once had been sacred — divine relics, golden hymn scrolls, the bones of saints. All dust now.
Even faith... seemed to tremble before the shadow.
But this was only the beginning.
Far to the south, at the foot of the Third Temple, two figures moved through the dark.
One — a tall, quiet man with sharp, calculating eyes, his presence colder than the wind itself: Nevan.
The other — fierce, fire-eyed, every breath he took igniting sparks between his fingers: Kyrell.
"Breaking this place won't be easy," Nevan murmured, walking along the sacred stone walls.
"Let them believe whatever comforts them," Kyrell replied with a crooked grin. "Tonight, we're devils in godflesh."
The temple stood guarded by radiant sigils, angelic stone statues, and layers of divine protection.
But neither man hesitated.
Nevan stepped forward and whispered:
"Silence, O sky… Let this land remember pain."
The ground beneath him cracked. From the fissure, a shadowy spell surged out like poisoned roots, wrapping around the foundations of the temple. Holy barriers flickered and screamed — not shattered by brute force, but eroded by something far older. Far deeper.
Kyrell raised his hand. A swirling blaze began to form — not fire, but something beyond flame, something red like bleeding heavens.
"Let darkness reveal the light," he whispered.
And then... the sky burned.
A roar of heat shot upward like a divine pillar of wrath. The temple's golden gate cracked, then splintered. Priests and paladins within raised their blessed swords, their prayers sharp and desperate.
"That's Nevan! The dark conjurer!"
"The firebearer's with him — Kyrell! Hold the gates!"
But it was too late.
Nevan drew his sword and swept it through the air. A black wave followed — quiet, but with the weight of forgotten sins. The blast lifted guards off their feet like dead leaves.
Meanwhile, Kyrell hurled his burning sigil through the shattered door.
It exploded in sacred flame.
Moments later, the Third Temple had become a funeral pyre.
Far to the west, at the Fourth and final Temple, Kraan, Sofia, and Casmir approached the inner sanctum.
From far behind them, the orange blaze of the collapsing Third Temple lit the sky like a second moon.
Kraan stopped.
The sacred marble floor beneath his feet began to split, black mist seeping through the cracks like blood.
His blade — Dark Moon Light — hummed with something... ancient. Something hungry.
"Three temples down," Casmir said, standing close. "But this one's different. It's the oldest. The most protected."
Sofia inhaled deeply.
"And the place where Light hides its coldest truth."
Kraan whispered back:
"Then let me be the one to uncover it. Even if death follows behind me."
Inside the Fourth Temple, the remaining guardians of the Church — the true Celestial Templars — waited in silence.
Each of them could feel it.
The shift. The change.
The coming of something old and black and final.
"Darkness... is here."