SAI SHINU
They took the form of twisted men and beasts, fused together in grotesque parody of life. Some had human torsos with leonine heads, others the clawed arms of birds with the legs of wolves. Every one of them dripped with blood, their flesh warped and scarred, their mouths filled with jagged teeth.
And every one of them looked at me.
My breath quickened, not with fear, but with the sickening realization of what this meant.
Every drop of blood they carried… was fuel for his armor. Every strike I landed, every wound I opened—would only feed him more.
He knew. He had planned this.
"Fight them," he said, his voice booming across the endless void. "Lose yourself in the slaughter. Or fall and let the blood claim you."
My grip tightened. The rage inside me flared into something sharper—something colder.
I lowered my head. "Fine."
And then I moved.
The first chimera lunged before the others, a hulking mass of fur and claws, its face a half-formed mask of human teeth and animal hunger. I stepped into it. Shadow Step. In a blink, I was at its side, my blade carving through its ribs.
The flesh didn't bleed red—it unmade. The edge of my strike shimmered violet, and from the wound bloomed a crimson rift. The monster's chest unraveled into a spray of roses, their petals glowing purple before fading into nothingness.
The creature never even screamed. It simply ceased.
I exhaled, the ghost of a bitter satisfaction curling in my chest.
But then the others came.
Dozens. Hundreds. Their shrieks pierced the endless sky, claws scraping against the marble floor. They didn't move like beasts. They moved like a tide—an endless, roaring tide of blood and hate.
I met them head-on.
Every strike painted the world in roses. Petals scattered in violet bursts as I cut them down. Each kill felt clean at first. Too clean. Like I was cutting paper, tearing illusions.
But they weren't illusions. They clawed at my arms, bit at my legs. One raked its talons across my back and I felt the hot sting of blood. Another leapt for my throat. I stepped through its body, shadow step carrying me to safety—but not before the smell of its fetid breath burned my lungs.
And still, I kept cutting.
Slash. Step. Rift. Roses.
Slash. Step. Rift. Roses.
It became a rhythm. A dance. A spiral.
The more I killed, the more they came. The more they screamed, the less I heard them. Until all I could hear was the thunder of my own heartbeat. Until all I could see was violet petals scattering into nothing.
I don't know when the fire in my chest changed. When the fury became… something else.
Not justice. Not vengeance.
But hunger.
Every kill felt necessary. Every rose was proof of my existence. My sword moved faster, harder, even when my arms shook and my breath grew ragged.
I stopped counting after three hundred.
At five hundred, my vision blurred with sweat and blood. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. But still I cut.
At seven hundred, the marble beneath me was black with blood. The air reeked of iron and rot. The Red Veil pulsed stronger than ever on his body, as if mocking me, whispering: Every one you kill, every drop you spill, makes me stronger.
I staggered back, chest heaving, blade trembling in my grip. The chimeras hissed and circled, their claws clicking against the marble. There were still hundreds left.
I couldn't win like this.
Not with the sword alone. Not against this many. Not with his armor drinking in every drop spilled.
My vision sharpened as the thought came to me. The cores inside me—light and darkness—pulsed in unison. My chest throbbed with their rhythm.
There was one way.
One move.
Eclipse.
I raised my blade, the edges quivering with unstable power. The light inside me flared, brilliant and consuming. The darkness resisted, heavy and unyielding. Two opposites. Two truths that hated each other, yet lived inside me.
I brought them together.
The world trembled.
Where light met dark, resistance met absorption. The clash wasn't gentle. It wasn't balance. It was eruption.
The sky tore open.
The floor shook as if it would shatter. And then—
The explosion.
A wave of blinding light and suffocating darkness collided outward in every direction. The chimeras shrieked, their bodies caught in the storm, torn apart, unraveled into nothing. Roses bloomed across the battlefield in the hundreds, bursting in purple light before the wind carried them away.
The world went silent.
When the shockwave faded, when the dust cleared, when the trembling of my body finally slowed, I looked up.
The floor was empty. Not one chimera remained.
Only him.