*The same moment - Different eyes*
Ky'arah never stopped moving.
Even before the dragons came, she paced the merchant stalls like a caged thing. Couldn't sit. Couldn't rest. Movement was thought, thought was movement. Her half-elf blood made her too fast for humans, too restless for elves.
Perfect for running.
The crystal formations started in the eastern market. She was haggling over stolen goods—not stolen by her, stolen FOR her, important distinction—when vendor's face went wrong. Not scared. Confused. Like someone had asked him a question in a language that didn't exist.
Then his eyes crystallized from the inside out.
Ky'arah grabbed three things: her knife, her coin purse, and the vendor's daughter who stood frozen watching her father become geometry.
"Move move MOVE!"
The girl—maybe seven, brown hair, details didn't matter—stayed frozen. Ky'arah slapped her. Hard. Motion returned.
They ran.
Behind them, the crystallization wave rolled through the market like water if water was made of sharp edges and screaming. Each stall transformed. Wood became prisms. Cloth became rainbow death. People became—
Don't look back. Never look back. Looking back killed momentum.
"My papa—"
"Dead. Keep running."
Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes. Truth kept you moving.
The Academy tower exploded above them. Not fire—transformation. Solid to gas in one breath. Ky'arah felt the pressure wave, grabbed the girl, rolled them both under a cart that immediately crystallized above them. They crawled out through wheels become crystal, clothes tearing, skin tearing, everything tearing.
That's when she saw Lyra.
Through the Academy's remains, visible because walls had become transparent death. Third floor. Circle of students. Singing.
Ky'arah's heart did something stupid.
Lyra. Brilliant, devoted, secret. They'd been meeting for months in the abandoned tower. Half-elf and full-elf wasn't supposed to work. Merchant blood and noble blood wasn't supposed to mix.
Wasn't supposed to.
But at night, when Lyra snuck out from her perfect lessons and Ky'arah climbed in from her imperfect streets, none of that mattered. Just hands and mouths and promises that both knew were lies but felt like truth in the dark.
"LYRA!"
Pointless scream. Three hundred meters of crystallizing city between them. But Ky'arah ran anyway. Dropped the vendor's daughter—girl would live or die on her own now—and sprinted toward impossible.
A woman exploded into crystal dust in front of her. Ky'arah didn't stop, ran through the cloud, tasted death and perfection. Her lungs burned. Her legs pumped. Always moving, always forward, because stillness meant—
The ceiling above Lyra cracked.
Even from here, even through chaos, Ky'arah saw it happen. Saw Lyra's sister—Ora? The weird one—lunge forward. Saw her hand almost reach. Almost.
Saw Lyra become light.
Not crystal. Not death. Light itself, pure and impossible and gone.
Ky'arah stopped running.
For the first time in memory, she went completely still.
One second. Two. Three.
A crystal shard opened her cheek, blood running warm against cold air. Pain restarted her engine.
Move. Always move. Movement is life, stillness is death, Lyra is gone, MOVE.
She turned from the Academy and saw him.
Councilor Netharion. Silver hair perfect despite apocalypse. Violet eyes calm as everyone died. Walking—not running, walking—toward the Council chambers. But wrong. Wrapped in shadows that shouldn't exist. Darkness that light forgot to touch.
He passed through a wall of crystal like it was smoke.
Three other figures waited on the other side. Also shadow-wrapped. One handed him something that hurt to look at. Coins that screamed without sound.
"Payment complete," Netharion said. Voice carrying because the city had gone quiet except for dragons singing above. "The crystals die as promised."
"And the Ashkore?"
"Will manifest within days. The corruption needs trauma to catalyze. We've provided sufficient trauma."
They laughed. While Crysillia died, they laughed.
"The Distillatori rise," one said.
"The world will be rendered," Netharion responded.
Then shadows swallowed them. Gone. Escaped. While everyone else became crystal and song and nothing.
Ky'arah memorized every detail. The way Netharion's shadow had too many edges. The sound the soul-coins made—like children trying to scream through water. The direction they vanished—south, toward the Desolation.
Then she ran.
Not toward anything. Away from everything. Because that's what survivors do.
She found the vendor's daughter six streets over, hiding under crystallized horses. Grabbed her. Kept running.
Found three more children. A grandfather too slow to keep up—she carried him until her spine screamed. A pregnant woman who wouldn't stop crying about her husband—slapped her too, got her moving.
Seventeen survivors by the time she reached the city edge. Seventeen out of thousands.
Behind them, Crysillia finished dying. The perfect city became perfect monument to what happens when someone sells your life for coins that scream.
"Where do we go?" the pregnant woman asked.
"South," Ky'arah said. Still moving, always moving, bleeding from dozen crystal cuts. "We go south and we find the bastard who paid for this."
"Who?"
"Netharion. Councilor fucking Netharion sold us to things called Distillatori."
Disbelief. Anger. Denial.
Ky'arah didn't care. She'd seen what she'd seen. Lyra was light, then nothing. Netharion walked through walls and took payment in souls.
Someone would answer for this.
Even if she had to run forever to find them.
The refugees followed because following was easier than thinking. Ky'arah led because leading meant moving, and moving meant not remembering Lyra's last song, her last light, her last everything.
Three days later, she heard about the corrupted girl walking south. Ora. Who'd reached for her sister and missed by the width of a finger.
Ky'arah decided then: when they met, she'd tell Ora what she saw. Give her the target for all that corruption.
Netharion.
Then maybe, while Ora was killing him, Ky'arah could finally stop moving.
Even for just a moment.
Even though stillness meant remembering.
Even though remembering meant accepting Lyra was gone.
No. Keep moving. Always forward. Rest when everyone responsible is dead.
The vendor's daughter tugged her sleeve. "I'm hungry."
"Then we hunt," Ky'arah said, and taught the girl to never stop moving.
Because sharks die if they stop swimming.
And in this new world, everyone was a shark or they were meat.
---
Urlo's Awakening - The Complete Sequence
Part 1: The Setup
The battlefield reeked of victory and vomit.
Ora stood among the corpses, Sussurro-Vel humming contentedly at her hip while Urlo screamed in her hand. The corrupted blade had been growing heavier each day since Sussurro's awakening. Jealous. Hungry. Pissed.
"You gonna deal with that?" Kaelen asked, gesturing at the blade that was literally vibrating with rage.
"Deal with what?" Ora asked, as Urlo shot sparks that set a nearby corpse on fire.
"The tantrum your sword's throwing."
"It's not throwing a—" Urlo twisted in her grip, nearly taking her thumb off. "Okay, maybe a small tantrum."
The blade's scream pitched higher. Somewhere, a dog died.
"Where does one even awaken a blade forged from genocide and fury?" Kaelen asked, backing away as Urlo's edge began glowing forge-hot.
Ora knew. She'd known since the moment Sussurro awakened. The worst possible place. The most inappropriate location in all the realms.
"The Chasm of Eternal Suffering," she said.
"That's a bit dramatic—"
"No, that's literally what it's called. Where the Distillers threw the bodies during Crysillia's fall. Where the screams still echo. Where joy goes to die and happiness is legally banned."
"Legally?"
"The Abyss Leviathans passed legislation. Apparently, one smile and the whole dimensional fabric unravels."
Kaelen stared. "You're joking."
Urlo burst into black flames.
"Right. Not joking. When do we leave?"
"We?"
"You think I'm missing this? Last time you went into a cave alone, you came out with one eye crystallized and speaking in harmonics. This time I'm watching."
"From a safe distance?"
"From behind a very large rock, yes."
Part 2: The Visions
The Descent into Comedy Hell
The Chasm of Eternal Suffering had a gift shop.
"'My parents visited the Chasm of Eternal Suffering and all I got was this cursed t-shirt,'" Kaelen read from a rotting sign. "That's... actually pretty good."
Ora ignored him, placing Urlo across her lap at the chasm's edge. The blade was practically purring now, home at last among the concentrated misery.
She closed her eyes. Opened her mind.
And Urlo said: "Finally, you dense bitch."
The Blade Speaks
Not in words. In experiences. But if they HAD been words, they would've been:
"Oh, you think you know suffering? Cute. Let me show you my resume."
*FLASH*
Forged from the ruins of perfection. Not just any ruins - the specific stones that crushed a kindergarten. The blade remembered their tiny songs cutting off mid-note.
"Heavy stuff, right? WRONG. That was my THURSDAY."
*FLASH*
First wielder: A mad priest who thought suffering was holy. Used Urlo to "baptize" people by removing their skin. The blade learned that humans are surprisingly pink underneath.
"He named me Urlo because that's the sound they made. Creative guy. Terrible dinner guest."
*FLASH*
Second wielder: A suicidal knight who discovered you can't kill yourself with a blade that feeds on death. Forty years of failed attempts. The blade got very good at dark comedy.
"Day 12,847: Sir Miserable tries drowning while holding me. Forgot I don't need to breathe. We had a laugh. Well, I did."
*FLASH*
The Distiller years. Oh, the Distiller years. Passed between assassins like a particularly nasty venereal disease. Each kill making the blade hungrier, angrier, funnier.
"You know what's hilarious? The face someone makes when they realize their soul is being eaten. It's like constipation meets existential crisis."
Part 3: The Roast
When Your Weapon Judges You
The visions stopped. Ora found herself in a void that smelled like burned hope and expired dreams.
And there was Urlo. Not the blade - the soul of it.
It looked exactly like Ora, if Ora had been designed by someone who thought "edgy" was a personality trait and "more spikes" was always the answer.
"Oh good," Evil-Ora said. "The hypocrite arrives."
"I'm not—"
"You killed an entire city and you're sad about it. Boo fucking hoo. At least I'm honest about being a monster."
"Sussurro accepted me—"
"Sussurro's a simp. Always was. 'Oh, let's find harmony! Let's sing together!' Meanwhile, I'm over here doing the actual work of ending lives. But do I get the nice awakening? No. I get the Chasm of Eternal Suffering and a wielder who can't commit to being evil."
"I never said I was evil—"
"You LITERALLY eat death. You're named after ASH. Your corruption turns things into nothing. But sure, tell yourself you're morally complex. You're not complex, you're just indecisive."
Evil-Ora started pacing, leaving footprints of black fire.
"You know what your problem is? You want to be the villain AND the hero. You want to destroy everything AND save everyone. Pick a fucking lane."
"It's not that simple—"
"IT'S EXACTLY THAT SIMPLE! Look, I've been wielded by the worst beings in existence. Serial killers, genocidal maniacs, people who put pineapple on pizza. And you know what? At least they were consistent."
"I am consistent—"
"You spent three days crying over a butterfly you accidentally killed."
"It was very colorful—"
"YOU DESTROYED CRYSILLIA!"
"That was different—"
"HOW?!"
Ora paused. Evil-Ora had a point.
"See? This is why Sussurro got the cool awakening scene. You actually felt bad about the genocide. Me? I'm the blade that enjoyed it. And you can't handle that."
"I can handle it."
"Prove it."
Part 4: The Test
The Most Inappropriate Challenge Ever
"The test is simple," Evil-Ora announced. "Kill something innocent. Right now. No hesitation, no regret, no fucking poetry about it afterward."
"There's nothing here to kill—"
Evil-Ora snapped her fingers. A basket of puppies appeared.
"Are you serious?"
"Dead serious. Unlike these puppies, who will just be dead."
The puppies were obscenely cute. One had heterochromia. Another was missing a leg but wagging its tail so hard its entire body wiggled.
"This is manipulative—"
"This is HONEST. You want my power? You want to wield the blade that feeds on suffering? Then cause some suffering. Not accidental, world-ending, 'oops I genocided' suffering. Deliberate. Chosen. Puppy-murdering suffering."
"There has to be another way—"
"There is!" Evil-Ora brightened. "You could fight me. Course, I'm made of every death you've ever caused, so I'm basically unkillable. Plus I know all your moves because I AM you, but evil and with better one-liners."
"Your one-liners aren't that good—"
"That's because you're holding me back! Let me loose and I'd be a comedic genius. Dark comedy, obviously. The kind that makes people laugh and then feel bad about laughing."
A puppy wandered over and licked Ora's hand. It had a heart-shaped spot on its head.
"Clock's ticking," Evil-Ora sang. "Either murder the puppies, fight me, or admit you're too weak to wield me properly."
"What if I refuse all three?"
"Then you stay here forever, and I possess your body and use it to kill the puppies anyway. But slower. While narrating it."
"You're insane."
"I'M A BLADE FORGED FROM GENOCIDE. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT, A MORAL PHILOSOPHY DEBATE?"
"Actually—"
"Oh for fuck's sake." Evil-Ora grabbed a puppy. "Look, I'll make it easier. This one's actually Hitler reincarnated."
"No it's not."
"How do you know? Can you speak puppy? Maybe all its little barks are tiny hate speeches."
The puppy barked. It sounded like joy incarnate.
"See? Pure evil."
"That's the opposite of evil—"
"EXACTLY! It's so evil it wrapped around to sounding good! Extremely suspicious!"
Part 5: The Powers Reveal
The Solution Nobody Expected
Ora looked at the puppies. Looked at Evil-Ora. Looked back at the puppies.
Then she started laughing.
"What's so funny?" Evil-Ora demanded.
"You. This. Everything." Ora kept laughing, corruption tears streaming down her face. "You're trying so hard to be evil that you've become ridiculous."
"I am not ridiculous! I am forged from suffering!"
"You just tried to convince me a puppy was Hitler."
"It could be!"
"You know what? Fine." Ora stood up. "I'll take your test."
She walked over to the basket of puppies, picked up the heart-spot one, and—
Hugged it.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"Killing it," Ora said calmly, as corruption flowed from her into the puppy. "With kindness. And also corruption. But mostly kindness."
The puppy... changed. Its fur went from golden to silver-black. Its eyes turned red. It grew tiny bat wings.
It was still wagging its tail.
"You... you made it EVIL?" Evil-Ora stared.
"I made it mine. If you're truly part of me, then you understand - I don't just destroy. I corrupt. I change. I make things mine." She set down the hell-puppy, which immediately tried to eat another puppy's soul. "And honestly? That's way more fucked up than just killing things."
Evil-Ora's jaw dropped. "That's... that's actually really evil."
"Right? I took innocence itself and perverted it into something that shouldn't exist. The puppy's still happy, still loving, but now it feeds on suffering. It's an abomination that wags."
"Holy shit."
"I know, right?"
"You're actually evil."
"I'm complicated."
"No, that's straight-up evil. You made a HELL PUPPY. It's trying to open a portal to the Abyss with its tail!"
They both looked. The puppy had indeed opened a small portal and was pulling through what appeared to be demon treats.
"So," Ora said. "Do I pass?"
Evil-Ora grinned. "You know what? Yeah. You pass. The name is—"
The Awakening
"URLO-VEX, THE LAUGH THAT ENDS!"
The name hit Ora like a punchline to the soul. Suddenly, horribly, everything was funny. The genocide? Hilarious in its stupidity. Her corruption? The universe's best practical joke. The fact that she was having an existential crisis while holding a hell-puppy? Peak comedy.
The blade transformed in her hand. Still black, but now with veins of red that pulsed like laughter. The edge wasn't just sharp - it was sarcastically sharp, the kind of sharp that cut you while explaining why you deserved it.
The New Powers
Back in reality, Ora opened her eyes to find Kaelen backed against the far wall.
"Your blade," he said. "It's... laughing?"
It was. Urlo-Vex hummed with dark mirth.
"What can it do?" Kaelen asked.
Ora stood, testing the weight. Then she swung at empty air.
The air SCREAMED. Not in pain - in embarrassment. The very atmosphere was mortified to be cut by something so contemptuous.
"The Sardonic Edge," Ora murmured. "Cuts not just flesh, but dignity."
She focused, and Urlo-Vex released a wave of energy. Every shadow in fifty feet started dancing. Badly.
"The Humiliation Wave," she noted. "Makes everything ridiculous."
Finally, she touched the blade to a corpse. It stood up, did a little jig, then exploded into confetti that spelled out "DEATH IS TEMPORARY, EMBARRASSMENT IS FOREVER."
"The Spite Resurrection," Ora concluded. "Brings things back wrong. On purpose. For comedy."
Kaelen stared. "That's the most disturbing thing I've ever seen."
"Wait until you see what happens when I combine it with Sussurro."
"Please don't—"
Too late. Ora drew both blades. Sussurro-Vel in her left hand, singing harmony. Urlo-Vex in her right, cackling dissonance.
Where their auras met, reality gave up and decided to take a coffee break.
"I think," Ora said, as the world bent wrong around her, "I'm ready for the Distillers now."
Somewhere in the distance, a hell-puppy barked.
It sounded like the end of all things.
But cute.
---