The Broken Sun crept over the horizon like a guilty witness, reluctant to behold the massacre it illuminated. Its cracked face bled pale gold across the glass desert—light so thin it looked bruised. Every dune shimmered with fresh crimson. The oasis behind him had become a charnel bowl: five Awakened sprawled like broken offerings, their soul fragments rising as drifting motes of cold light.
Reverse snow.
Reverse mercy.
Orion stood at the rim of the crater, barefoot in blood that was no longer distinguishable from his own. Shadows gathered around him, not cast but born—too dark, too deep, drinking the dawn instead of bending to it. They shifted when he didn't, tasting the world like blind serpents.
He flexed a hand.
The shadows flexed back.
A new limb. A missing truth found at last.
[Aspect: Shadow Slave — Divine]
[Shadow Step — Novice]
[Shadow Manifestation — Novice]
[Child of Darkness — Passive]
[Flaw: Fated Calamity]
Every gift requires blood. Every miracle steals something you cannot live without.
The notifications hovered in his vision like patient executioners.
He dismissed them.
Focus.
Orion crouched beside Mirrored Cloak's cooling corpse. The man's pride had outlasted his heartbeat. The cloak made of living, mirrored scales came off easily—cool, flexible, unsettlingly alive. It shrank to fit him as he draped it over his shoulders.
It felt like a verdict.
Next: the sword. A slender, curved weapon forged from something that had died unwillingly. It drank light the same greedy way his shadows drank breath. Its grip molded to his palm.
[Memory Acquired: Mirrorfang] — Ascended
Forged from the fang of a Fallen Tyrant that devoured itself in search of a perfect reflection.
He slid it through a belt he'd fashioned from torn cloth.
The others had less worth taking. The fire-witch's gloves were fused to blackened bone. The archer's bow lay in two pathetic pieces. The axeman's belt held three crystal vials—two empty, one still shimmering.
He pocketed them.
A whisper of wind carried the familiar stench of arrogance—old, rancid, unmistakable.
Cassius.
Oversupervised brutality had a scent if you lived beneath it long enough.
Orion stood. The shadows pulsed around him like a heartbeat.
Time to collect old debts.
A Step Into Darkness
He entered the nearest shadow. The world folded like paper around a flame. One heartbeat he was standing in sunlight that scorched his skin; the next he was sliding through darkness as smooth as breath.
He reappeared thirty meters away, silent.
Shadow Step:
Short range. Minimal cost. Terrifying potential.
A thin smile touched his lips.
He stepped again—this time aiming for the ridge Cassius favored. Shadows pooled thick there, a reservoir of cold ink in the rising dawn.
When he emerged, the world rang with voices.
Cassius stood at the edge, arms folded, jaw carved from cruelty. Four Awakened flanked him, each wearing the twelve-eyed brand on their coats. Cassius's cohort. His wolves.
Below, the desert lay littered with bodies. Some Cassius had killed for sport. Most had died running.
The overseer was speaking.
"…told you the Flawed ones break prettiest. That little rat from the pens killed five Ascended and drained their cores dry. Divine Aspect, too. The Spell has a twisted sense of humor."
A woman with a mechanical arm snorted. "Should we fetch him, boss? Might be fun to break in."
Cassius waved her off. "No. He'll come. They always come back to the first hand that hurt them."
"Looking for me?"
Orion stepped into existence behind them.
Five heads snapped toward him.
Cassius's grin split wide. "There you are, little lamb. Dressed for the slaughter, I see."
His gaze flicked to the Mirrorfang at Sunniless's waist.
"Did the cloak tell you its name yet? No? Ah. It only whispers to its rightful master."
He drew his own sword—a heavy, brutal thing etched with twelve closed eyes.
"Shall we dance?"
Orion tilted his head. "You talk too much."
Cassius lunged.
The attack was a crimson blur—fast enough to carve a lesser Awakened into thirds.
Orion sank into the shadow at his feet.
The First Death That Didn't Happen
He rose behind the woman with the mechanical arm.
Mirrorfang slid through the joint at her shoulder like light through water. Sparks burst. Oil and blood hissed on the glass.
She screamed.
Cassius's eyes widened—not fear, but delight. "Shadow Step! Oh, that is beautifully unfair."
The remaining three cohort members fanned out, soulfire igniting along their weapons.
Orion stepped again—upward, sideways, down. He moved along shadows like a man crossing stepping stones. The world stuttered between frames.
He caught the severed mechanical arm midair. Its brass fingers twitched. He locked them around Mirrorfang's hilt. A corpse's strength added to his strike.
He stepped again—straight into Cassius's guard.
The overseer barely parried. Genuine shock flickered across his eyes.
"You're moving too fast," Cassius hissed.
"Child of Darkness," Orion murmured. "Light slows me. Shadows feed me."
He attacked.
Their blades clashed in a screaming duet. Cassius fought like a man who had survived death thirty-two times. Each strike carried a lesson carved into bone. Each parry had the weight of hard-earned cruelty.
But Orion didn't tire. Shadows healed him, strengthened him, whispered paths through the battle.
He cut lines across Cassius, shallow but decisive—frustrations become wounds.
The cohort tried to intervene. Orion slid through their shadows, leaving torn tendons, severed hamstrings, and ruined throats in his wake.
One minute later, only Cassius stood.
Barely.
His coat hung in ribbons. Blood dripped from reopened scars.
Still, he smiled. "You're magnificent. The Spell hasn't shaped something like you in centuries."
Orion leveled Mirrorfang.
"Take off the brand."
Cassius blinked. "What?"
"The twelve-eyed sigil. Remove it. Or I will."
For the first time, fear cracked the overseer's mask.
"You don't understand. It's bound to my soul. Removing it—"
Orion stepped closer.
"I wasn't asking."
Cassius's knife hand trembled.
He carved.
The sound was wet. The pain was raw. Blood hissed where it struck the glass. When the branded flesh finally parted, Cassius screamed—an animal sound torn from a man who had forgotten he could feel fear.
The flesh writhed, then crumbled into ash.
Cassius staggered.
His aura guttered.
His arrogance drained away like someone had unplugged it.
He was just a man.
A survivor stripped of everything that made him dangerous except his memory.
"Now what?" he rasped.
Sunniless rested Mirrorfang at his neck.
"Phase Three. The Shard of the Broken Sun. You're guiding me. Personally."
Cassius barked a brittle laugh. "You think it's that easy? The Shard is guarded. By something the Spell saves for last."
"Good." Orion pressed the blade until blood welled. "Walk."
Toward the Heart of the Nightmare
They descended the ridge—predator and broken shepherd—leaving the cohort to the glass worms gathering beneath the sand.
The desert changed as they moved. Dunes gave way to pillars of petrified red stone. The air thickened with the scent of old grief. The Broken Sun reached zenith, its cracks glowing white-hot.
In the distance, a structure answered the light:
A spire of perfect crystal, piercing the sky like the world's exposed nerve.
The Shard.
Between them and it: an army.
Hundreds of Awakened who had survived the night. Packs of killers. Lone prodigies. Children aged by terror. Saints with blood on their hands. All drawn by the same promise.
Cassius limped beside him, a human shield muttering curses and prophecies.
"They'll tear you apart when they see that cloak."
Orion glanced down.
Mirrored scales shifted, displaying visions:
Him impaled on spears.
Him kneeling before a crowned tyrant.
Him smiling as the world burned.
He closed the cloak.
"Then I'll tear them apart first."
Cassius laughed—actually laughed. "Careful, little lamb. That's exactly how I started."
They walked toward the gathering storm.
Behind them, the desert drank the blood of the fallen.
Ahead, the Nightmare waited to see who would break first.
Orion already knew the truth:
Surviving a Nightmare was only the prologue.
The real hell began when you woke up.
He tightened his grip on Mirrorfang.
The shadows coiled, hungry.
Above them, the Broken Sun shattered completely—golden fire raining from the sky like judgment.
Orion didn't look up.
He stepped forward.
He had debts to collect.
And a new name to carve into the bones of the world.