Shadow Slave: A Supreme Bond (Sunphis Wedding One-Shot)

The moon hung high in the sky, luminous and cold, washing the ruined land in its pale glow. It was the only source of light in the forsaken trench, yet it was enough. Rain didn't need to summon an illumination Memory—the silvery radiance revealed just enough of the desolation around her.

On one side of the trench, a vast canopy of gnarled trees loomed, their skeletal branches stretching toward the night sky like grasping fingers. On the other, remnants of a once-great city lay in ruin—shattered towers, collapsed streets, and crumbling foundations swallowed by time. The city had once been a thriving nexus of civilization, a multipurpose hub that housed both residents and military installations. Now, it was nothing more than a graveyard of broken stone and lost lives.

A Category 4 Nightmare Gate had bloomed in its heart. No warnings, no time to evacuate. The Obel Scale had failed to predict its emergence, and after mere minutes the reinforcements took to arrive, there was not much left to save. Though the gate had been contained, the scars it left behind ran deep.

The ground was blighted, twisted with decay, and the air carried the faintest traces of contamination—harmless to a Saint like her, but still an eerie reminder of what had transpired. Even now, after all these years, the lingering pressure of the gate clung to the ruins, a spectral presence that refused to fade. Here, technology faltered, electrical instruments rendered useless, and even mind divination was weakened, its reach smothered by the remnants of the nightmare.

Rain exhaled, her gaze drifting over the desolate streets and shattered homes. The silence was suffocating. She could almost hear the echoes of the lives that had once thrived here, the laughter of children, the voices of families. Gone in an instant.

Rain took a deep breath.

The fall of this place had been a brutal lesson, a stark reminder that no matter how strong humanity had become, underestimating the Nightmare Spell was a mistake they could never afford. The catastrophe had forced sweeping changes—both from the government and the legacy clans. Their approach to containment had been revolutionized, their forces spread strategically across the world to intercept emerging gates before they could claim more lives.

And all of it was centred around her brother.

With all seven of his shadows spread across the world, he could reach any crisis zone in minutes. Humanity had been divided into eight sectors, each under the watch of one of his incarnations, supported by elite task force units—Saints and cohorts of Masters trained for emergency evacuations. Many unpredictable outbreaks had been prevented before they could turn into disasters. It was a system that had saved countless lives.

...And, of course, Mordret had played his part. His reflections had proven invaluable time and again. But Rain refused to believe he was doing it out of selflessness. There was always an angle with him.

Still, none of that mattered right now.

Her steps slowed as she stared at the dark, ethereal thread stretching before her, leading deeper into the ruins. A frown crept onto her face.

Why?

Sunny had left the wedding to meet an old friend—someone important enough to warrant his personal attention. Someone who had never set foot in NQSC before.

And yet... the thread led here.

To a place where no living soul remained.

It didn't make sense.

For a fleeting moment, doubt whispered at the edges of her thoughts. Could the thread be wrong? Had the sacred memory somehow failed to trace the connection properly?

No. Impossible.

The thread had been created by tracing the connection Rain shared with Sunny via the [Mark of Shadows]. Doubting it was akin to doubting the inevitability of dawn.

Which meant only one thing.

Wherever this road led... Sunny was already there.

Tamping down the unease rising in her chest, Rain pressed forward.

The silence only lingered heavier as she stepped deeper into the city. An uncomfortable stench lingered in the air, and an unsettling pressure slowly started weighing on her. This place was devoid of all life. The humans had been evacuated, while the nightmare creatures had been slaughtered. All that remained were the tained remains of that were too stubborn to decay.

It was an ugly sight.

Dark gashes marred the broken ruins, like old wounds that had never healed. Streaks of something viscous and black smeared across shattered walls, staining the rubble like solidified blood. The streets were littered with grotesque remnants—things that might have once been organs, but not human ones. Bloated, ruptured sacks of flesh, shards of malformed bone, and sickly strands of fibrous tissue. The remains of nightmare spawn, their bodies resisting time in a way that defied nature.

Nothing human should have lasted this long without rotting away.

Everywhere she looked, there were traces of war—of the frantic, desperate battle that had unfolded before the first Sovereign had arrived to contain the Gate. The devastation told the story well enough. The Obel Scale's failure had cost countless lives. The ground itself still bore the scars of those terrifying few minutes, when an entire city had been swallowed by carnage.

The deeper Rain went, the worse her mood became. She wanted to leave this place. No one in their right mind would willingly set foot here. So why, then, was Sunny's guest in such a place?

...Or was that precisely the reason?

Because no one else would be here to see them?

A faint noise stirred the stagnant air, sharp and sudden. Rain's thoughts evaporated as her body tensed, instincts sharpening like a blade. She whipped her head toward the source of the disturbance.

Nothing.

Just a heap of rotting nightmare corpses, their twisted limbs tangled together in an indistinguishable mass of filth. Near the pile, a jagged, yellowed tooth lay half-buried in the muck, as if it had broken off and bounced away.

Disgusting.

A wave of revulsion rose in her chest, accompanied by the overwhelming urge to burn this wretched place to ash. But she forced herself to breathe, to steady her emotions.

This city could still be salvaged.

With the wedding nearly over, humanity was in a stronger position than ever. Eventually, they would have the resources to reclaim this land—to cleanse and rebuild. Destroying it now would be nothing but a waste.

So she turned back toward the path ahead—

And froze.

Her breath hitched.

Her pulse lurched.

A pair of enormous, glistening eyes stared back at her from the darkness.

Mad. Piercing. Rabid.

The creature's face was an abomination. A grotesque fusion of a human and some bloated, insectoid horror, grotesquely molded together atop the bloated base of a swine. Its warped features twitched unnaturally, its damp, uneven skin rippling as it breathed.

Then, it smiled.

And Rain felt her stomach churn violently, her insides threatening to lurch up her throat.

It was a hideous, rotting grin.

A mouthful of jagged, shit-brown teeth stretched far too wide, saliva oozing from the gaps. Behind them, a writhing, forked tongue slithered in and out, coated in a thick, gelatinous film. Its limbs were no better—long, gnarled appendages composed of stitched-together rot and garbage, shifting with a sickening squelch as it began to move.

What in the hell is this thing?

Rain barely had time to process the thought before she had to duck, narrowly avoiding a jagged limb that lashed out at her from an unnatural angle. The grotesque appendage cut through the air where her head had been just moments ago, slicing through the night with a sickening whistle.

She leaped back, creating distance, her eyes locking onto the abomination before her.

It was vile.

Rain had encountered countless horrors in her life—monstrosities born from the abyss of the Dream Realm, each more grotesque than the last. But this... this thing was different.

It was wrong.

Even for a nightmare creature, its existence felt unnatural, as if it did not belong here. Not in the waking world. Not even in the Dream Realm.

'A corrupted terror...'

A ripple of unease passed through her.

How?

Nightmare creatures could not linger undetected in the human world, not for this long. The gate that had consumed this city had been sealed years ago—personally contained by Nephis herself. Changing Star did not make mistakes. If a Corrupted Terror had been lurking here, she would have found it.

And yet, here it was.

Where had it come from?

Rain clenched her jaw.

'It doesn't matter.'

What mattered now was making sure it never got the chance to harm anyone.

The creature lurched forward with unnatural speed, its grotesque frame twisting with a sickening fluidity. Despite its misshapen form, it moved swiftly, its erratic jerks making it difficult to predict. It attacked in a frenzy—a flurry of slashes, each strike aimed at her heart.

Rain reacted instantly.

White sparks crackled in her palm, coalescing into a shining azure longsword. With practiced ease, she took her stance—calm, steady, unwavering. The storm of attacks met the edge of her blade, each deflected with quiet efficiency.

She studied it as she fought, analyzing the way its limbs moved, the structure of its body, the vulnerable joints hidden beneath its rotting mass. Then, the moment she saw an opening, she struck.

In a single fluid motion, she switched from defense to offense. Her blade cut through the night.

The creature's front legs fell away, severed cleanly at the joints. It staggered, its grotesque frame tilting, struggling to maintain balance—

But Rain was already there.

A second strike. Its hind legs crumbled.

The Terror collapsed, its writhing form slamming into the broken ground.

She made quick work of the rest, carving away its remaining limbs with swift, precise swipes. When the dust settled, the abomination lay pinned and helpless, struggling in vain to rise.

Rain exhaled sharply, tension leaving her shoulders.

Her victory tasted bitter on her tongue.

'I can't go looking for Sunny now.'

Her gaze darkened as she looked at the pinned creature.

By all means, this fight should have been over already. It was nothing more than a corrupted terror—dangerous, yes, but no real challenge for her. She could have unleashed her Aspect, erased it from existence in an instant, and moved on.

She had an arsenal of powerful Memories—many of them crafted by Sunny himself, designed specifically for her.

But none of it mattered.

Not against her flaw.

Among all the flaws an awakened could possess, Rain's was perhaps the cruelest. It prevented her from killing.

Anything.

No matter how monstrous, no matter how irredeemable, she simply could not deliver the final blow. It wasn't a lack of will. It wasn't hesitation. It was a fundamental part of her being—an ironclad law she had no power to defy.

And so, despite all her strength, all her mastery, she had no choice but to stand here and wait. Wait for someone else to do what she could not.

It was infuriating. But it couldn't be helped.

With a sigh of resignation, she pulled out her communicator and sent a quick message. Reinforcements would arrive soon.

Still, she couldn't afford to lower her guard.

Even crippled, a corrupted terror was nothing to scoff at. It was intelligent. Cunning. She had no doubt that the thing was pretending—its feeble struggles an act, baiting her into stepping closer, waiting for the perfect moment to strike with whatever malicious ability it had yet to reveal.

Her grip tightened on her sword.

'How troublesome.'

Rain took a measured step back, bracing herself for what was about to come.

And sure enough, the writhing mass before her began to dissolve, its grotesque form liquefying into nothingness. A deep, heavy silence followed—thick, unnatural.

Nothing moved.

The creature had vanished as if it had never existed.

But Rain knew better.

She could still feel it—the malice, the hatred, the relentless hunger aimed at her like a blade poised at her throat.

Then, without warning—

The ground shuddered.

A jagged crack split open beneath her feet. Rain reacted instantly, leaping backward just as a monstrous maw erupted from below, snapping shut where she had stood a heartbeat ago.

Then—just as quickly as it appeared—It was gone.

Vanished. Erased without a trace.

No blood. No lingering presence. No proof that anything had been there at all.

Rain let out a slow breath.

'Is that how it managed to stay hidden all this time?'

The creature's terror ability allowed it to slip between existence and nothingness, phasing in and out at will. But that alone shouldn't have been enough to escape detection—not from Nephis.

She would have found it. If this thing had been here when the gate was contained, it wouldn't have survived.

Which meant only one thing.

It arrived later.

A blur of motion. Rain tilted her head just in time to avoid a slashing limb that sliced through the air where her neck had been. It disappeared before she could fully register its shape.

A sharp sting grazed her cheek.

A single strand of hair drifted to the ground, severed cleanly. The force of the strike unraveled the delicate braid she had painstakingly styled for her brother's wedding.

Rain stilled.

Her hand twitched as she reached up, feeling the now-loosened strands that tumbled over her shoulder.

She had spent an hour braiding her hair for the wedding. An hour. Carefully decorating it, making sure every strand was in place. And now? Now there was no time to fix it before the main event.

She wouldn't even get to hear her brother's teasing praise in the family photo tonight.

A shadow crossed her face.

Her grip tightened on her sword.

"...This bastard won't live to see the end of it."

Another shift in the air.

This time, when the limb appeared, aiming straight for her throat, it didn't get the chance to disappear.

With a flick of her wrist, her sword moved—faster than sight, faster than thought. The grotesque appendage was reduced to nothing but splinters, fragments of flesh scattering like dust in the air.

A sound followed—a silent shriek, a noise that existed just beyond perception. The creature remained unseen, lurking just outside the boundaries of reality. Only fragments of its body materialized to strike, each one instantly severed, only to regrow just as quickly.

A stalemate.

For a few long seconds, neither side gained the upper hand.

Then, Rain glanced at her wrist.

It was almost time.

A soft pulse vibrated against her skin—the crimson-hued band tied around her wrist glowing faintly. A moment later, the unseen veil was ripped away, and the creature was fully exposed.

It stood before her, its grotesque limbs whole once more, its hideous body fully healed, its eerie, disgusting grin still plastered across its malformed face.

It hadn't even realized its disguise had failed.

Rain's lips curled upward.

Before it could even register the shift, its limbs were gone. In a blink, its body was torn apart, pierced, sliced, and mauled beyond recognition.

Its twisted smile? Gone.

Its shriek? Silenced before it could form.

It lay there, twitching, its broken remains shuddering in a grotesque parody of life. With what could only be described as bewilderment, the thing lifted its ruined face, its fractured gaze meeting Rain's.

The last thing it saw was the satisfied smile on her face.

Then, sight itself was ripped away from it.

The creature writhed, convulsing violently as new limbs began to sprout from the severed stumps.

But before they could fully form—

Sching!

Rain's blade flashed, and they were severed once more.

Again, the abomination tried to regenerate. Again, its efforts were reduced to nothing.

A relentless cycle. Over and over, the sickening mass of flesh tried to rebuild itself, and over and over, Rain carved it down to nothing.

Until, at last— It stopped.

Whether it had exhausted whatever foul energy it used to heal, or if it had simply accepted its fate, Rain couldn't tell. It lay motionless now, no longer struggling.

That didn't stop her from trashing it around.

She didn't particularly enjoy tormenting things, not even nightmare creatures. But this bastard?

This bastard had ruined the perfect moment she had envisioned—her place in the wedding photo, standing beside her newlywed brother and his wife, looking pristine and flawless.

Now? That image was ruined. For that alone, it deserved to suffer.

Finally satisfied, Rain let out a slow breath.

She sank down next to the creature, resting for a brief moment as she waited for reinforcements to arrive and finish it off.

That was when the air shifted. A dreadful stillness settled over the ruined city.

And then—

She felt them.

A pressure unlike before. A crushing, invisible weight, as if countless gazes had suddenly locked onto her, pressing into her skin like cold needles.

Rain's breath hitched.

She looked up.

Her blood ran cold.

They were everywhere.

Twisted, malformed faces. Familiar in the worst possible way. An abominable mockery of humanity, each one an obscene fusion of human features plastered onto something far worse. Too many eyes, too many mouths. Expressions frozen in unnatural, grinning madness.

And every single one of them radiated the same foul presence as the creature at her feet.

No—

They were the same.

Each and every one of them was a Corrupted Terror.

A dozen. No—dozens.

Rain's fingers tightened around her sword.

'This... This isn't possible.'

And then—

They vanished. Just like that.

One blink, and the horde of grotesque entities disappeared, as if the scene had been nothing but a hallucination.

But Rain knew better.

A trick of the mind? A fleeting illusion? No. The pressure in the air told her the truth.

Things had just gone from bad to worse.

A heartbeat later—

They attacked.

A storm of grotesque limbs and gaping maws exploded toward her from every direction.

Rain moved.

Her blade became a blur, striking faster than thought. Sparks ignited in the darkness as steel met chitin, flesh, and something that wasn't quite either.

She twisted, ducked, slashed—parrying a clawed appendage, severing another, twisting her body in an impossible angle to avoid the crushing force of a bladed tendril meant to take her head.

The air filled with the dreadful symphony of battle.

Screeching steel.

The wet squelch of flesh being torn apart. The crack of broken limbs, the shrill, silent wails of monsters that did not belong to this world.

Blood and gore splattered the ruined ground. Limbs fell, only to be replaced by new ones.

For every piece Rain tore away, five more took its place. For every mouth she silenced, eight more opened.

She fought them back as best as she could, her sword carving through the endless onslaught. But the tide was unrelenting.

Worse, they were coordinated.

Unlike the usual mindless nightmare creatures, these abominations moved with an unnatural synchronicity—one stepping forward as another withdrew, limbs weaving in and out of battle in a seamless rhythm.

One would distract, another would strike. If she cut one down, another would step in to cover its retreat, buying it time to regenerate.

It was a flawless rotation.

A battle of attrition.

And Rain?

Rain had no such luxury.

She had to keep burning essence—balancing her combat with her aspect, always holding back just enough to avoid crossing the one unbreakable rule of her existence.

She could not kill.

Not directly. Not indirectly.

It was her gravest pitfall. The cruelest of flaws.

If not for that, this battle would have been troublesome—but not impossible.

But as things stood now?

The tides were shifting against her. And fast.

Sighing, Rain dodged another flurry of attacks before stepping into the midst of the mass of creatures.

Rain could finish them all. Right here. Right now.

There was a way for her to bypass her flaw, and unleash the full potential of her aspect and arsenal. However, it didn't come without a cost. A dear cost.

'Do I really not have a choice?'

Rain exhaled sharply, her chest rising and falling in measured rhythm.

She twisted, dodging another flurry of attacks, then stepped into the midst of the writhing mass of creatures.

She could end this. Right here. Right now.

There was a way for her to bypass her flaw—to unleash the full, terrifying potential of her aspect and arsenal.

But the cost was steep.

A dear cost.

'Do I really have no other choice?'

She had hoped to hold out until reinforcements arrived, but that was no longer an option. These creatures—these things—had remained hidden here for who knew how long, lurking instead of spreading into nearby human settlements. But now that she had provoked them, there was no longer a guarantee that they would stay put.

She couldn't retreat. She couldn't afford to wait any longer.

Every passing second increased the risk of one of them slipping away—vanishing into the human world to spread its corruption. And with their ability to hide, the government would struggle to even detect them, let alone eradicate them.

Even Sovereigns couldn't guarantee containment without casualties. That was how insidious these things were.

Her fingers twitched.

A pulse of power flickered around her fingertips, and a new memory manifested. Golden radiance ignited in her grip, twisting into shape.

A spear.

Its shaft gleamed with an ethereal brilliance, its tip radiating a dreadful supremacy. A weapon of dominion, forged to bring absolute ruin upon anything that stood before it.

The Corrupted Terrors twitched, recoiling at its presence.

Even they could recognize its authority.

Memory: [Spear of the Hollowed Sun]

A Supreme Memory of the Seventh Tier.

One of the strongest weapons in her arsenal.

Its raw power alone was enough to shake the battlefield, capable of unleashing obliteration through sheer radiance.

Its enchantment, [Golden Tyranny], could drown the entire battlefield in a sea of light, scouring all within it to dust.

The cost to activate such destruction was astronomical. But for Rain, that was never an issue.

She had seven soul cores instead of one. Saints already had tremendous reserves, but hers were multiplied by seven. She was an anomaly—overflowing with more essense than most could even comprehend.

And yet—

It was all worthless because of her flaw. A flaw that shackled her, rendering all her strength meaningless. But she hadn't summoned the spear for its radiant destruction.

No.

She needed its second enchantment.

[Hollowing Impalement].

A truly dreadful ability.

Once activated, the spear would fix upon a single target—and it would not stop until it impaled its mark. And when it did-

It would not kill. It would not maim. Instead, it would devour.

Not just essence. Not just strength. It would strip away its victim's senses.

Sight. Hearing. Reflexes. Even thought itself.

A relentless hunger that would steal away control, numbing the victim's mind until they were left drifting in the abyss—trapped between life and death.

Helpless. Powerless. Unconscious.

Only when the target could no longer move would the spear fall dormant, sinking into hibernation to digest the energy it had stolen.

And the target Rain had to set before launching it...

Was herself.

Rain deflected another onslaught of slashing limbs and gnashing maws, her sword and spear moving in a seamless blur. The creatures pressed in from all sides, relentless, unyielding. But in the storm of violence, she found it—

A single moment of stillness.

Her fingers trembled. For just an instant, she hesitated.

She knew what would come next. The searing pain of the spear, the burning sensation that would tear through her body, raking through her very soul. She knew the agony that would follow, the consciousness that would slip from her grasp like sand through her fingers.

But it had to be done.

Not for herself.

For them.

For everyone who would die if she didn't go through with it. For the countless lives that would be snuffed out if she lost control.

This was the only way—to contain the aftershocks of bypassing her flaw. To restrain herself before she became the very disaster she was trying to prevent.

Rain exhaled, steadying her resolve. Yet, in the back of her mind, a different dread gnawed at her.

'I hope they don't cancel the wedding because of me.'

It had taken her brother and Nephis five years—five long years of peace—to finally decide to get married. And now, she wouldn't even be there to witness it.

The thought that they might cancel the wedding because of her—postpone it for who knew how long—sent a pang through her chest. It almost brought a tear to her eye.

But she had no choice. If she hesitated now, innocent people would die.

She forced the thought away, locking it deep inside.

Then, raising the spear high, she shifted her stance—one foot back, muscles coiling like a spring. Essence surged through her body, pooling into her arms and legs.

In one decisive burst, she threw.

Now, there was no turning back.

The Spear of the Hollowed Sun shot skyward, a golden comet streaking across the night, its radiance tearing through the dark—a beacon aimed at the heavens themselves.

Twenty seconds. That was all the time she had.

Twenty seconds to cut down every corrupted terror before the spear returned.

Before it struck her.

A flicker of light shimmered before her eyes, forming into a mask—a lacquered black visage, carved into the face of a ferocious demon.

The Weaver's Mask.

A divine memory.

A curse and a blessing.

The moment it touched her face, a suffocating madness surged through her mind, drowning out all reason. A suffocating, all-consuming urge.

To kill.

Not just these creatures. Not just the abominations. But everything.

Everything that breathed. Everything that existed in this wretched world.

It was a madness that devoured every other thought, every other desire, leaving only a single, overwhelming compulsion.

To slaughter.

Two seconds passed.

The air thickened, pressed down by an immense force, as if recoiling from the presence of something terrible in its midst. The earth trembled. The sky itself seemed to shudder.

The abominations stood frozen. They did not understand what had changed—what had gone wrong.

Then, light.

A dazzling brilliance exploded outward, blinding, searing, swallowing Rain's figure in a veil of golden light. The raw force of it rippled across the battlefield, crashing through the swarm of nightmare creatures.

Four seconds passed.

A flicker.

A whisper of motion.

A subtle shift in the air—

And before the first Corrupted Terror could even process it, its grotesque head rolled across the bloodied earth, its limbs falling slack, its twisted body severed into pieces.

All it took was a single second.

And then—

A voice, distant and hollow, echoed in Rain's madness-ridden mind.

[You have killed a Corrupted Terror...]

The remaining abominations shuddered.

They had no time to react. No time to comprehend. One of their own had just been erased from existence.

Another second passed. Another terror fell.

Another abomination fell.

And still—none of them had seen it.

Their fallen kin were being slaughtered, but to them, the cause remained unseen. The golden veil concealed it all.

Three more seconds. Five more creatures.

Some finally understood. But it was already too late.

Realization crept into them like an icy hand around their throats. For the first time, the nightmare creatures felt.

Fear.

It was known that Nightmare creatures experienced emotion. But rarely did they get the chance to show it. Their madness—the insatiable hunger to destroy the uncorrupted—buried all else. Only in the presence of something truly monstrous could their primal fear emerge.

And now, it did.

Because the thing they faced had a madness of its own.

A desire to kill of its own.

One that far surpassed their own twisted, wretched existence.

Another second passed.

The radiant veil began to scatter, its brilliance fading like embers in the wind.

For the first time, the surviving terrors saw what lurked behind it.

First, a silhouette—a looming shadow amidst the dissipating light.

Then, it came into focus.

A demon.

A lacquered mask of black, twisted with ferocity, three jagged horns rising like a crown. Four deadly fangs bared in a grotesque grin.

In one hand, it wielded a graceful longsword, its azure gleam serene—almost deceptive.

In the other, a ferocious odachi, dark and jagged, its edge resembling the fangs of a great serpent.

The figure moved.

The remaining abominations barely had a moment to register it before the massacre resumed.

And high above, the Spear of the Hollowed Sun stopped its ascent.

For a breath, it hung in the sky, its golden radiance burning like a second sun.

Then, it turned.

Pointed directly at the demon's heart.

With the same tremendous force with which it had been thrown, the spear fell.

A blazing meteor, roaring toward the earth—toward Rain.

Five more seconds.

Over two-thirds of the abominations had been butchered.

The demon in the mask did not slow. It did not waver. It carved through the remaining horrors with single-minded bloodlust, severing limbs, splitting torsos, reducing them to little more than wretched heaps of meat.

But it was not enough.

It would never be enough.

The madness craved more.

It yearned for more death.

More slaughter.

More. More. More.

And then—

Above, the radiant spear almost reached the peak of its descent. A golden meteor, crashing down to end it all before the demon could turn its wrath on the rest of the world.

Another second passed. Then another.

The abominations crumbled like stone. Torn apart like paper. Their grotesque remains were strewn across the battlefield, their existences reduced to nothing.

Until only one remained.

Terror gleamed in its grotesque eyes—pure, raw, hopeless fear.

A single, wretched creature, its bulging eyes wide with mortal terror.

It shrieked.

And then—

Its head rolled, severed clean from its deformed shoulders.

Its body crumbled into dust.

The battlefield fell silent. A silence so deep, so absolute, it felt as if the world itself had been momentarily hushed.

Then, with a thunderous roar, the blazing spear descended.

Straight toward Rain's heart.

The demon twisted.

Rain moved, blades rising in a desperate attempt to intercept the attack—even though some distant, buried part of her mind knew it was pointless.

The spear was too fast. Too powerful. It would pierce through her as if she were nothing.

But then—

It stopped. A mere inch from her chest.

Caught.

Held in place by a single hand.

A voice—sharp, furious—cut through the suffocating tension.

"What the hell are you doing, idiot?"

Rain's frenzied gaze snapped toward the figure standing before her.

A familiar presence. One that sent a fleeting ripple through the darkness suffocating her mind.

Her brother.

His eyes burned with fury, yet beneath the rage, something else lurked. Something deeper. Buried beneath his glare was worry, concern.

One hand gripped the incoming spear, halting its descent before it could so much as graze the fabric of Rain's dress.

The other held rested on her shoulder. A firm grasp—unyielding, yet gentle.

Rain knew who he was.

And yet, no warmth reached her. No relief. No love. The only thing left in her was the insatiable desire to kill.

Her body twisted violently. With a single, forceful jerk, she ripped herself free from his grip, leaping backward.

Her swords rose.

Aimed not at a nightmare creature.

Aimed at him.

Somewhere, deep within the abyss of her mind, something fragile flickered. A drop of water in the endless chasm of darkness that contained her ey.

Her stance shifted. Power surged through her limbs, ready to deliver the deadliest attack she could muster.

But before her body could move—before she could strike—Shadows surged.

Like living chains, they coiled around her, binding her limbs in an unyielding grasp. She struggled. She thrashed. But no matter how much force she exerted, she could not move. Not even an inch.

It was over.

A voice—gentler now—broke through the haze.

"You did well."

Rain froze.

His voice was calm. Understanding. As if he could see the storm raging inside her soul.

And then, softer, somber, almost a whisper:

"I'm sorry you had to suffer."

"That I wasn't here in time."

His hand reached forward, fingers brushing against the twisted, demonic mask.

With a single, deliberate motion—

He removed it.

The world shifted. The storm raging inside her vanished. The madness collapsed.

A sudden stillness overtook her soul, like the surface of a once-raging sea turning into glass.

The bloodlust faded. The killing urge dissolved. And instead—

Pain.

A dull, throbbing pain spread through her skull, the lingering consequence of the Weaver's Mask, of the devastating enchantment that had turned her into something less than human.

Slowly, she blinked.

No battlefield. No enemies.

Just him.

Her brother's arms steadied her as her body, exhausted and trembling, finally surrendered.

A warmth, deep and familiar, coursed through her—soothing, comforting.

Her lips parted.

"...Brother?"

Her voice was weak, barely a whisper. But warmth spread through her, washing away the last remnants of pain. A small, blissful smile touched her lips.

The last thing she felt before the darkness claimed her once more was peace.

She fell into his embrace.

And then, back into unconsciousness.

Sunny exhaled slowly, steadying his thoughts. With a flicker of essence, he summoned a memory—

A simple, comfortable mattress.

Gently, he laid Rain down upon it. Her breathing was steady, her expression peaceful despite the exhaustion weighing down her body. The storm inside her had passed, but its aftermath lingered.

Only once she was settled did Sunny lift his gaze.

Before him stood four figures.

Each one an immense presence, their auras sharp and enormous—on par with the greatest Saints humanity had to offer. They were forces unto themselves, individuals whose strength could influence the tides of battle.

Once, in the days when the previous Sovereigns waged war over their dominions, warriors of their caliber would have stood beside legends like Saint Gilead or Revel.

In the modern world however, their names were known. No one knew of their existence, of their true powers.

Even so, Sunny could count on one hand the Saints who could stand against them.

Yet, that wasn't what made them truly stand out.

It was the masks.

Each of them wore the same black lacquered mask that he had just removed from Rain's face.

These were her reinforcements—the ones she had summoned before before the swarm descended upon her.

For a long moment, silence stretched between them.

Then, one of the four figures stepped forward. Her sharp, piercing blue eyes gleamed from within the dark abyss of the mask, and her dusky skin blend in very well with her dark attire. Her ebony hair shimmered under the moonlight as she knelt with deliberate reverence.

"Lord...?"

Sunny sighed. A tired, knowing sigh.

"Search the area." His voice was calm, but firm. "Make sure no remnants remain. If you find even a trace of a Nightmare Creature—eradicate it on sight."

His gaze flickered briefly toward Rain.

"I will take care of her." 

A pause. Then, his tone softened.

"Once the area is clear, return to your posts."

The kneeling figure lowered her head.

"Yes."

Without another word, the four vanished into the shadows.

Sunny remained still, watching the empty space where they had stood.

Then, tilting his head to the sky, he let a faint smile tug at his lips.

His eyes drifted back to Rain. His voice was barely more than a murmur.

"You've built a fine Clan, haven't you?"