Eila had arrived.

  The mud and gore of the demonic front caked Eila's armor. He had just sealed a massive breach in the border, his arm dripping blood from a fresh tear.

  He sat down at the crack of dawn for a brief rest. Then, his brain flared. A sudden, violent hollow feeling snapped in his chest. Something was wrong.

  "Emilia..." he whispered.

  He didn't wait. He rode a stallion south until its legs gave out and it collapsed in the dirt. Eila pushed his hand to the air. He used CONCEPT magic, manipulating gravity to throw himself across the kingdom until his arm promised to twist and break. He pushed his mana circuits to the absolute brink, tearing through the sky until the Paradox Debt almost took hold.

  He slammed onto the cobblestones of the plaza.

  He was ten seconds too late.

  The head that once belonged to Emilia Hosenkai was now resting near Pope Vane's boot. The eyes that once shone of laughter now stared at Eila without focus, accusing him.

  A few paces away, the heavy chopping block hoisted what remained of her body. Thick, dark blood spilled from the severed neck, cascading down the wood and crawling across the white floor until it pooled around Eila's boots.

  Pope Vane forced a smug smile, but the muscles in his jaw violently twitched. He took a half-step backward, the heel of his boot smearing Emilia's blood against the white platform.

  "Hero, you have arrived." Vane raised his hands, his voice carrying a pathetic, unnatural quiver. "Surely you know what blasphemy your sister was up to...?"

  Vane's words died in his throat.

  Eila wasn't listening. He didn't scream, and he didn't cry. The righteous silver light that had defined his existence simply collapsed inward . The bright blue of his irises was swallowed whole, replaced by a terrifying, pitch-black void .

  He slowly dragged his gaze away from Emilia's body. He looked out at the thousands of terrified people, the same mob that had been cheering for blood only a minute ago. He finally rested his eyes on the trembling Pope.

  Eila stood up with a terrifying, mechanical stillness as a heavy, suffocating darkness began to bleed into the air around him.

  "What a waste of a life," Eila whispered.

  His voice was barely a breath, yet it bypassed their eardrums entirely, ringing with razor sharp clarity directly in the minds of everyone present. Knights dropped to the cobblestones, clutching their helmets as the dead frequency rattled their skulls.

  "I spent thousands of hours keeping the monsters outside the walls," Eila muttered, staring blankly at the cowering crowd. "It seems they were already inside."

  He tilted his head, his face catching the sunlight. The bright blue irises were gone. They were entirely, utterly pitch black. An absolute void.

  "Why did I ever bleed for you?"

  The silence stretched, pulling like a bowstring about to snap.

  "Today," Eila said, his voice completely devoid of human emotion. "I stop being your shield."

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  The Pope, finally breaking from his paralysis, pointed a trembling finger at the boy. "YOU INSOLENT PEST! YOU DARE! Guards! Seize the traitor! Kill him!"

  Eila left his rusted broadsword in its scabbard. He locked his pitch-black eyes onto the holy man, the heavy, suffocating darkness in his chest bleeding directly into the air.

  "IGNIS MYTH: ARDERA."

  The Pope opened his mouth to scream a prayer, but only ash poured out. White-hot fire erupted straight from his pores. He collapsed backward, howling in unimaginable agony as he writhed in Emilia's blood. His grand robes and gold rings melted into his skin. The flesh blistered, violently stitched itself back together, and immediately caught fire again. An endless loop of agony.

  Eila turned away from the burning man and raised a single, pale finger toward the sky.

  "CONCEPT: CREO."

  A dome of impenetrable, suffocating black energy erupted from the edges of the plaza.

  "ASHEN VEIL."

  The dark energy shot into the sky, sealing the execution grounds like a massive, inverted glass bowl. The midday sun vanished, plunging tens of thousands of trapped citizens into an unnatural twilight.

  Panic, raw and animalistic, finally broke. The crowd surged. Thousands of bodies slammed against the shadowy barrier, clawing frantically at the dark energy, trampling each other in the dark. The veil remained absolute.

  Eila walked down the wooden steps of the scaffold. His boots left bloody footprints on the cold stone.

  "YOU THINK YOU CAN LEAVE?!" A Vanguard knight broke from the panicked crowd, drawing his steel and charging at Eila with a desperate scream. "DIE, YOU—!"

  The knight swung with all his might.

  There was no clash of steel.

  The knight stumbled forward, his momentum broken. He looked down. His entire left arm, from the pauldron to the sword still gripped in his gauntlet, had completely vanished.

  Eila stood a few paces away, holding the severed limb. He had used a fraction of localized gravity to rip the appendage from the man's socket before his brain could even register the movement.

  Eila opened his hand. The arm dropped to the cobblestones with a dull, heavy thud.

  The knight finally screamed, collapsing into the dirt as dark blood geysered from his empty shoulder. Eila walked toward the writhing man, his slow, deliberate footsteps echoing over the wails of the crowd. The oppressive weight of his aura cracked the stone beneath his boots.

  "S-sto-stop..." The knight tried to crawl backward, his boots slipping in his own blood. "I-...I haven't..."

  CRACK.

  The knight's chest violently caved in. His ribcage inverted under a localized gravity, the shattered bones snapping upward through his collarbone and piercing his throat. A wet, sickening hiss filled the air as his final breath rushed out from the jagged wounds in his neck. His eyes rolled back, and he went completely still.

  The remaining crowd recoiled in absolute terror. Thousands trampled each other, sprinting for the edges of the plaza and hammering their bleeding fists against the Ashen Veil. The dark energy remained absolute.

  A wealthy lord pounded frantically on the barrier. The air directly behind him plummeted to a freezing halt. He turned around.

  He met a pair of pitch-black voids. The bright blue irises were entirely gone.

  "W-WAIT—!"

  The lord collapsed to the stone, shrieking in pure agony as his hands clawed at his face. His eye sockets were completely hollow, weeping thick streams of dark blood.

  All around the screaming lord, a dozen Vanguard knights charged blindly through the twilight, their steel drawn. Eila didn't look at them.

  The knights dropped instantly, slammed into the cobblestones by an invisible, crushing weight. The horrific screech of buckling steel filled the plaza as their heavy plate armor flattened like stamped coins. The bones inside powdered instantly, dark blood violently bursting from the seams of their crushed breastplates.

  Eila stepped over the pooling blood, continuing his walk through the massacre.

  "KILL ME!" A mother fell to her knees, raising her sobbing child toward the boy of absolute darkness. "BUT SPARE HIM! LOOK AT HIM!"

  Eila kept his gaze locked straight ahead. He continued his slow, methodical march over the crushed armor and pooling blood.

  "He is only innocent because he is small," Eila whispered.

  His voice carried no malice, only a cold certainty that bypassed their ears and pierced directly into the minds of everyone trapped in the plaza.

  "A rotting forest cannot spare its saplings," Eila murmured, his boots leaving heavy, red footprints on the cobblestones . "I am sparing everyone the burden of growing into a monster."

  He stepped past the weeping woman, letting the suffocating twilight of the Ashen Veil swallow the execution grounds .

  "The Hero is dead."