The Last Day began with silence. Silence, then screams.Tren-Cordian-Delas was in one of the towers at the time, honing his skills with the flareblades.
His First Tier test was next week. He had no choice but to pass it as the best of his class.
He stopped, breathing hard, sweat streaming down his face.
His parents were Explorers of the Seventh Tier. To have a crippled son was not only a burden, it was a shame. They never said so, but he knew it was true. He saw it in their eyes. The pity when they looked at him.
His fingers cramped around the flareblades, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the hot prickling of tears.
He had to be the best of his class. He would show them all. Show them that he could become a Guard of the highest tier even with his handicap.
With a cry of frustration, he fell into one of the basic attack stances, stabbing and slashing his way through the room.
The gong of the bells droned through the tower, shaking the walls. Dust rained down on him from the high ceiling. His whole body vibrated along with the gongs.
He frowned. The bells had never been rung; their very existence was pure nostalgia. They stopped abruptly, and his frown deepened. What was going on?
He listened, but he could not hear anything out of the ordinary. Only his laborious pants filled the silence of the Guards’ training tower.
Shaking his head, he fell into one of the offensive stances again. Then he heard the screams. They were weak and muffled, but it did not bode well that he could hear them at all up here in the tower. Not hesitating another second, he sprinted out of the room and down the winding staircase.
The farther he descended, the louder the screams became. His heart fluttered. There had to be a fight. But here? In the sanctum of the Crystal City? He gripped the blades tighter.
When the stairs finally spit him out into the broad corridor lining one of the side-halls, he stumbled into a rush of people. Guards, Explorers, Scholars, everyone was running past him, some throwing out portals in front of them to arrive quicker, cutting through the fabric of space and time with as much thought as he paid to one of the basic forms he trained every day.
“What is going on?” he asked loudly, turning on the spot, trying to find out what was happening. No one paid him any heed.
He cursed and set off in the same direction as everyone else. The Myriad Guild complex was huge, and even the side hall he was in was several hundred meters long. It would take him too long to arrive at whatever was going on by foot.
A Guard to his right opened a portal, and he took his chance, dive rolling through it just as it was about to close. He came back to his feet in front of the liquid golden surface that separated the Diamond Hall from its side halls, stretching between the frame of a large stone arch. The screams were coming from the other side.
The Guard whose portal he had hitched ran through without hesitation, her spear’s glow intensifying before the gold curtain swallowed her. He gritted his teeth, and the flareblades jumped alive. Breaking into a run, he followed her.
The smell of blood punched him in the stomach before his brain could even make sense of what he saw on the other side, and he came to a skidding halt, standing like frozen for heartbeats that stretched time into an impossible thing as the sights and sounds threatened to overwhelm him. Fear sent its icy tendrils down his arms and legs, and one of the flareblades dropped from numb fingers.
In the middle of the hall raged a silent storm. A vicious, soundless storm of darkness and light. Its raw power had begun to crack the pillars and ceiling of the hall.
And all throughout the hall laid bodies in colorful garments. Shapes of darkness were moving between them.
A unit of Guards had assembled in a half-circle formation about fifty meters ahead of him, approaching the center slowly, glowing spears pointed forward, ready to strike.
Something was pulling itself out of the storm. Something that towered above them by several meters. Something that moved in the blink of an eye and turned the Guards’ shouts of surprise into a choir of dying screams.
For a moment, time seemed of no consequence as he stood and watched, helpless, how Guards of the Eighth Tier were slaughtered effortlessly.
And when the last of them had fallen, the thing turned its head to stare at him with several circles of eyes. Eyes that were smoldering stars on a canvas of living darkness.
It moved, flowing from one place to another, almost like it was liquid. There was no contrast, no shades about it to give it dimensions. As if someone had cut its silhouette from the world. It stood four or five meters high, and tendrils of blackness were wafting and snaking out from it as it moved closer.
His heart was beating so hard it almost hurt. His breath came raggedly, and cold sweat clung to his skin. His flight instinct was screaming at him, but his limbs refused to obey. The second flareblade dropped to the floor.
The closer the thing came, the more light around it disappeared until it felt like the darkest of nights. From its edges, darkness was wafting like smoke.
It stopped a mere meter from him, and its form seemed to flow and change, reaching towards him. Still he couldn’t move. A strange coldness began to take hold of him.
“Delas!”
A bluish shield appeared between him and the thing. He blinked and shook his head as warmth returned to his limbs.
“Delas!” His sister rushed to his side, her hands moving quickly and jerkily. The shield folded and engulfed the black entity.
“Come on! Come on!” His sister began to drag him away and finally he snapped out of it.
“My blades!” He tore away from her and dove for the flareblades.
“Delas!” His sister’s voice almost cracked. The sudden loss of light in his peripheral vision told him why. He looked up.
The shield was gone, but it had left obvious imprints on the surface of the thing.
You shall pay
The voice boomed in his mind, ripping through his thoughts, and he stumbled back, clutching his head in pain.
“Come on!” screamed his sister. “We need to get out of here!”
He cast a quick glance over his shoulder. She was moving her hands frantically in a tell-tale manner. Fear washed over him. “No! You’re not strong enough!”
His sister ignored him.
He faced forward again and, with bravery born from desperation, jumped towards the living darkness, bringing both flareblades down in a wide arch.
A roar as from a wounded beast swelled in his skull, and he dropped the blades again, falling to his knees and screaming, hands pressed to his ears. Wetness was dripping down his neck.
Seething hatred rolled over him in waves.
Gathering every ounce of strength, he opened his eyes.
The thing had reared back. Some of the tendrils that had reached towards them were severed, writhing in the air like dying snakes before dissipating like a drop of ink in too much water.
“Delas…” His sister’s voice was weak, pleading. He turned to see her crouched on all fours, face screwed up in pain. Blood was trickling from her nose and ears. Behind her, a small portal hovered in the air.
He grabbed his blades and crawled towards her.
A snarling voice slashed through his mind, full of sharp hatred: You cannot hide—Our domain is eternal—You cannot run
His sister lifted a trembling hand, and a flash of light zoomed past him. Another shriek of pain sent a stab of agony through his brain and almost immobilized him.
But the fear on his sister’s face had him will his tormented body into a last action of resistance. With strength he hadn’t known he possessed, he grabbed her under the arms and dragged them both through the portal.