The obsidian spire's door swung open once again—assisted by the wind—Lucien stepped inside. The silence was like always, absolute. No echo, no whisper. Just the dead air of the spire.
'This time,' he thought, 'This time for sure.'
"That's what you always say," Darky's voice resounded sarcasm into his mind. "Maybe try not dying? Just for variety of course."
Lucien ignored him. He'd died to the knight every night. Learned its rhythm, its precision and its brutal speed. It was less a walking statue, and more a seasoned warrior—devastating.
And it was waiting.
Lucien's hand tightened on the longsword that had manifested from the darkness. No hesitation. He moved.
The knight moved second. A blur of steel—the greatsword descending in a soundless arc aimed straight for his skull.
Lucien dodged. Barely. The displacement of air where the blade passed was a physical force, stealing his breath.
"Cutting it mighty close," Darky observed dryly. "I admire your commitment to near-death experiences."
Lucien ignored the commentary, twisting, lunging with a counter-attack aimed at the knight's abdomen side.
The knight parried without effort, the motion fluid, inhuman. Its greatsword reversed direction instantly, catching Lucien across the ribs as he recoiled.
A silent crack—deep in his bones. He staggered back, air punched from his lungs, hand instinctively clamping over the wound. Blood seeped, hot and slick against his skin.
"Textbook block," Darky quipped. "With your ribcage."
Lucien gritted his teeth, forcing himself upright. Pain was a known factor, a constant variable in this equation. The knight advanced, implacable, sword ready.
'Focus. The pattern.' He knew it. He'd died learning it.
He dodged again, the greatsword's arc inches away. He saw it then—the subtle shift, the minute tightening of the shoulder pauldron signaling the next overhead strike.
He moved in, raising his sword to block. The impact shuddered up his arm, jarring him to the core, but he held his ground. Vision momentarily blurred.
'Now.'
He slipped under the raised sword, twisting low. His own blade darted out, aimed for the known weak point in the armor near the joint. It struck true—a silent penetration of steel.
Black iridescent dust seeped out.
The knight faltered. A split second of imbalance.
Lucien tried to press the advantage, withdrawing his blade for another strike—
Too slow.
The knight recovered with terrifying speed, its greatsword sweeping down in a desperate, powerful arc. Lucien tried to block again—a fatal mistake.
The force was overwhelming. He was thrown backward, slamming hard against the obsidian wall. Pain exploded in his chest. He tasted blood, vision tunneling.
"Well," Darky sighed in his mind, tone bordering on resigned. "This looks all too familiar."
Lucien gasped, trying to push himself away from the wall. The knight was already upon him, greatsword raised high for the final, inevitable blow. He saw the motion begin—precise, final.
"Try not to flinch," Darky advised, a hint of amusement in his tone.
The blade fell.
No sound.
Just darkness. Again.
***
Lucien shot up, hand clamped to his mouth.
'Finally,' he proudly thought to himself.
A scoff could be heard—only to him—'First time I've seen being proud of not screaming like a little girl.'
Lucien glared at his shadow.
"Wanna get shut up?" Lucien retorted, causing the shadow to cross its arms in amusement.
'Another day of being an exhibitionist in a tundra.' Lucien sighed before turning to Luna who seemed to also be waking up.
'Are you up?' Lucien asked in a low tone, so as not to startle her, but just enough to catch her attention.
"Don't look, I still lack armor." He said hurriedly in an attempt to preserve his dignity, or at least what was left of it.
He heard a faint chuckle resound from where Luna was sitting facing away from him.
"Is my current predicament amusing?" He questioned in an annoyed voice.
There was no response for a while.
Darky's voice was once again in Lucien's head, 'SERIOUSLY! WHAT IS IT WIT—'
"We should head out," Luna spoke, cutting off Darky's voice.
Lucien's breath hitched, but before he could continue, Luna continued:
"We can't stay here forever. We need food, and water." She waited slightly before speaking in a hushed tone, "and clothes for a certain someone."
Although she made perfect sense, having to fight an Echo while unarmed… and unarmored was not wise, to say the least.
"So how do you intend to kill a Whispering Rift? Do you even have a weapon?" Lucien inquired, unsure.
"It's a straggler, probably injured… And yes, I have a weapon." Luna brought forward her hand and from sparks of light, a Damascus Katana materialized in her hand.
"I may not look like it, but I scored highest in the combat class," She stated.
Lucien gave her an affirmative nod… knowing that she wasn't looking at him, he added, "alright."
"I'll try to assist you by distracting the wretch with my shadow," He added.
"Sure, let's go," she said, before walking towards the mouth of the cave.
'Why do these things always happen to me… No, seriously, it's like I'm a magnet for disaster.' He grumbled, then thought, 'Alright, Darky, let's start,' and released the will he had imposed on it.
"Gods, you're annoying," Darky's voice rang in his ear.
It was weird, sharing sense, that is. It was like his mind was split. He was seeing two perspectives at the same time. He had to compartmentalize his thought process, otherwise the sensory overload might have been too much.
"I'll try to scout out its weaknesses," Lucien muttered. *If it has any, that is."
Darky slipped away from Lucien's feet and slithered its way towards the Echo which was still guarding, some distance away from the cave.
"From what I can tell, the Echo is a gray crab, it's like a small walking fortress—about as tall as your chest, four legs with a black metal carapace, and its arms; they aren't arms, they're blades, kind of like scythes, and it's about a meter and a half tall."
"As for its weakness, the only major ones I can see are probably its joint sockets and its underside. Other than that, it seems to be heavily armored."
The cold wind bit at Lucien's shoulders as he crept behind Luna. The Echo stood still, unmoving.
Darky's voice resounded in Lucien's head, calm as always, "It hasn't spotted us."
Lucien kept quiet. Luna raised a hand and took her battle stance, feet braced, katana held low. Then she moved.
She dashed forward in extreme precision—cutting through the snow—her blade arced towards one of the rear limbs' joints.
The Echo responded near-instantly, one of its limbs shot forward to intercept and met her katana. Sparks flew.
"Darky Now!" Lucien commanded.
His shadow, which had attached itself to Luna's shadow, parted and moved towards the Echo. It suddenly surged in its face, causing a sudden flood of darkness to cover the Echo's vision, momentarily dazing it, before returning to Luna's shadow once again.
The Echo shrieked, its blades clicking together, swiped at Luna.
She dashed forward, katana glinting cold steel. Her form was elegant and cruel, but most of all, it was vicious. The blade slashed towards a knee joint. A clean cut. Black ichor sprayed as the Echo staggered. Lucien's fingers tightened involuntarily as he watched her.
With a sharp screech, it lunged sideways. The scythe-limbs split the cold and icy air, missing Luna by inches as she dodged.
Lucien grabbed a frozen stick and hurled it towards the Echo's face. Useless. The thing didn't even flinch.
Luna struck again, this time, however, she aimed high, right at its shell. Although the attack didn't damage it, it made the abomination lose balance.
Darky once again darted in to temporarily daze it.
That was all Luna needed.
She leaped—high, graceful, vicious. Her blade came down. Plunging straight through the Echo's armored mask.
A crack.
The creature stilled. Its limbs spasmed erratically. Lucien stepped forward, sighing in relief—
Then he felt it. The shadows stirred.
A scythe: twitching. Raising.
"Luna—!"
Too slow. Too late.
The blade struck her side just as she had tried to free her weapon from the mask. She cried out, flung backwards like a rag doll, blood streaked in the air. Her blade, still lodged in the mask.
It wasn't dead.
The Echo shrieked once again, and reared up. Its body twisting, preparing a final charge against Luna.
Lucien moved without thinking.
He sprinted towards the Echo—the blade still embedded in its face.
The Echo turned to him. It stumbled, one leg mostly shattered and ichor leaking from its eye sockets. It lifted one of its scythes, jagged and sluggish.
Lucien didn't care.
The cold shadow pooled beneath the creature told him what he couldn't see: the tilt of its balance, the tension in its frame, the direction of death.
He shifted—just slightly—before the limb even swung.
Lucien was already there, seizing the hilt with both hands, he pulled. It resisted, stuck deep into chitin and bone—he gritted his teeth and pulled again, ripping the sword free from the creature's mask.
Tho Echo twtiched, its mask cracking further.
Lucien felt it in the shadow—an opening.
Without hesitation, he plunged the blade down into the crack where its mask had split.
The Echo convulsed.
Then collapsed.
Lucien stood over it, breathing hard. The cold wind carried the stench of blood and ichor across the snow. His heart was steady, his pulse even. He wasn't shaken. This was nothing new.
He looked over to Luna, who seemed to be healing herself with a golden flame. She'd heal.
He turned back to the Echo, formed a fist, and placed it atop the still corpse.
The Mark on his dorsal lit up. Then, a familiar voice resounded in his head.
[---Echo Slain: Dux---]
[A lesser remnant, born of fear—fear of things crawling in the dark. It fed on silence; thrived in aftermaths. No mind. Only memory of killing. Its shell was shaped from the armor of a forgotten war, It knew no purpose—only motion. Only bite.]
[---Relic Received: Chitinous Mantle---]
[A suit of armor crafted from the resilient chitinous exoskeletons of an Echo. It is lightweight yet surprisingly sturdy, offering a strange balance between protection and agility.]
Lucien exhaled slowly. The moment passed. He was still alive. His body didn't shake; his hands didn't tremble. This was just the world he knew.
Another kill. Another step.
But the mantle… that would be useful.
"Great," he muttered. "Now I'm a walking insect, but at least I'm decently covered…"
A small victory, at least.
"Aren't you gonna absorb the essence?" Luna's voice resounded from behind him.
'Right, the essence.' He had heard of this: Celestial Essence was a source of power for Bearers. It was similar to registering his kill with the Mark. He just had to do it with the intention of absorbing essence.
He once again turned to the dead Echo and touched his fist to it.
Only this time… Nothing.
'Huh?'
'Again,' He thought.
'Are you sure you're doing it right?' Darky voiced.
"It isn't working," he muttered.
'What?'
"It isn't working," He repeated, this time louder, so Luna could hear it as well.
"What do you mean it isn't working?" She asked, curious.
"Like I said, I can't absorb the essence," He replied.
"Let me try," She said, then placed her fist on the still mass.
Motes of light moved across the surface of the Echo's body towards her fist. The Mark lit up as she exhaled a sigh of relief.
"It worked for me."
He touched the body again, harder this time.
The Mark flared—not with light, but with darkness. Cold.
The corpse's shadow quivered, like breath leaving a dying body. It drifted towards him as if it was always meant to return to him. It touched his hand and disappeared into the mass of darkness on his palm with the stillness of something finding its inevitable end.
"What the hell?"
[Darkness Recognizes Its Own]