The Veiled who had been chasing him came to a slow stop a few steps ahead.
Riven watched her.
He realized just how battered she truly was.
Her fitted tunic was torn in several places, blood seeping through the rips in dark, wet patches that clung stubbornly to the fabric.
Her boots were caked in dirt and grime, the once-sharp patterns carved into the leather now scuffed to the point of almost disappearing.
One of her sleeves hung loose at the elbow, the cloth shredded and swinging with her movements.
Her right arm drooped slightly lower than it should have, stiff and wrong, like something inside it had torn but she refused to let it slow her down.
Even the way she breathed had changed, shallow, measured, as if every breath cost her something.
Her mask was gone.
Torn away or discarded, Riven could not tell.
Pale black hair tumbled around her face in tangled strands, unkempt and dirty, clinging to blood and sweat.
Her face was blank, emotionless—the trained face of someone who had learned long ago not to show pain.
But there was a tightness around her jaw, a stiffness in the set of her mouth, a cold, burning focus in her eyes that had not been there before.
One of her twin blades was missing, the empty scabbard on her hip a quiet testament to how close she had come to losing everything.
She looked like a soldier who had walked through fire, not because she wanted to, but because there had been no other way forward.
She kept walking because she did not know how to stop.
The Reaper itself did not look much better.
It was barely clinging to life.
Its mask was broken, great cracks spidering across it, revealing patches of dark grey skin underneath.
Where its eyes and nose should have been, there was nothing.
Only a wide mouth remained, stretched open in a perpetual, silent snarl.
The black coat it wore, usually shrouded in mist, was ripped and cut in dozens of places.
Here and there, patches of its body were exposed, and what showed was a horror.
A massive long hand, fingers like blackened iron rods twisted into claws, and a chest that looked less like flesh and more like stone carved to resemble suffering.
The scythe it once wielded so proudly lay abandoned several meters away.
It just stood there in one of the cratered ruins while the Reaper itself knelt on the ground, hunched and broken but not yet defeated.
The five Firstborn stood behind them.
Silent.
Motionless.
Like men waiting to be judged.
They did not move forward, did not even try.
Their hands hung loose at their sides, their weapons forgotten.
It was clear.
Clear in the way they shifted their weight, clear in the way their eyes refused to meet the Reaper's broken form.
They were dreading their own weakness, dreading the truth that they were too weak to do anything when their captain fought.
The Veiled who had caught Riven turned his head slowly.
His eyes flicked across the ruined garden before landing on the battered female Veiled.
He took in her wounds, her missing blade, the blood matting her hair, and he gave a small, almost weary smile.
"You really went at it. This scythe-wielding bastard gave you that much trouble," he said.
His voice was casual, almost amused, but there was something else hidden beneath it.
A tension.
A grim edge that said he knew exactly how close she had come to dying.
As if hearing his words, the Reaper stirred.
It stood.
A slow, deliberate movement.
Not fast.
Not sudden.
But every inch of it radiated menace.
In an instant, the mountain of a man who had spoken moved.
Using the broad surface of his shield, he slammed into the Reaper.
The impact was heavy, a dull thud that shook the air.
The Reaper staggered back, losing its balance for a moment, but it did not fall.
Instead, it twisted its head backward in a way no living thing should be able to.
An inhuman shriek ripped from its gaping mouth, a sound so raw and primal that it clawed at the walls of Riven's mind.
The scream echoed through the ruins of the garden.
It was not just noise.
It was a wound in the world itself.
The scythe, which had been lying useless a few meters away, was suddenly swallowed by mist.
In the blink of an eye, it reappeared, gripped tightly once again in the Reaper's clawed hand.
The Reaper itself looked like it was undergoing a transformation.
It was different now.
The first thing Riven noticed was the way it bore the scythe.
It rested over its shoulder, casual and relaxed, as if it had no weight at all.
The blade curved behind it like a hook torn from some fevered nightmare.
But that was not all.
The Reaper was standing properly now.
Standing upright.
Before, it had floated, drifted like some broken specter.
Now thick, twisted legs held it steady.
Legs that looked half-formed, nearly stretched too long, a nightmare given flesh.
They were wrapped in strips of burned black cloth, but where the cloth tore, the cracked grey skin pulsed with a faint cold light from within.
Its chest was bare to the waist, lean and terrible, deep fractures spiderwebbing across the surface.
The fingers that gripped the scythe were long, claw-like, blackened at the tips as if burnt.
Its face was worse.
The Reaper had no nose.
No eyes.
Only a distorted, gaping mouth stretching across the lower half of its skull, filled with rows of thin, dagger-like teeth.
When it breathed, it made a rattling noise, as if every breath was tearing something apart inside its chest.
It did not look like something alive.
It looked like a corpse that had decided to keep moving, dragging the weight of its own grave behind it.
The Veiled who had caught Riven turned back to the battered woman.
His voice was calm but sharp.
"Nira, get your men and get out of here. You are in no condition to fight that thing."
The female Veiled, now known as Nira, gave a small nod.
Her voice was hoarse but steady.
"Ok. Try to stay safe, Eros."
The Veiled who had caught Riven, now revealed as Eros, gave her a grin that did not reach his eyes.
"You know me. If things get dicey, I am running away."
The other Veiled were still occupying the Reaper's attention, keeping it from fully unleashing itself.
Riven wanted to leave, but he couldn't. He didn't know where to run, and if he followed Nira, she could very well kill him for putting her through all that stress. So he had nowhere to go.
His legs felt rooted to the ground, his heart hammering against his ribs, but he knew there was no path that led to safety.
The Veiled distracting the Reaper said in a very loud voice, loud enough to cut through the mist and tension.
"Eros, I will draw his attention. You attack."
In other words, he would be the decoy, the shield, the one taking all the damage while Eros would strike the killing blow.
It was a simple plan, a desperate one, but it was the only one they had.
The Reaper did not seem like it would just let them go, not after everything, and they had a score to settle with the damned thing.
The mountain of a man did not hesitate.
He slammed the Reaper back with his shield, the impact sending ripples through the cracked ground, but even as the beast shrieked and twisted before their eyes, he moved without fear.
He planted his shield deep into the broken earth, the surface splitting under the force of it.
Without a word, without even a grunt of effort, he reached over his massive shoulder and grasped the worn hilt that jutted above his back.
The greatsword came free with a harsh, grating sound, metal scraping against leather, raw and ugly.
It was a massive thing, far too large for any normal man to even think of wielding.
The blade was broad, chipped near the edges from countless battles, the steel darkened with old stains that no amount of washing could remove.
Newer stains clung to it too, fresher, wetter.
It was not a clean weapon, it was a weapon made only for killing.
The mountain held it loosely in one hand, the sheer weight of it dragging the point across the ground with a low, scraping growl.
Dust and broken stone rose where the tip carved its path through the ruined earth.
He shifted his stance, bracing himself, the greatsword rising in a slow, deliberate motion as he set his shoulders against the terrible weight of it.
He slammed the greatsword on his shield six times, each clash ringing out like thunder through the broken garden, each slam calling the attention of the foul abomination.
The mist around the Reaper thickened, swirling with unnatural life as the creature's transformation finished.
It stood now with a broken kind of grace, the scythe resting over its shoulder like some grotesque parody of a living warrior.
Behind the mountain, the Firstborn hesitated, caught between fear and awe, staring at a nightmare they did not know how to face.
Nira's voice cut through the growing terror.
"Let's go. We can't stay here any longer."
Her voice was hoarse, hard, but there was no room for argument.
The five Firstborn hesitated for a single, frozen moment, but quickly they got their senses together.
Without another word, they turned and ran toward Nira, leaving the once-beautiful garden behind.
The same path where Riven had once run away from the garden, where he had thought he could escape the nightmares.