Jittering from the flames, the figure stepped onto the bridge, fire licking at its back like dying hands reaching for one last victim.
It looked around—slow, searching. No eyes to see, and yet it saw.
Altha crouched tighter into himself behind the stone railing, breath caught in his throat.
"What in the crap is that?" He thought, daring not to speak the words aloud.
The thing lumbered forward, its massive scythe-like arms dragging behind it. The metal tips scraped against the bridge, singing a slow, agonizing screech that drilled through the silence like a prophecy being carved into stone.
Altha closed his eyes for a second, listening. Counting the distance.
One footfall. Two footfalls. Three footfalls...
It's halfway across, or so he approximated. Then the scraping stopped, and for a moment, everything froze.
Time dragging on longer than it had to.
The hairs on his neck stood on end as a chill surged down his spine.
The silence was too sudden. Too Intentional.
"Did it leap off the bridge?" He thought, uncertain. He strained to listen. "No, it couldn't have. I'd have heard something by now. An impact, a crash, something. It had no wings after all…"
He listened closer. Then he heard it.
A thin whistle, slicing through the air like a razor against silk.
Instinct screamed, urging every muscle in his body to move. Then something glinted off the light of the dim darkness cast by the barrier.
Altha hurled himself from behind the stone railing, twisting midair.
A blade cleaved through the space where he'd just been—an instant late.
He hit the ground, palms slamming into the cold stone, and used the force to launch himself forward—a projectile of cold precision.
As his feet slammed into the creature's chest. The impact reverberated through him. Sending a small shockwave through the air.
The obsidian giant staggered back a few meters, scythes flailing wide.
It drove both weapons into the bridge with a metallic shriek, carving into the stone like talons finding purchase.
Sparks bloomed, and eventually, its momentum halted.
It hissed—not through breath, but as if the air itself recoiled from the sound.
Altha landed, crouched low, sliding slightly across the stone before finding balance.
Then—stillness.
Both combatants frozen. Both watching. Both waiting. Both ready.
The air between them was no longer air. It was a pressure. A held breath. A familiar drumming in their chests.
Lub
Dub
Lub
Dub
Their heartbeats. Out of sync.
But thunderous.
Each one measuring the moment. Each one counting the seconds before violence.
Altha kept his eyes locked on the creature.
He could feel it—heat radiating through the soles of his shoes. Not melted yet, but close. One more blast of that internal fire and his boots might fuse to the floor.
"Seems hand to hand combat's out of the question."
Reality cracked around his right hand, shattering like stained glass. From the fragments, a weapon formed—a sleek, grey hybrid of spear and sword. Its blade the length of a longsword, double-edged and keen. The grip was extended like a spear's shaft, counterbalanced and reinforced—built for precision, reach, and redirection.
"But that works just fine too. The plan still remains."
The sword had the grip of a spear, equal in length to the weapon's blade.
Smoke hissed from the gaps in the creature's jagged armor. It lurched forward, faster than its bulk had any right to be. Embers flared from beneath its obsidian shell, pulsing with an eerie cinder, like a furnace.
Altha inhaled.
"Intuition," he whispered. His golden-crimson eye narrowed. "Don't let me down now."
And then he charged.
His dreads whipped through the wind, trailing behind him like strokes of black ink.
The creature slashed—a wide arc meant to take his head off.
Altha dove low, the blade missing him by inches. The second arm came down like a guillotine, carving a trench into the stone at his feet as he rolled free.
As the creature drew its arm back, he surged forward and thrust his blade upward, angling for the exposed armpit joint—where armor gave way to motion, trying to split arm from shoulder.
The blade bit deep and metal shrieked as flesh—if it could be called that—tore.
He was successful, his sword sliced past the creature's armour just as intended.
But to his surprise, a jet of fire erupted from the wound, searing outward. Altha twisted away, but not fast enough—heat seared across his arm.
He stumbled. Taking advantage of his momentary shock, the creature didn't hesitate.
It lunged, claws slashing.
The creature narrowly missed his armpit as he pivoted off one foot, and parried away its second slash with his sword. Metal clashed and sparks scattered like fireflies.
In that same instance a shadowy wing of black and grey, bloomed from his temple—It stretched over his right eye like a veil of dusk.
The world shifted and everything drained of colour, falling into desaturated tones, edges sharpened and shadows deppened. Time slowed—not in reality, but in perception. As Altha readied to deliver another strike—this time targeting the other armpit.
The world became anew, readable in a new language.
But the creature remained the same—untouched by the change. It seemed the light did nothing to blind it or even to slow it down.
It charged, its scythe arcing low. Faster than one could perceive. Altha was struck or so he would have if not for a well placed last minute hexagonal translucent barrier plate.
The impact hurled him backward, straight off the bridge.
Wind roared in his ear for a few seconds as stone vanished beneath his feet.
A split second from falling into the canyon below, Altha's hand snatched the railing mid-air, fingers locking around the carved edge like a lifeline spun from instinct.
And swung himself back up—threading his body through the narrow gap like a needle through a keyhole.
Kicking the creature. A solid strike to the chest. It staggered, knocked backward against the opposite railing, teetering near the brink.
For a heartbeat, it wavered.
But then it steadied, dragging its blade-hands down to brace itself, eyes burning across the space between them.
It prepared to leap again—
But Altha was already moving.
He sprinted toward the cathedral, shoes skidding over cracked stone, the creature hot on his heels—a burning shadow crashing through the bridge like a flaming god.
He darted past the broken pews, weaving through ruin and ash.
As he ran, the world around him drained to shades of grey, the shadow-wing at his temple beginning to fade.
Behind him: furniture exploded, smashing into walls and pillars. The cathedral roared with chaos.
All the while he issued a command to his bracer.
"Open Storage: Inscription Tome"
The bracer pulsed. A black-bound book warped into his hand, its fabric page marker fluttering as the summoned weapon vanished from his grip.
The instant the tome opened, a pen shimmered into form, forged from the page marker's thread. His fingers moved with practiced desperation.
He wrote as he ran.
Then he spun on his heel—unleashing a burst of telekinetic force that caught the creature mid-leap and slammed it into a wall with a thunderous crunch.
Without pausing, Altha descended the stairs two at a time.
The fountain waited.
As soon as he was close enough, he dove in, water nearly swallowing him whole.
Tearing the page from the book, he clutched the torn page and waited, breath tight in his chest.
The cathedral doors exploded open.
And like clockwork, the creature came—a thunderous blur of smoke and flame, the smoke growing ever thicker as its scythes scraped the stone while it barreled down the steps.
Altha waited.
The moment it reached the midpoint of the stairs, he fired another burst of telekinetic force—targeting its legs.
The blast struck true and the creature toppled.
It fell—twisting in midair—and hit the fountain like a meteor, steam billowing as the water hissed against its molten frame.
Altha didn't waste a second.
Altha channeled Psyche into the paper and planted it into the water as he jumped out.
The water rose. Forming into a whirlpool of sorts while the creature was trapped inside. Altha felt his Psyche diminishing at a rapid rate.
Hurrying, he flipped open the tome again, scribbling down a second incantation. As the whirlpool raged, he fired the page into its center with a telekinetic pulse.
Crystals burst from the paper, spreading like frost across the cyclone. The water froze mid-motion.
The creature thrashed, its movements frantic—rage and panic incarnate—but the crystal thickened faster than it could break and quickly It was entombed.
Altha dropped to one knee, breath ragged, blood slipping from his nose and falling like ink onto the stone.
"Come on…" he rasped. "Get up…"
His fingers gripped the tome as his body screamed.
"The plan's not done yet. Finish the job, self."
Cracks splintered through the ice. Likely the creature trying to escape. He summoned his hybrid weapon back into his hand then on shaky knees he rose using the weapon as a sort of crutch.
He walked closer to the frozen creature.
Steadying himself. A wing of shadow outstretched from his back and wrapped around his arm like armour.
He gathered what remained of his Psyche and funneled it into the blade—into himself.
Then in one fluid motion the temple was silent once more. Then eight jets of flame burst from the creature.
He stood above the ruins, weapon humming with residual heat.
And then, from the air itself, a voice spoke:
> [Existial Felled: Rusted Rose (Butcher)]
[Remembrance: Claimed.]
His chest heaved. Blood dripped from his chin. He looked up at the sky—blurred, eternal, awash in grey and black and lightless stars.
Is it night already...?
He blinked slowly.
Will I ever see the moon again?
The thought drifted across his mind like a falling leaf.
And then, he was still.