He had followed the arrow back. Had he... stolen Karna's Ascended Ability?
Just like he had stolen Princess Revel's true darkness.
"He's here! Fight!"
The black odachi moved.
In the next few minutes, Karna witnessed a scene of pure horror.
The Lord of Shadows did not just look like a fiend... he was a fiend. The sinister Saint moved with the grace of a dancer and the ruthless precision of a butcher, his sword never resting and never failing to find its target. His white hair fluttered in the wind like ghostly silk.
The attacks of the Awakened warriors either missed him entirely or were deflected by the polished surface of the onyx armor, not leaving even a scratch on it. The Nightmare Creatures — terrifying monsters that had once threatened the lives of the champions of the Song Army — fell to the ground one after another, their bodies severed and horribly mangled by the black sword.
The Lord of Shadows moved in the storm of blood like an omen of death, the gaze of his fierce mask remaining utterly indifferent, utterly cold... utterly devoid of mercy.
But the demon was not without emotion.
What frightened Kama the most... was that he could faintly hear the sinister Saint humming an upbeat tune as he slaughtered Corrupted abominations and bathed in their blood.
The sick bastard... was enjoying the harrowing massacre.
Karna had been wrong.
That thing could not be a human.
It had to not be a human — otherwise, there would be nothing sane left in the world.
At some point, the Lord of Shadows seemed to have grown tired of pretending to be a person and shed his human disguise, turning into a towering devil with four mighty arms and a frightening crown of horns. His already terrifying strength exploded, and he continued his macabre dance of death, tearing a path of carnage and destruction across the caravan.
Nothing could stop him.
One second, he was in one place, gruesomely tearing a powerful Nightmare Creature apart. Next second, he was somehow a hundred meters away, throwing a Master to the ground with a heavy blow of his onyx gauntlet.
And throughout all of this, the darkness continued to flow. The shadows continued to move. The black chains rattled as they imprisoned their prey, and blood flowed like a river.
Karna was... appalled.
But his indignation did not save him.
In the end, his enchanted bow was cut in half, his sword was shattered, and he was thrown to his knees, the black chains binding his limbs.
The battle was over.
Shaking, Karna looked around.
The darkness was gone. The burning pilgrims had turned to ash. The thralls of Beastmaster were all eviscerated, laying in bloody piles on the ground. The Awakened warriors were all bound by chains, many of them unconscious...
They were utterly defeated.
And the lone creature that had defeated them had not even shed a single drop of blood.
Karna let out a desperate growl.
"Curse you! Curse you, you demon!"
His voice was the only thing breaking the silence, apart from the groans of the wounded soldiers.
No... there was another sound.
The Lord of Shadows was still humming joyfully, as if today was the best day of his life.
The terrifying demon of darkness had assumed his human form once again, observing the battlefield with a strange sense of satisfaction, like a demented artist looking at a painted canvas.
But then... Something was not right.
Karna looked around once more, trying to understand where the sense of incongruity he felt had come from.
After a while, a slight shudder ran through his body.
The pilgrims had been destroyed, and the thralls had been slaughtered. However, the humans...
Many were wounded, and many were bleeding. However, their wounds were shallow, and their bleeding was light.
They were knocked out, bound by the black chains, and immobilized. But they were alive.
Karna gasped, feeling both relieved and suffocated. He felt bitter. Because he knew...
That keeping an enemy alive in a battle was much harder than killing them. The Lord of Shadows, that fiend... had not even shown them his true power. His true malevolence, his true ability to sow death were still unknown.
‘How could that be?’
‘How bad Princess Revel survived meeting this horror?’
"Why..."
His whisper was quiet, but the dark apparition seemed to have heard him.
The Lord of Shadow turned the chilling gaze of his
lightless eyes in Karna's direction. Knowing that there was no sense in trying to avoid attention anymore, Karna gritted his teeth.
"Why did you spare us?!"
The fiend stared at him silently for a while, then chuckled.
His voice was cold and arrogant:
"...Because Changing Star asked me to show mercy today."
The Lord of Shadow grew quiet for a moment, then let out a regretful sigh.
"It's such a shame. Usually, I love nothing more than slaying humans. How unfortunate.„ ah, I'm in a terrible mood."
With that, he continued to hum his lively tune and walked away. Karna heard terrifying sounds coming from somewhere behind, but he could not turn around. It was as if something enormous was feasting, scraping the ancient bones with countless metal feet as it moved.
After some time — an eternity, perhaps — the sounds grew quiet. Then, the black chains binding him dissolved into a tide of shadows. He was free.
Standing up, Kama turned and looked around.
All around him, the wounded soldiers were swaying as they rose from the ground.
But the caravan itself was gone. The wagons had disappeared without a trace, most likely utterly destroyed and swallowed by some abominable being.
All that remained were the corpses of the slain Nightmare Creatures, and the blood painting the surface of Godgrave red.
And fear.
Fear of meeting the Lord of Shadows on a day when that dreadful demon was not held back by the mercy of Lady Changing Star.