The silence was unbearable.
Even the wind had vanished, swallowed by the presence of that cloaked entity now standing at the heart of the battlefield. It didn't speak. It didn't breathe. It simply stood, an omen made flesh, cloaked in a shroud of endless night. Its face was hidden beneath layers of cloth and shadows, but I could feel its eyes—ancient, hollow, eternal—digging into me.
Judging.
Unmaking.
The remains of the crater around me were warped, decaying under its influence. Cracks spread across stone like veins, and the blood in the sand darkened into ash. Even my Essence began to flicker—fighting, resisting—but failing.
Voidscar was heavy in my hand. Not physically.
Spiritually.
It trembled like it too had knelt before this thing once—and barely survived.
I stood slowly.
But every muscle screamed.
Not from pain.
From dread.
Then it moved.
One hand rose from beneath the folds of its robe—long, thin, bony, and blackened like the remains of something left to rot in the vacuum of space. It didn't point. It didn't clench.
It simply reached for me.
And the air broke.
A noise like glass shattering underwater filled my ears. The space between us warped, stretching and bending as its hand drifted closer. I tried to move—anything—but I couldn't. My legs were locked. My body was bound by some unseen gravity, like my soul itself had been pinned to the earth.
It wasn't just reaching for me.
It was reaching through me.
The despair it carried was… unbearable.
I felt everything.
Loss. Regret. Emptiness.
Every failure. Every death. Every mistake I'd ever buried clawed its way back into my mind. I saw faces. Names. Memories. Scarlet. Nyxia. The forests. The screams.
My knees buckled.
And still that hand inched closer.
Closer—
Closer—
"Matte!"
A voice.
Sharp. Familiar.
Then warmth—real warmth—touched my hand.
I turned my head.
Violet.
Her cloak whipped behind her, eyes wide, glowing bright with panic and purpose. Her hand gripped mine tight—too tight.
"Don't look at it," she said. "Just hold on."
Her other hand was already glowing—sigils flaring across her wrist and palm, etched into her skin like scars lit by starlight.
The creature's hand paused—just inches from my face.
I could feel its breath.But it had no mouth.
Violet slammed her palm into the air beside us.
"VOR'NAH ISH'EL."
The sigil ignited, blinding blue tearing open space in front of us. The edges crackled like fire frozen in motion. Energy surged, pulling us forward.
The creature's hand twitched.
The sigil pulsed.
And just as the tip of its finger brushed the edge of my Essence—
We vanished.
The world snapped back into motion.
Air exploded into my lungs.
We slammed into solid ground—stone, not sand—rolling across a jagged surface lined with dust and ancient moss. I coughed violently, the chill of the new environment clinging to my skin like ice.
I looked up.
Massive, dark stone walls towered above us—reaching hundreds of feet into the sky, curved and lined with archaic glyphs and rusted reinforcements.
The outer walls of the Wastelands.
Violet fell beside me, panting, her cloak torn and smoldering at the edges. Her eyes were wide with terror, but she didn't let go of my hand.
"What the hell was that…?" I gasped.
She didn't answer at first.
Just stared at the horizon behind us, where the air still shimmered faintly—like the tear in the sky was trying to find us.
"I don't know," she whispered. "But it wasn't meant to be here. Not yet. Not this far in."
I sat up, chest heaving.
"I've faced Dracus, NULL, death… but that? That thing—what is it?"
Violet's gaze lowered.
"That wasn't a Dracus. That wasn't even a creature."
Her voice dropped.
"That was Despair incarnate. A fragment. A Watcher. One of the things that existed before the VOID had a name."
Silence stretched between us.
I realized I was shaking.
"Why did it want me?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, her hand gripped mine tighter.
And for a moment…I knew she was just as afraid as I was.
The Wastelands groaned behind us. The walls stood tall.
But we weren't safe.
Not anymore.
The sky above the Wastelands had no stars that night. Just that same violet crack, barely visible now, pulsing faintly beyond the clouds like a scar trying to close.
I couldn't move.
Not really.
Every inch of me ached—bone, muscle, mind. My hands were locked around Voidscar's hilt, but I couldn't even lift the blade. My limbs were numb, my body trembling with every breath. Cuts crisscrossed my chest and arms, some deep, others raw and burning. My ribs felt shattered. My Essence was spent, flickering weakly like a candle in a hurricane.
And yet somehow, I was still alive.
Only because she was there.
Violet slung my arm over her shoulders, small and trembling beneath my weight, and dragged me forward. Step after agonizing step. She didn't say a word. Didn't complain. Her eyes were locked ahead, jaw tight, cloak fluttering behind her like a tattered banner of defiance.
The Wastelands loomed around us—silent, cracked, whispering with voices long dead. The walls behind us faded from view. The terrain turned into a rocky pass, overgrown with gnarled vines and half-buried ruins. The path curved, veiled by a crumbled statue and two withered trees that had somehow survived the blast zone's decay.
Then she stopped.
Reached down.
And touched a stone with a sigil carved into it—faint, ancient, but unmistakably familiar.
The glyph glowed beneath her fingers.
And the wall beside us shifted.
Stone receded like water pulling back from the shore, revealing a narrow passage that opened into a hidden tunnel—natural, untouched by the war and storms. The air inside was still and cool, filled with the scent of earth and lavender.
Only then did she speak.
"Scarlett and I made this place a long time ago. Before things fell apart. Before we lost… everything."
She didn't look at me when she said it.
Just kept pulling me forward.
The tunnel gave way to a cavern. A quiet sanctuary carved from stone, lit by faint, glowing blue crystals embedded in the walls. There was a spring in the center—clear, still, untouched. Surrounding it were blankets, old crates of supplies, faded cloaks, and a small stone altar with a strange metallic orb resting on it—pulsing with a soft, steady rhythm.
She eased me down onto one of the bedrolls.
I groaned, biting back a cry.
She reached out, gently pried my fingers off Voidscar, and laid the blade beside me. Her hands were gentle, precise—like she'd done this before.
She pulled salves from a crate. Herbs. Bandages. Vials of clear liquid. I didn't recognize half of them.
"Don't move," she said softly, and despite the pain, I listened.
She began with the worst of it—pulling shards from my side, dousing the wounds with something that burned like fire, then numbed like frost. My vision blurred, but she never stopped. She worked in silence, wiping blood from my face, wrapping my ribs, stitching torn flesh with trembling fingers.
"You shouldn't be alive," she muttered once, mostly to herself. "That much NULL… should've erased you."
I wanted to answer.
But sleep was dragging me under.
And for once, I didn't fight it.
The next few days passed in pieces.
Waking.
Sleeping.
Drifting.
I'd open my eyes and see her sitting near the spring, whispering to the orb on the altar.
I'd drift off and wake again to find her crushing herbs, lighting small candles, pressing a cool cloth against my forehead. Sometimes I'd hear her humming—just softly enough to feel like a memory I couldn't place.
My body slowly began to stitch itself back together.
Essence returned in quiet pulses—faint, weak, but growing stronger. The burns along my ribs faded. My breathing stopped rattling. My fingers twitched with purpose again. The pain never vanished completely, but it dulled, became something I could carry.
By the fifth day, I sat up on my own.
Violet was there instantly.
Eyes wide, worried.
"You shouldn't be sitting yet."
I coughed, groaned, and gave her a broken smile.
"Didn't have much of a choice."
She knelt beside me, checked the bandages again, her touch gentle.
"How long have I been out?" I rasped.
"Four nights. Almost five. You were bleeding internally. The NULL tried to keep itself in you."
I swallowed.
"Where are we?"
She looked toward the spring.
"A sanctuary. Hidden in the outer ring. We used to come here when it got too loud out there. Scarlett and I. When the missions turned to nightmares, and we didn't know who we were anymore…"
Her voice faded.
I watched her.
There was something broken in her eyes.
Not cracked—buried.
Like someone who'd seen too much and didn't get to forget it.
"You saved me," I said.
She looked at me. "Of course I did."
Her voice trembled slightly.
"You're the only reason we even have a chance anymore."
I frowned. "You don't even know what I am."
She stood slowly, her eyes drifting back to the altar.
"No," she said. "But I've seen the way Essence wraps around you. I've felt it. And that creature… it didn't want you dead, Matte."
She turned.
"It wanted to claim you."
Silence filled the cavern.
The spring rippled once.
And far above us, the sky pulsed again.