"Arise," Yama commanded. "Let me see what the Womb of Nyr has given me."
The creature stood. It towered, elegant in its nightmare form.
Yama smiled.
"You are Noctis, the perfected one. The blade in my shadow. And you have only one purpose."
The creature did not respond. It did not breathe.
Yama leaned closer.
"You will bring her to her knees."
The crystal chamber responded to his command. Images of Anubis flickered across the walls—her ascension, her forge transformation, her glow like violet dusk—beautiful and terrifying.
"She bears the fire of the forge," Yama whispered. "She thinks herself untouchable."
His smile twisted.
"Burn her soul if you must. Tear her mind. Break her will. But leave her body intact."
Noctis didn't blink. It simply understood.
A tear opened in the chamber—an ancient gate bound by forgotten oaths and blasphemous rituals.
Noctis stepped through.
---
*Back on Earth*
Anubis walked through the quiet garden paths behind the academy after class, alone. The weight of her silence was more than emotional—it was spiritual. Even the flowers closed around her.
The wind shifted.
And she felt it.
She turned, eyes narrowing.
It wasn't Ramiel.
It wasn't Yama.
It was something else.
Older.
Hungrier.
She stepped into the clearing where the trees grew thin... and the light vanished.
A figure emerged from the shadows ahead—its body wrapped in ink, head tilted slightly like a beast curious about its prey.
It didn't speak.
Anubis didn't either.
They just looked at one another.
And then it moved.
Too fast.
Her wind magic surged to block—but it passed through like mist, and slammed her back into a tree.
She staggered, eyes wide.
Not even Yama moved that fast.
Her lips parted.
"...what are you?"
Noctis raised its hand, and from its palm emerged black tendrils—like leeches woven from thought.
They whipped toward her, and Anubis screamed as they latched to her skin—not tearing flesh, but soul. Her body glowed in violet pulses as she fought it off, forcing the fire of the Forge to erupt through her veins.
She blasted the tendrils back, and the creature staggered a step—but only one.
It retracted its limbs, then tilted its head again. As if... pleased.
It would enjoy this.
Anubis gritted her teeth and summoned the runes on her arms. Light laced her spine, violet and burning.
"You were sent to break me," she said, rising into the air.
The trees bent backward. The sky flickered.
"But I don't bend anymore."
She raised her hand.
"Oblivion Pulse."
A sphere of silence and pressure erupted around her, swallowing Noctis into a bubble of collapsing space.
But from inside... Noctis smiled.
It didn't need to speak.
Anubis could already hear it in her mind:
"I was born in darkness. You are only borrowing it."
The clearing warped with pressure. The moment Anubis activated Oblivion Pulse, reality twisted in on itself.
Leaves disintegrated midair. The grass turned to ash in concentric waves around her, and Noctis was caught at the epicenter—dragged into a sphere of unraveling space, where even gravity screamed.
But it didn't die.
Noctis existed beyond the laws of this world. Born from the Womb of Nyr, its body adapted instantly, reforming within the entropy like liquid shadow—watching her.
Anubis hovered above, her hair suspended, glowing runes lighting her arms, face, and chest like a celestial map of war. Her eyes burned violet and gold. Her breath was steady—but she felt it.
The creature wasn't afraid.
It lunged.
She shot backward, wind slamming down as she redirected herself. The blast cratered the earth. She raised both hands, summoning Blades of Etherfire, daggers forged from the same forge flame that rebirthed her soul.
They hit Noctis dead-on—
—but passed through.
It split like liquid, reforming behind her.
A tendril shot into her back, not slicing—but stabbing into her mind.
Anubis screamed.
Memories flooded. Pain. Childhood. Death. The forge. Her parents. Ramiel. Yama. Zeus. Shadows all around.
She fell from the air, landing hard, gasping as the creature descended slowly, silently, like a god that had forgotten it was ever mortal.
---
Elsewhere—On the Upper Floors of the Academy
Ramiel sat alone at the topmost tower, gazing at the sky.
Then he felt it.
Not magic.
Not war.
Something wrong.
He stood up sharply.
"No," he whispered. "He didn't."
But the scream that followed—a tear in the soul, not just sound—confirmed it.
Yama hadn't sent just him.
He vanished into shadow.
---
*Back in the clearing*
Anubis staggered to her feet. Her skin burned where the tendril had struck, a void-wound still oozing black light. Her hands trembled—not from pain, but from fury.
"I see what you are now…" she growled. "You're not here to kill me."
Noctis said nothing.
"You're here to open me."
She clenched her fists and screamed.
"Flame of the Forge—Release!"
Her body erupted in violet-white aura. Runes expanded outward from her skin into the air like holographic circles. The sky darkened instantly. Thunder cracked.
She charged.
And so did the creature.
They collided midair in an explosion that leveled every tree in a 200-meter radius.
---
Then he appeared.
Ramiel dropped from the shadows, eyes wide as he saw the battlefield—trees burned, the earth scorched, Anubis hovering, bloody and radiant… and it.
"Noctis," he whispered. "Father... you bastard."
The creature turned to him, and for the first time—paused.
Ramiel summoned his weapon—Sable Fang, a blade carved from his own shadow—and rushed in.
Anubis blinked. "You—?!"
"Later," he said. "I'll explain after we live."
He slashed. Anubis followed up, wind converging with fire. Ramiel's blade carved through Noctis's outer shell, while her forge-born wind ignited it from the inside.
It screeched. Not a sound, but a distortion.
The creature reeled. For a moment, it staggered.
Then it changed.
Its body split into dozens of shadow fragments, each forming smaller blades and tendrils, swirling around them like a storm.
Anubis screamed, casting a barrier of elemental wind.
Ramiel moved to shield her back.
They fought in perfect rhythm—wind and shadow, flame and steel.
But they weren't enough.
Noctis reformed behind them and exploded outward.
One tendril pierced Anubis's side.
Another speared through Ramiel's shoulder.
They both hit the ground hard.
Blood painted the soil.
Ramiel gasped, struggling to rise, shadows writhing around his blade as he pushed his broken arm to lift it.
Anubis spat blood, eyes flaring in rage.
The creature didn't press the attack.
It stood at the center of the carnage, head tilting slightly—almost... examining them.
Then it stepped back into the shadows and vanished.
Silence rained next.
Ramiel collapsed beside Anubis, clutching his shoulder.
"You… okay?" he muttered.
She didn't answer for a second.
Then—"No. But I'm not dead."
She sat up, breathing raggedly.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
"Because he sent me," Ramiel admitted. "But not for this."
She turned her head slowly toward him.
"I didn't know he'd unleash that," he added. "I swear it."
Anubis looked away.
"I believe you," she said, then added softly, "because if you lied… I'd have already killed you."
Ramiel exhaled slowly and chuckled, even through the pain. "That's fair."
They sat in silence—bruised, bloodied, backs to each other beneath a fractured sky.
Somewhere far above, the heavens stirred.
The creature had gone, but it had not retreated in defeat. It had measured their strength and will continue to watch them.