The sky was bleeding fire.Kaiza had no more than a fraction of a moment to acknowledge the blast before the shockwave ripped through the wreckage, propelling stone and dust into the air. The blow struck him like a hammer, stealing his breath as he slid across the earth.Soryn was moving quicker.Far too quick.Before Kaiza landed on the ground, he was already getting up, the golden eyes lighting up as she unsheathed her sword. Her posture was tense, braced, prepared to kill.Kaiza spat out dust as he shook it from his hair. "What the devil?"And he saw it.A figure stood at the rim of the ruins, wreathed in dancing silver fire. Tall. Cloaked. A sword at his hip, its blade glowing with unnatural power. The very air around him seemed to warp, bending under the pressure of his presence.Kaiza's breath caught.The Harbinger.The one who had almost killed them last time.Soryn let out a sharp breath. "So much for a head start."The Harbinger stepped forward, his armored boots grinding aga

Kaiza’s breaths were quick and harsh, his body still recovering from the fight.They had put the Hollow City behind them, but its presence still clung to him like rot.The weight of what had just happened, the power he had summoned, the thing he had done, pressed in his chest like a stone.Since they left, Soryn had barely spoken.She was watching him. Not with fear but with calculation.She had seen how he had utilized the Abyss to devour the creature.The same way the Hollow King had okayed.They’d clawed their way out, but Kaiza knew the truth:He had not left that throne room untouched.The mark on his palm pulsed.Not in pain.In hunger.He brought his fingers together in a fist. Ignored it.They had to keep moving.But thenThe earth under them shifted.There was a surge of energy coursing through the ruins.Not from behind them. Not from the Hollow King.From ahead.Soryn reacted first. Kaiza blinked, and her sword was in her hand, eyes of gold finding darkness ahead.There was

The battlefield was chaos.Kaiza crucifies the Harbinger, holding blades with his arms on fire, abyssal embers flooding through his blood.The silver-eyed executioner neither hesitated nor flinched, and his blade weighed heavily with judgment, each arc decisive, accurate, and unerring.Soryn hung behind them, fighting like a specter; her razor sounded erratic, cutting through the Abyss Hunters.She was outnumbered but not outmatched.And then.The sky broke.A tearing, demonic sound ripped through the air, as if the fabric of reality itself had been torn apart.Kaiza had barely time to think before something fell from above.Not from the heavens.From something beyond them.The Abyss itself.The Harbinger froze, his silver eyes lifting to the disturbance. Abyss Hunters stilled, sigil blades lit but moving awkwardly, warily.Even Soryn hesitated, her golden eyes darting over to the blackness now draping over the battlefield like ink.Then it stepped through.And the world tilted.It wa

And then Kaiza barely had a second to breathe before the Harbinger moved. One second ago, he was standing all the way across the ruin-pocked battlefield. Now—his blade was swinging for Kaiza’s throat. Kaiza moved on reflex; his sword rose just in time to meet the sigil-etched steel. The ground shook underneath them as an explosion tore through the quaking air, their red-trimmed armaments locked together.The Harbinger’s silver eyes blazed, “You are not human anymore.” Kaiza gritted his teeth and pushed back. “I was never just human.”The Harbinger’s blade and the motion of his movements were truly impossible.Too fast, even for Kaiza’s abyss-hastened senses. Before Kaiza could adjust, the Harbinger took a step and came back down, his sword igniting deep into Kaiza’s shoulder.Fire erupted, but not fire like normal fire.But it was burning." Something was attempting to peel the Abyss out of him.Kaiza staggered back but clutched his sword.His wound-up didn’t fix straight away.The Har

Kaiza rose shakily to his feet, heaving breaths, his mind splintering under the weight of what was standing before him.The figure, the part of him that had never been cursed, the brother he would have known on the other side of his death, watched him wordlessly, the empty space where a face should be shifting, flickering, like he was still settling into this world."You don’t belong here."The words did not come from the figure’s mouth.They had originated from Kaiza’s own mind.Images raced through his mind of this other life, the one that should have been his.A simple home. A quiet life. A family.And the epiphany struck him like a knife in the chest.This was the Kaiza he never settled into being.The man had sacrificed him the instant he had eaten of the flesh of the mermaid.And now, the Abyss had allowed that man to enter this world.Kaiza’s pulse hammered.Because this was more than a battle.It was a replacement.If he failed, he wouldn’t merely die.He wouldn’t just be remo