The sun had long vanished behind the dense canopy of Velmara's haunted northern woodlands. Shadows ruled this part of the continent, and even the moon seemed reluctant to illuminate the sorrow that walked beneath the trees.
Asari stood motionless, eyes dull, body dripping with the black ichor of creatures long forgotten by Velmara's historians. His blade, once a thing of ruthless beauty, now looked rusted in misery—a relic of a warrior who had begun to question the necessity of his own strength.
Aicha leaned against a cold, moss-ridden tree nearby, her breath shallow. Her body trembled, not from pain, but from the burden of helplessness. She had seen Asari slaughter monsters, demons, and people alike—but nothing compared to the dead silence that filled him now.
"I saw it again," Asari whispered finally, voice jagged like shattered glass. "That dream… of the sea of corpses. Of your body among them. My hands covered in blood I didn't want to spill."
Aicha's eyes widened, lips parted, but no words came. She had learned not to comfort him with lies.
Adamas, the boy from the northern village who had recently joined them, stood a little further away. His youthful face had matured far too quickly. He held a staff longer than his height—once a ceremonial relic, now a survival tool.
He had seen too much.
"What's happening to this land?" he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "Why is everything rotting? Even time feels broken here."
Velmara had always been known as a continent of ancient knowledge and wild nature, but something had shifted. Eather flowed unnaturally now, corrupted. The trees wept. The animals were hollow. And the people…
There were no people here anymore.
"Asari," Aicha called softly. "You're still here. That means something. Doesn't it?"
He glanced at her. "Does it?"
The ground beneath them cracked faintly. A low, guttural howl echoed between the trees. It wasn't a monster—it was something older. A cry from a time when gods were hunted and sinners ruled.
"Something's coming," Adamas warned.
The boy's staff began to glow faintly, lines of eather forming runes in midair. "This one's not like the others. It's not moving with hunger—it's moving with purpose."
A chill surged up Asari's spine.
"I don't feel it," Asari muttered.
"That's the point," Aicha answered, "neither do I."
Then, silence. Pure, unrelenting silence. Not a single leaf stirred.
It emerged not from the trees, but from the shadows of their own pasts—a malformed being cloaked in illusions and broken memories. It didn't walk. It slithered through time and pain.
"Who… or what is that?" Adamas asked, his voice cracking.
It spoke. Not in words, but in thoughts.
"I am the shadow of your mercy."
It stretched its limb—a cascade of writhing fingers shaped from grief—and touched the ground. The soil turned black.
Asari took a stance. His eyes bled red.
"Devil Cry: Step Two — Requiem Blade."
A surge of dark eather exploded around him. The trees bent away. Even the shadow-creature halted for a breath.
But the moment the blade struck, it passed through the being like a sigh through mist.
"I don't understand," Asari growled.
Aicha gasped. "It's not alive. It's not even real."
"No," Adamas corrected grimly. "It's what's left behind after something worse has died."
They didn't fight it after that. There was nothing to kill. Only truth to face.
Hours later, under a cold, purple twilight, they camped beside the remnants of an old shrine—a forgotten monument to a forgotten god.
"I wonder if we'll ever find a place where we can sleep without watching our backs," Aicha whispered.
Asari didn't answer. He looked up at the starless sky.
"The world is broken," Adamas said. "But maybe we're the shards that still remember its shape."
Aicha pulled her knees to her chest. "It hurts. It hurts that we keep walking and everything gets worse."
"Pain is the last gift this world offers," Asari said flatly. "Once that's gone… you've truly lost everything."
Adamas nodded solemnly.
Above them, a single leaf broke from the dying tree, floating down slowly, like time trying to remember how to move again.
---
"Somewhere, in a place where no prayers reach, we walk—not because we believe in hope, but because we've already accepted despair."