The air rippled with tension as the raven descended in a silent, predatory glide, its wings outstretched like blades of shadow against the pale clouds. It landed just before the El'dan city gates, talons digging into the earth with a hiss of scorched grass and ash.
For a moment, all was still.
Then the change began.
The raven's body convulsed—once, then twice—as if struggling against its own form. Black feathers writhed and twisted, shifting like smoke in reverse. The wings shuddered, pulling inward with an unnatural grace, folding and condensing until they reshaped into long, sinewy arms, veined and powerful.
Talons crunched and cracked, splitting into toes and then lengthening into feet, bare and scarred, each step forward burning a faint ember into the ground.
The transformation climbed upward like fire rising through a tree. The beaked mouth bent and snapped inward, cartilage breaking with sickening pops, reshaping into lips—thin and cruel. The obsidian eyes dulled, swirling into a deep crimson before fading into human irises, cold and ancient.
Every inch of his being stretched taller, broader. Muscles expanded. Shadows clung to him like a cloak as bones snapped into alignment. His chest widened, his neck thickened, and when it was done…
He stood there.
Tall. Sturdy. Silent.
A terrifying silhouette against the cloudy sky, carved from vengeance and flame.
Gone was the bird.
What remained was the man.
The Scarlet Raven.
Uriel Commes—reborn in flesh and fury.
His hair, long and black as a crow's wing, clung to his shoulders. His bare torso bore arcane markings that pulsed faintly like dying stars, evidence of the pact that had forever bound him to the spirit of wrath. His eyes gleamed with something deeper than hatred—something ancient and relentless, the slow boil of a vendetta that had simmered for over a century.
He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring as though tasting the fear lingering in the air.
"Finally," he murmured, voice low, gravelly, and oddly melodic—like a hymn sung over a battlefield.
"I walk again.".
The Scarlet Raven turned his gaze slowly, like a predator scanning a field of prey—not with urgency, but with absolute confidence that nothing in sight could threaten him. His eyes, sharp as obsidian glass, landed on a lone figure standing apart from the trembling ranks of El'dan's gate guards.
Josh Aratat.
Clad in his dark, close-fitted armor, his face hidden behind the sleek contours of a black mask, Josh stood motionless, arms folded, as if this were all beneath his notice. While the soldiers around him shifted nervously, their spears rattling in their hands and sweat beading down their brows, Josh stood still—like a stone carved from defiance itself.
He was calm.
Too calm.
The kind of calm that made even monsters hesitate.
The Scarlet Raven's lips curled into a crooked, wicked grin, amused by the sight. He tilted his head slightly, feathers still shedding from his shoulders like remnants of a curse. His voice cut through the tension like a blade wrapped in velvet.
"You must be the one Alloysius calls... the Black Dragon," he said, drawing out the title with theatrical contempt. "He claims your fame has gone to your head. That your arrogance makes you ripe for slaughter—an appetizer before the real feast."
There was laughter in his voice, dark and delighted, like he was savoring the promise of a kill before the first move had even been made.
Josh didn't move.
Didn't flinch.
He stood there, hands tucked into his cloak, like a man watching the breeze ripple across a pond—casual, unshaken, indifferent.
The Scarlet Raven narrowed his eyes, momentarily intrigued. "You've got the eyes of a man who has seen war… and the silence of one who's lived through it."
The Scarlet Raven smiled, amused by the silence—mistaking it for arrogance, perhaps even weakness.
But he had no idea.
No clue who stood before him.
Josh Aratat had lived through nightmares that would have shattered most men. No, not just lived—he had died. Crushed beneath the weight of an executioner's axe that fell during the supposed execution of Conrad Stan.
His heart had stopped, breath silenced… only to restart moments later when the failsafe Protocol: Invoking the Rule of Sacrifice,—a secret contingency that he never expected to have any advantages but fortunately gave him a new life and a new beginning with the kingly system as a reward, buried deep within him by hands long forgotten in the realm of mortal men.
He had clawed his way back from death itself.
He had stood alone before the Manticore King, a beast whose breath melted steel and whose roar crippled minds.
He had gone toe-to-toe with Amiel Racta, the Hollow General of the North, amidst the smoldering chaos of Balek's transgressions. Surrounded by traitors. Outnumbered by the thousand. He had faced death again and again… and come out colder. Sharper. Unbreakable.
So when he looked at the Scarlet Raven now… he didn't see a god.
He saw another storm.
Another shadow trying to make itself feel tall.
And still—he watched, quiet as the night before a hurricane.
The Scarlet Raven didn't know. Couldn't know.
Because if he did—if he truly understood the weight Josh carried, the torment behind those masked eyes, the lives saved and lost beneath his hands—then he would know that Josh Aratat was not a man to mock.
But in his ignorance, he laughed.
And Josh let him.
Still, something coiled behind that mask. A silent readiness. Not fear. Not even anger. Just the steady pulse of a man who had already stared into the abyss... and remembered its name.
Yet even Josh—weathered and tempered by the worst the world had thrown at him—would have hesitated if he knew the full history of the being before him.
The Scarlet Raven was not like the others.
He didn't fight for dominion or vengeance alone.
He didn't wield power to protect or punish.
He existed as a void where morality once stood—a spirit reborn through desecration and bonded to wrath itself. Where others still carried fragments of humanity, the Scarlet Raven had none. No guilt. No lines to cross. No hesitation.
Just the thrill of ruin.
And if Josh had known that, perhaps his stance might have shifted. Even slightly.
Because even storms know to give the wildfire space to burn.
Still, Josh remained wordless. He tilted his head slightly, like a curious spectator at a street performance, measuring whether the act was worth clapping for.
And in that silence… in that subtle, deliberate lack of reaction… a new tension was born.
Not fear.
Not bravado.
But challenge.
The kind of challenge that didn't need words—because real killers never announced themselves.
They let the dead speak for them.