As the armada of flying ships carved their path through the ashen skies, the moon vanished without warning—swallowed whole. The world sank into an abyssal gloom, and with it, every ounce of hope seemed to wither.
A fragment of the Shadow Realm had torn through reality and devoured the moonlight, plunging the battlefield into a stygian void. The world itself seemed to hold its breath.
Darkness reigned.
What had once been dire now plunged into disaster. The air was electric with anticipation and dread—tension so thick it could be cut with a blade. The cohort braced for the clash to come, weapons drawn, nerves taut. Noctis, meanwhile, turned his gaze toward the approaching Chain Lords, his expression unreadable, the weight of a dozen ancient rivalries bearing down upon him.
And yet, amidst the panic and disarray, Klaus sat in eerie stillness on the balcony of the storm-tossed deck, utterly unconcerned with the impending battle. His eyes—usually cool and calculating—gleamed now with a feverish brilliance. He stared at the runes scrawled before him, and something primal twisted in his smile.
Something that made him laugh.
Not a chuckle. Not a bark of amusement.
A true, soul-curdling laugh.
It echoed over the battlefield like a curse, raw and jagged and utterly unnatural. It was the first time anyone—Noctis and even the cohort—had heard his real voice.
It was not a voice made for human ears. It grated like nails across slate, like the sound of glass shattering in an eternal spiral. There was something parasitic in it—madness woven into every syllable. A voice that didn't echo in the air, but in the mind. A laugh that clawed into the soul and whispered things best left buried.
Then the silence shattered again.
A shape broke the sky.
Something was launched skyward, a black blur slicing through the void like an obsidian arrow. All eyes turned skyward as a monstrous shape burst into view — a winged horror, vast and terrible. It soared high above them, black wings slicing through the void with malevolent grace.
A monstrous bird—no, a creature far beyond mortal taxonomy. Hunched and malformed, with a twisted and ragged black feathers clinging like the remnants of mourning cloaks, Its beak was jagged, cruel. Its wings spanned vast enough to blot constellations from the heavens. Madness glinted in its eyes — a gluttonous, brilliant gold — and its very presence screamed of greed and intellect twisted by something ancient and foul.
Everything about it screamed Avarice, Madness and Dominion.
The creature ascended higher and higher, vanishing into the blackness above.
But a heartbeat later, the entire world went still.
Even the armies below froze. Every mundane soldier, every awakened warrior, every flying ship suspended in the grip of some primordial fear. Even Solvane, once brimming with arrogant certainty and empowered by the fragment gifted by Servas, stared upward, lips parted in disbelief. The entire battlefield became a frozen tableau, held captive by the gravity of the moment.
The cohort could not breathe. Could not blink.
Noctis didn't move a muscle.
Sunny trembled—his soul recoiling in revulsion—and let out a strangled gasp. He stumbled back, falling hard onto the deck, eyes wide, body seized with terror. He pointed at the sky with a trembling hand as his voice cracked like glass:
"L-Loathsome… Thieving Bird?"
A terrible cry answered him.
The great bird screamed, a sound so sharp and vile it split the night in two. With talons like obsidian blades, it thrust itself into the darkness—into the Shadow Realm's Fragment itself—and ripped it open.
And then, impossibly…
The moon began to return.
The light, stolen and devoured, began to seep back into the world.
With eyes alight in golden greed, it tore control of the fragment from Solvane like a miser reclaiming a lost treasure. The darkness dissipated. The sky cleared. The light was reborn.
The Loathsome Thieving Bird, hated by gods and daemons alike, had returned—and with a single greedy motion, it stole the fragment of the Shadow Realm from Solvane's grasp. Its eyes blazed with golden madness, radiant with savage glee.
The champions of the gods had been robbed—proof that no one was beyond the reach of a loathsome, thieving bird.
Loki had stolen the shadow.
And in that moment, Klaus heard it.
A voice, ancient and vile, coiled around his thoughts with unspeakable hatred. It sounded less like words and more like poison given form:
[...You have received a fragment of Shadow's Domain.]
Far above, a lone star burned like a flame in the void.
Bathed in amethyst light, the form of the Oldest Dream shimmered into being, hands cradling a black sphere engulfed in flames. His mouth unhinged, grotesquely splitting his face—jaws widening far beyond what was natural. Serrated fangs glistened beneath moonlight, monstrous and wrong.
Far above, moon gleamed brighter than it ever did. A silent witness to the unfolding blasphemy.
And then—
He devoured the fragment of god.
He grinned, hiding his expression behind his gloved hand, eyes blazing with malice, exultation and unfiltered greed. He had waited so long—played his part, made his sacrifices, and now...
Now it was his.
He had spared Mordret not out of mercy. Not merely because they once shared a bond. But because of knowledge—vital, secret knowledge. Knowledge of the Shadow Fragment in Servas's possession. Knowledge of something far more precious.
And now…
His gaze slid to Sunny. The boy flinched under the weight of it.
Klaus saw him clearly now. Every twitch. Every flaw. Every secret.
His aspect. His fatal weakness. His abilities.
And most importantly… the Shadow Bond.
The grin widened.
The game had changed. And Klaus had never been more prepared to play.
The amalgamation of harrowing darkness slithered toward him, its form a churning mass of wrongness. Liquid blackness crawled up Klaus's arm, coiling and twisting as if alive, until—like a dream reborn into radiance—it reshaped itself into a blade.
Where there had been abyssal corruption, there was now a sword of pale, delicate brilliance, as if the very essence of light had been coaxed into form by the void.
And then, low thrum of wings split the silence, with a foul gust of air and a ripple of corruption Loki descended, alighting upon the ancient vessel beside him. The creature's form was grotesque—its body malformed, oily feathers shifting unnaturally, dripping with the stench of nightmares and rot. It was as though it bore on its back the filth of the entire world, collected over endless cycles of sin.
Klaus turned his gaze toward him.
His expression, once lively with sadistic delight, settled into a mask of cold indifference. Eyes like twin stars gone dead. The Vile Thieving Bird, for his part, leered with wicked glee, unrepentant and almost playful in his malevolence.
Klaus inhaled deeply, suppressing the turbulent hunger gnawing at his mind—desires so vast and boundless they had begun to erode his clarity, make him reckless.
His voice came low and even, like frost spreading over still water.
"Return. I know you're weary… after what you've stolen."
Loki let out a low, metallic screech—half avian, half unearthly—and in a shimmer of darkness, he vanished into Klaus's spirit sea.
Within that sacred space, once a tranquil cosmos, now spun something new.
Around the Demon Core, darkness orbited like a planetary ring—a celestial disc of pure shadow, revolving in perfect, ominous harmony. The universe inside him had changed. Grown. Hardened.
The Oldest Dream stepped forward, to the edge of the balcony. Below, the armies stirred, unaware of what truly loomed above them. Klaus gazed down with a pensive, regal silence, as though observing a chessboard laid bare before him.
Then, slowly, deliberately—he bowed.
Bowed before the moon, before the stars, before gods and mortals alike.
A mocking bow, theatrical and elegant. His voice followed in a whisper, laced with amusement and derision.
"The gods are dead… Long live the—me."
Then, he laughed.
And with a single step back, Klaus tipped from the vessel's edge—falling like a shattered star from the firmament.
He descended through the darkness with arms spread wide, cloak billowing behind him like wings of oblivion. His eyes blazed with amethyst fire, and his laughter echoed through the sky.
He tilted his head upward, gazing at a silent star that still burned high above—unchanging and eternal.
And for a fleeting moment, his smile grew wistful.
"Icarus is always destined to fall, huh?"
***
Yes! Yes! Yeees!
Romance can go to hell! I was waiting for this. God, it feels so good to leave behind all that bullshit. Writing fights is best!
Anyway, are you guys surprised? Yep, Loki is Vile Thieving Bird and his last spirit. That's how Klaus lost his cores, they were stolen.
There were few new information as well. Reason he spared Mordret was because of knowledge about Shadow realm fragment and because he knew about Sunny's aspect.
Sunny thought he was keeping things from him? Well, too bad for him.
It's time to go crazy, i was waiting for war for so long, man.
Anyway, thanks for all your support and happy you're enjoying story:)
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