The group moved in silence. The place made it clear they had crossed a boundary—but something still felt wrong.
Lyn stopped walking for a second. She looked around.
And then she noticed: Allan was no longer there.
"Allan...?" she called, frowning, her fists clenching. "Allan!"
Silence. The space he had occupied was now just a desolate void, as if he had never been there.
"ALLAN!" Kael shouted, his voice echoing through the abandoned buildings, swallowed by the emptiness.
Marcus slowly closed his eyes.
"It's no use. The city... has no fixed paths. It's a living labyrinth. A place without logic. It shows what it wants... leads where it desires. And now, it has taken him."
"But we have to look!" Kaellia retorted.
"Look for what?" Marcus replied, somber. "A shadow? A ruin that may have already disappeared? Here, space and time bend on a whim. Separate from the boy... and you'll meet the same end."
Kael swallowed hard.
"Then... what should we do?"
Marcus pointed to Jin, who walked ahead, silent, his head down. As if something within the city was calling him.
"The city wants him. He's the maestro... and this is his dance."
Everyone followed Jin.
Meanwhile... Allan ran.
But he didn't know where to. The city twisted with each step, buildings merging into the black mist. He shouted for his friends—no response. And then, the voices came.
Dissonant whispers. Soft as torn velvet. Laughing, crying, calling.
"Allan..."—"You were never one of them..."—"Always in the shadows..."—"Look at you... alone, as you always were..."
Shadowy figures danced around him. Distorted faces. Allan recoiled, trembling... until he fell.
"You could be more..."—"Could be strong... like him..."—"Just... dance."
He tried to resist. He closed his eyes. But then a shadow touched him.
Darkness enveloped him. And he didn't fight.
The cold invaded his skin—but with it came power. Primal. Raw. Indescribable.
Allan yielded. He didn't know why. Fear, perhaps. Or weariness. Or... maybe, he had liked it.
Time passed uncertainly. Hours, maybe days. The group's faces were marked by exhaustion. But Jin... Jin didn't stop.
Kael watched around, tense. The shadows still bowed to Jin's presence... but something seemed different.
"Wait..." Saphira whispered. "Where's Lyn?"
Everyone stopped.
She was no longer there.
"She was just here!" Kaellia gripped her staff tightly. "How did she just vanish like that?"
Saphira, always calm, seemed on the verge of panic.
"One by one... She's going to take everyone..." she murmured, with a vacant smile.
Marcus frowned.
"The city feeds on the distracted. Straying from Jin... is signing your own death warrant."
"Lyn is an experienced conjurer!" Saphira said, her voice choked. "She wouldn't get lost like this!"
Kael clenched his fists.
But before they could say more, the ground trembled.
The shadows closed in around the group.
And then... Allan appeared.
Or... what was left of him.
His eyes, empty and spectral, glowed with dark energy. His body, wrapped in black veils, pulsed with aggression and pain. The shadows around him writhed, like creatures trapped in agony.
"Allan?!" Kael took a step forward, but Marcus stopped him.
Allan stood before them.
Silence.
His mere presence was suffocating. No one moved. He just stared at them.
And then... he disappeared.
In the blink of an eye.
...
A crash.
Marcus was thrown against the rubble of a house. Allan appeared, walking calmly towards him.
"I... didn't even blink," Kael murmured, in shock.
Each of Allan's steps was like a nail in the ground. Solid. Unstoppable.
Saphira fell to her knees. Her legs wouldn't obey.
Jin didn't move. He just stared at the ground.
And then... Bouros laughed.
> "Still a sentimental fool."
> "You don't understand. Neither pain. Nor control. It irritates me."
> "Are you just going to stand there... like when your mother screamed for help? Like when I ripped out your soul for the first time?"
> "You've already lost everyone. What does losing one more change?"
>
The laughter echoed like blades sharpening strings.
> "Then listen to me, idiot. Command. Now. Or repeat the same ending."
>
Jin took a deep breath. His eyes darkened.
The shadows shuddered.
And he spoke.
His voice—cold, emotionless, laden with authority.
"Kneel."
The air screamed. The ground trembled.
Allan froze in place.
The shadows forced him to the ground—kneeling before Jin.
Jin advanced, his gaze empty.
"You will dance for me now," he said, as if delivering a sentence.
Allan gasped. Still surrounded by darkness. He was no longer an enemy. Not even a shadow. But he also... wasn't the same.
"You... Who are you?" he asked, as if seeing Jin for the first time.
Jin didn't answer.
Behind him, the group watched him—not as a companion, but as something new. Something... above.
Marcus just watched. His gaze hard.
Jin moved on. Without a word.
And the shadows... parted the way.
The silence that followed was heavy. Even with Marcus getting up, the group didn't move. No one knew what to say. What they had seen... wasn't Jin. Or perhaps it was Jin as they had never seen him before.
Kael tried to approach Allan, still kneeling, but the shadows around him reacted violently, snarling like chained beasts.
"He... is trapped," Kaellia murmured. "Like a dog on a short leash."
Jin turned only his face.
"If you approach, he attacks. And I will make him devour his own soul."
Kael recoiled, swallowing hard.
"You're controlling him...?"
Jin simply nodded.
"For how long...?" Kael insisted.
"For as long as he is useful."
The words cut deeper than any spell. Allan, even possessed, lowered his head as if it hurt him more than the command.
Saphira wrung her hands, her voice trembling:
"This isn't you..."
Jin stared at her, impassive.
"What I was... didn't conquer anyone."
And then he turned, resuming his march.
The shadows followed him. And the world around him seemed to mold itself—as if the city itself recognized a new maestro.
Marcus walked beside him.
"Finally. You begin to understand. Control isn't evil. It's survival."
Jin didn't answer.
But something within him had changed.
Kael, behind, watched everything in silence. The way Jin walked, the way he spoke. How the very air seemed to obey him.
Something was being born there.
Or perhaps... something was dying.
The city streets remained distorted, like poorly healed scars on a dying body. The group walked, silent, following Jin—or what he had become.
Allan came right behind, his shadows undulating like veils about to suffocate the world.
Saphira approached him, her voice low, almost a whisper.
"Are you alright?"
Allan smiled, his eyes vacant, as if nothing had happened.
"Better than ever."
Saphira shrank back. This wasn't the Allan they knew.
Kael stared at his friend, his hand involuntarily closing around the hilt of his sword.
"He's not with us..." he murmured.
The shadows around, once erratic, now seemed organized. Where Jin passed, they bowed. Before Allan, they parted, as if he were part of the very composition.
And then, the atmosphere changed.
The fog grew denser, heavier, suffocating. A black smoke crawled between them, like fingers exploring the cracks of sanity.
That's when she appeared.
A female shadow, with a hunched body and long robes made of burnt sheet music, walked towards Jin. Her eyes were empty, her presence silent—but oppressive.
Allan saw her first. Even possessed, his body trembled. Sweat ran down his face. Everyone noticed his fear.
When the shadow touched Jin's arm, the city floor shook. A muffled thunder echoed within each of them.
And then... everyone could see her.
Her voice cut through the air like a twisted melody, a song played on a broken instrument.
"Maestro..."
She knelt before Jin, her head bowed.
"May my last dance... be by your side."
And then she dissolved. Evaporated like smoke.
Only a black sheet of music remained, floating in the air, until it was absorbed into Jin's chest.
He closed his eyes.
The shadows fell silent. Not out of fear, but out of respect.
Kaellia, overcome by emotion, stepped forward, her eyes welling up.
"How can you be quiet now?!" her voice was choked with anguish. "Are you confused? Isn't it obvious?! We need to find Lyn! We need to get out of here!"
Jin didn't answer.
Saphira tried to hold her back, but it was too late.
And then the world shook.
A blast of cold cut through the air like a blade. Marcus hunched over, feeling his knees buckle. Kael reached for his sword, but even the gesture seemed futile.
She appeared before them.
Small. Silent.
The silhouette of a child made of pure shadow. And with her... a nameless terror.
Saphira fell to her knees, her hands trembling.
Kaellia stood still, as if her body had been emptied.
Kael took three steps back before he realized it.
Marcus just whispered:
"This... is not a common shadow."
And Jin...
He felt it.
For the first time since the destroyed village, since Bouros... he felt fear.