Book One – Chapter 10

Throughout her insistent barrage, Midnight had tested and understood that these projectiles persisted as long as she consciously controlled them, akin to Yves’ magic conjurations — though Midnight felt that she did not continuously hold the darkness, but rather that the darkness acted almost autonomously once commanded. Recalling that darkness passed through stone unhindered, she had directed all the spears and discs that missed the shadebeast to maintain their trajectory, pass through the cavern walls and then halt beyond. There, they had lain in wait until Midnight, now no longer involved in an unpredictable chase but intertwined with the shadebeast in a battle on the cavern floor, summoned them back all at once.

Almost one-hundred spears and discs, dense distortions of darkness, hurtled towards her and the shadebeast, simultaneously slicing through him like a volley of arrows and blades, cutting into him from all angles. With him looming above, surrounding her, their size difference greatly exacerbated by her diminished form, all of them impaled him. They emerged on the other side, between him and Midnight. Before cutting through her or the ground, all the weapons of darkness were blocked by a shield of Midnight’s tendrils. These tendrils, along with those already embedded within the shadebeast, immediately merged with the darkness projectiles — Midnight did not dissipate them but maintained control over the entire structure; a multi-layered lattice, more grid than web, almost geometrical due to the clear cuts and sharp angles at which the spears and discs had collided. This structure divided the shadebeast hundredfold, encapsulating all his fragments within the confines of her densely compressed, interlinked projectiles. Midnight’s darkness enveloped and assimilated all these isolated fragments. Everything she had severed from him became darkness under her command.

Amongst all these fragments, there remained one she could not control. It was the one fragment that was still him. Just like the shadebeast had repeatedly separated darkness from Midnight’s form until she was reduced to the size of a patherren, a small part of him remained, though much smaller than even her. It was his essence, captured amidst all the external darkness Midnight controlled.

With a single step, she closed the distance, and then she devoured him whole.