There was a time when light and shadow danced together.
The Lady illuminated the paths of men, bringing forth the day and dissolving the uncertainty of night. Her touch was gentle, her glow a beacon for lost hearts. Wherever she went, darkness bowed—not out of fear, but respect. For there was no war between shadow and light, only an ancient pact, a balance that sustained the world.
The Raven, with vast, black wings, was the guardian of the late hours. His gaze pierced through fate, seeing what lay beyond time. He carried neither mercy nor cruelty—only truth. When he descended from the skies, it was either to protect or to judge. His eyes saw the inevitability of the end, and his blade cut down only those whose time could no longer be stretched.
For countless ages, they journeyed together. The Lady bringing the dawn, the Raven watching over dreams until the morning came once more. Neither light extinguished the shadow, nor shadow suffocated the light. They were opposites, yet never enemies.
But fables never end in harmony.
The Fall of the Stars
No one knows exactly when it began, but one day, the stars started to fall.
At first, it was slow—a few glimmers streaking across the sky like torches losing their fire. But then came the black flames. They tore through the heavens like divine spears, piercing the mortal realms and leaving only smoldering ruins behind. It was no ordinary destruction. It was something that devoured the essence of the world itself.
The Sun was the last to fall.
It didn't extinguish immediately, but slowly, like a candle burning itself to the wick. Its light turned into a pale shadow of what it once was until something worse happened: it was swallowed by an endless eclipse.
Day never came again.
Night never faded.
The world became an eternal twilight.
And then… the whispers of corruption began.
No one knows which of the two fell first.
The corruption did not destroy them. It magnified them until they became unrecognizable.
The Lady's light turned unbearable, a brilliance that brought not comfort, but oppression. Her skin became molten gold, her hair eternal flames. Her smile never disappeared—but it was no longer kindness. It was the shadow of what had once been. She no longer guided. She consumed.
The Raven became a sovereign of absolute darkness. His wings, once a refuge for the afflicted, now spread across the sky like a sentence of doom. His eyes became living eclipses, his blade a ruin that erased reality itself. He no longer observed fate. He forged it.
And so, they departed.
They ascended beyond the crumbling realms. They flew over frozen oceans and lands that no longer remembered life. And atop the broken world, before the Black Sun, at the heart of the Abyss Without End, they made their home.
What was once hope now burned as an unending inferno.
What was once protection now ruled as an absolute tyrant.
Those who witness her light are never seen again.
Those who hear his judgment are never remembered….
The abyss was not just a bottomless pit—it was a sentence.
Zeta 4 and Kiyoshi Takahara climbed the black, irregular wall, their fingers and blades digging into the twisted rock to resist the force pulling them downward. It wasn't just gravity. There was something beyond it, a weight not physical but spiritual, dragging at their souls, clawing at Zeta's circuits, trying to pull them into oblivion.
The wind here did not blow. The air was still, as though space itself refused movement. Every meter gained was a battle—not because strength or endurance was lacking, but because the very will to keep going was being devoured.
Zeta 4 had crossed galaxies and studied dead worlds. But this place… this world moved in ways that defied logic.
No matter how precise the calculations, reason insisted that this place should not exist.
— "There's a ledge just above," — Kiyoshi broke the silence, his voice steady despite the strain.
Zeta 4 adjusted his vision. There was, indeed, an opening, a crack in the mountainside wide enough for a brief respite.
But the samurai seemed uneasy.
— "I feel something there," — he added. — "Something… immense."
Zeta 4 didn't respond immediately. He scanned the opening. His sensors detected a void of information—no signs of life, no heat signatures. But that meant nothing in this place.
— "Expected," — came his cold mechanical reply, though even he detected the faint hesitation in his tone. — "The higher we climb, the stronger the resistance becomes. The peak and the depths of this world are twin hells."
Kiyoshi gave a single nod.
— "At least we won't be fighting vertically again. This downward force is… inconvenient."
They reached the edge of the opening and pulled themselves onto the ledge, rolling forward in unison.
And then they saw it.
The space beyond was not just a shelter. It was deep, stretching inward like a collapsed tunnel—a vast cavity untouched by light. But in the distance, faintly, a glow shimmered. A false dawn born within the abyss.
— "Curious," — Kiyoshi murmured. — "The day was banished from the surface… and came here to die."
— "Irrelevant," — Zeta 4 cut in, always pragmatic. — "We move forward."
They advanced into the cavern, their footsteps cautious over the treacherous ground. The silence here was not natural. It was dense, oppressive. Sound was devoured the instant it was made, leaving only the sensation of an invisible presence.
And then they saw it.
A colossal figure stood at the far end of the cavern, upright like a judge awaiting his accused.
A raven, humanoid in form, towering nearly twenty meters tall. Its vast, shadowy wings clung to its back like coiled serpents, writhing gently as if breathing. From its shoulders jutted countless weapons—swords, spears, and arrows—relics of forgotten battles. Some still glimmered faintly, as though the resolve of those who wielded them lingered in defiance.
The creature held a massive sword, an obsidian blade that did not merely absorb light but consumed it.
But the worst part… was the crown.
A black crown floated above its head, turning slowly in place. Each rotation made reality tremble, distorting the air like ripples on a poisoned pond. The weight of its presence was absolute. It was not a king that ruled—it was a judge that condemned.
The gravity intensified.
Kiyoshi felt it first. His body bore a new, crushing weight. His muscles, disciplined through years of training, strained to maintain form.
His sword trembled within its sheath.
It had never done that before.
The blade… was afraid.
He swallowed dryly and glanced at Zeta 4.
— "Can you… estimate its threat level?"
Zeta 4 was already analyzing, running his calculations with relentless precision. Data flooded his processors, comparing this entity to every adversary they'd encountered.
And then the results returned.
— "The corrupted toad we fought before… was infinitely weaker than this."
Silence hung thickly in the cavern.
— "Weaker by how much?" — Kiyoshi pressed.
— "If we translate combat potency into a tangible scale, then…" — Zeta paused for a millisecond, calculating how best to convey the reality. — "The difference between that toad and this being is the same as the difference between a mortal and a collapsing star."
Kiyoshi tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword.
— "And compared to Magnalith?"
Zeta 4 hesitated—a subtle glitch of uncertainty.
— "Magnalith was stronger."
Relief washed over Kiyoshi's face for an instant—until Zeta finished his analysis.
— "But against Magnalith, we had allies. Against this being, we are alone."
The tension thickened.
Zeta 4 concluded:
— "Probability of survival… below average."
The raven's eyes opened.
Twin orbs of pale, dead moons stared back at them.
Judgment had begun.