The heavens bled a deep, foreboding crimson as the dying sun clawed at the horizon, its waning light casting jagged, restless shadows over the ravaged expanse of the battlefield.
The air was choked with the pungent stench of charred flesh, an acrid symphony that mingled with the sickly-sweet, metallic tang of spilled blood.
Every breath carried the weight of suffering, thick and cloying, as if the battlefield itself wept for the countless lives extinguished upon its desecrated soil.
The once-proud banners of the Evernight Legion, once symbols of unwavering dominance, now lay desecrated in the muck, their torn and tattered remnants fluttering weakly in the mournful breeze.
Once vibrant insignias, gilded and revered, were now reduced to mere shadows of their former glory, encrusted with filth and baptized in the blood of those who had fought beneath them.
Beneath the oppressive sky, the earth had been transformed into a grotesque tapestry of carnage—limbs twisted at unnatural angles, armor shattered like discarded husks, and steel blades, once instruments of war, now lay broken and useless amidst the fallen.
The ground, once firm and unyielding, had been churned into a morass of blood-soaked dirt and viscera, swallowing the dead in a silent, merciless embrace.
Each corpse told a story of agony—eyes frozen in expressions of terror, hands still reaching for lost weapons, mouths agape in the final, futile cries of the damned.
The battlefield, once a place of pride and purpose, had become a monument to ruin—an unholy graveyard where the echoes of battle had faded, leaving only the whispers of the dead and the slow, creeping stillness of oblivion.
The weak had been culled.
The strong had endured.
Amidst the desolation, where death had woven its grim tapestry, a lone figure remained—an unyielding shadow against the embers of twilight.
Nox Sillon.
His breath was measured, calm, untouched by the ruin that sprawled before him.
Twin pools of molten crimson burned beneath the hood of his tattered cloak, their eerie glow slicing through the encroaching darkness.
His gaze swept across the battlefield—an ocean of broken bodies and shattered steel, where the dying clung to their final, fleeting gasps and the dead lay cold in silent testament to their failure.
The wind howled, carrying the scent of blood and fire, yet Nox stood unmoved, as if he alone remained untouched by the weight of carnage.
Here, among the fallen, the fate of the weak had already been sealed.
And for the strong?
The night was far from over.
His tattered black armor, a testament to countless battles, bore the scars of war—deep gouges, cracked plating, and the lingering stains of blood, some his own, most belonging to the fallen.
Each dent, each fracture told a story of violence endured, of clashes that had shaped him into the warrior he had become.
The blade in his grasp, a wicked length of steel now dulled by carnage, dripped with the lifeblood of his latest adversary, its crimson sheen catching the dying embers of sunlight before darkness swallowed the land.
His grip was steady—unyielding.
Yet beneath that mask of composure, beneath the eerie stillness of his form, a tempest roiled.
A quiet, seething storm of exhaustion, rage, and something else—something unspoken, lurking in the depths of his crimson gaze.
The battle was over.
They had won.
But victory here was a hollow thing, stripped of triumph, devoid of exultation.
No cries of conquest echoed across the battlefield, no banners were raised in celebration.
There was only silence—the grim, suffocating stillness of the fallen, the weight of another struggle endured, another step taken toward an end that remained obscured, always just beyond reach.
Then, amidst the hush of the dead and dying, a voice rang out from behind him.
"Nox Sillon."
The name sliced through the oppressive silence, sharp as a blade drawn in the dark.
Nox turned, his crimson gaze settling on the man who approached—a figure of stark contrast against the ruin that surrounded them.
Long, silken strands of silver hair cascaded past the man's shoulders, untouched by the filth of war.
His pale skin, smooth and unblemished, bore an unnatural, almost ethereal quality, marred only by the dark stains beneath his piercing eyes—eyes that gleamed with an emotion too elusive to name.
Unlike Nox, whose armor was battered and bloodstained, this man's plating remained pristine, save for a few shallow scratches.
It was not the absence of battle but the presence of overwhelming power that kept him unscathed.
Magic coursed through his very being, an unseen force that had shielded him from the carnage that had claimed so many.
He came to a halt beside Nox, his gaze sweeping over the battlefield with cool, detached scrutiny.
To him, this was no different from the countless battlefields before—just another stage for bloodshed, another monument to fleeting struggles and inevitable ends.
'Just another battlefield,'
Nox thought, his grip tightening around his sword.
'Just another victory.'
Nox exhaled, the sound escaping him in a slow, measured breath—yet there was an unmistakable tremor beneath it, an edge of simmering fury barely restrained.
His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword, the worn leather grip pressing into his palm as he forced the rage down.
"Why... Just... Tell me why..."
His voice wavered, raw and uneven, his crimson eyes burning with something beyond anger.
"Why did you—"
A pause.
A silence thick enough to drown in.
Compliments were a currency in war, traded to appease, to manipulate, to mask the truth beneath veils of flattery and deception.
But this—this was no exchange of pleasantries.
This was a demand, stripped bare of politics or pretense.
Finally, when the quiet had stretched to its limit, Nox spoke again, each word laced with restrained fury.
"Why did you betray us?!"
The man merely smirked.
Not a grin of amusement, nor one of arrogance, but something deeper—something colder.
A look of satisfaction, as if this moment had played out exactly as he had foreseen.
"No, I didn't."
His voice was smooth, almost lazy, yet each syllable carried the weight of an unshaken conviction.
"It wasn't me who betrayed this country."
His sharp, glacial gaze met Nox's without hesitation, devoid of doubt, devoid of regret.
"It was you who betrayed me."
Nox took a step forward, closing the distance between them, his crimson eyes locking onto the man's piercing gaze.
The battlefield around them, the corpses, the blood-soaked earth—it all faded into the periphery.
In this moment, there was only the two of them, and the chasm of betrayal that lay between.
"So you're still not going to tell me... not even till the very end, huh?"
His voice was quieter now, yet no less dangerous.
Each word carried the weight of unspoken history, of battles fought side by side, of trust shattered beyond repair.
The silver-haired man tilted his head slightly, his smirk deepening, as if amused by the inevitability of this confrontation.
Nox exhaled, his breath steady despite the storm raging within him.
His grip on his sword did not waver, but something else flickered behind his crimson gaze—something neither anger nor sorrow, but the hollow certainty of a truth long known yet never spoken aloud.
"Isn't that right?"
A pause.
The wind howled through the ruins, carrying the scent of blood and fire.
Then, with a finality that sent a tremor through the silence, Nox uttered the name.
"Lyrium Blackwood."