PactBound

The soft crunch of grass under foot was the only sound in the eerie silence of Falkridge. The village, once a vibrant community nestled in the heart of the Tovar woodlands, now lay in ruins. The skeletal remains of houses stood like tombstones, their foundations cracked and overgrown with creeping vines. The air was heavy with the scent of damp earth and decay, a stark contrast to the lively village Klein remembered. The sky above was a dull gray, the sun hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds, casting the landscape in a muted, almost ghostly light. The wind carried a faint, acrid tang, like the aftermath of a wildfire, though no flames had touched this place in years.

Klein's boots scuffed against the broken cobblestones of the path as he walked, his eyes sweeping over the ruins. His chest tightened with a sense of grief. This had been his home, the place were him and Elizabeth had settled after being married, the place his girls had been born and the place he lost everything. 

He could almost hear the laughter of children playing in the square, the clatter of carts rolling through the streets, the hum of conversations drifting from open windows. But now, there was only silence—a heavy, oppressive silence that seemed to press down on him from all sides. 

Something moved at the edge of his vision catching his attention—not the playful dance of wind-tossed grass, but something deliberate. Watching, Klein froze, his hand dropping to his hip, reaching for his sword, yet no hilt met his grasp. He scanned the silent ruins, where the only movement was the slow sway of grass in the breeze. Shaking his head, he chided himself for letting his imagination run wild.

For a lingering moment, the echo of that unsettling presence clung to him. As the immediate tension subsided, his gaze wandered across the desolation—a landscape of crumbling stone and whispered memories. Amid the decay, one structure defied the inevitable march of ruin, its silhouette a stark counterpoint to the rest. That familiar building stirred a conflicting mix of comfort and dread.

"Why is my house the only one still standing?" Klein asked, his voice low and tinged with disbelief. He gestured toward the structure in the distance, its walls intact and its roof untouched by the ravages of time. It stood out like a relic from a forgotten era, defiant amidst the desolation—a poignant reminder of what once was and what had been lost.

Lina, walking a few steps ahead, glanced over her shoulder. Her steel-gray hair, straight and neatly kept, caught the faint light filtering through the overcast sky, giving it an almost metallic sheen. "I enchanted it," she said simply, her tone matter-of-fact. "The spell slows the passage of time and keeps it hidden from outsiders."

"Hidden?" Klein questioned, turning to look back at the house. But when his gaze returned to where it had been, the structure was gone. Only the foundation remained, indistinguishable from the ruins around it. His breath hitched, and he blinked, as if trying to dispel an illusion. The air around the spot seemed to shimmer faintly, like heat rising from sunbaked stone, but when he focused on it, the effect vanished.

"You can only see it when you're close enough," Lina explained. "It's a protective measure. I didn't want it to suffer the same fate as the rest of the village."

Klein's jaw tightened as he turned his attention back to the ruins. "And the rest of the village? What happened here, Lina? This wasn't just time or neglect. Something did this."

Lina paused, her boots scuffing against the broken cobblestones of the path. She tilted her head, as if weighing how much to tell him. "After your… death," she began carefully, "the Duke of Kalos launched an investigation into the growing number of night creatures. The situation had become too dire to ignore."

Klein's brow furrowed. "Night creatures have been a problem for years. We never got any help before. What changed?"

Lina's expression darkened, and she turned to face him fully. "Humanoid night creatures," she said, her voice dropping to a near whisper. The words hung in the air like a storm cloud, heavy and foreboding.

Klein froze, his mind racing. "What?" he breathed, his voice barely audible. "That's impossible. Everyone knows you can't turn a human into a night creature, it's just… it's just not possible."

Lina's gaze bore into him, unyielding. "You've seen one before, Klein," she said, her words a quiet accusation, as if he should have already known. "Lancer wasn't an exception—he was the beginning."

The realization hit Klein. His breath caught, and his hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Lancer," he whispered, the name tasting like ash on his tongue. The memory of Lancer's twisted form flashed in his mind—the elongated limbs, the glowing eyes, the inhuman snarl. It had been a nightmare made flesh, a perversion of everything Lancer had once been.

For a heartbeat, the weight of loss threatened to pull him under, to let the shadows of Falkridge claim him. But beneath the ache, a spark caught flame—burning away the fog of grief with the searing heat of rage.

"Correct," Lina spoke up, her voice steady. "Lancer was the first recorded humanoid night creature. After that, more started appearing. Valdris has been trying to cover it up, but the truth is spreading. Someone is creating them, Klein. Deliberately."

Klein's mind reeled. Night creatures weren't natural—they didn't just happen. They were the twisted products of dark alchemy, born from secretive rituals that bent life to a malignant will. The implication chilled him to the bone. His gaze shifted to Lina, his eyes narrowing. "You're saying someone turned Lancer into that… thing?"

Lina nodded, her expression grim. "I doubt the attack on your family was planned, but the creation of Lancer was no accident. The person that did this knew what they were doing."

A wave of anger surged through Klein, hot and relentless. His family's deaths, Lancer's transformation—it was all connected. Someone had orchestrated this. Someone had taken everything from him. "Who?" he demanded, his voice low. "Do you know who did this?"

Lina hesitated, her lips pressing into a thin line. She looked away, her gaze drifting to the ruins around them. "I do," she admitted finally, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Tell me," Klein said, stepping closer. His towering presence cast a long shadow over her, yet Lina held her ground. She met his steady gaze with unwavering resolve, though a brief hesitation—as if she was reluctant to speak the name.

After a long pause, she let out a heavy sigh, as if resigning herself to the inevitable. "Dekkeon," she said, the name rolling off her tongue like a curse. "Dark Saint Dekkeon."

Klein repeated the name under his breath, committing it to memory. It was unfamiliar, but it didn't matter. Whoever this Dekkeon was, he was responsible for Elizabeth's death, for Lancer's transformation, for the destruction of Falkridge. Klein's hands trembled with barely restrained fury.

Klein…" Lina's voice interrupted his thoughts—soft, yet insistent. Her eyes flicked to the side as if catching a subtle shift in the air, her body tensing in measured alertness. Her fingers curled around the edge of her cloak with deliberate control, and her shallow, careful breaths betrayed not panic but a keen awareness of an unseen presence.

Klein's attention shifted—not to the heavy silence or the deepening shadows, but to Lina herself. In the subtle tightening of her gaze and the slight stiffening of her posture, he recognized the silent alarm of impending danger.

"Duck," Lina commanded, her voice sharp. Her right hand slid from beneath her cloak, fingers curling as the air thickened with moisture. Droplets formed, shivering in her palm before snapping into a jagged shard of ice.

Klein dropped to his knees without hesitation. A sharp whistle cut through the air as Lina's ice dagger shot past him, slicing through the space where his head had been moments before. The dagger struck one of the stone foundations with a deafening crack, the force of the impact sending shards of masonry flying. The sound echoed through the ruins, a harsh, discordant note in the otherwise silent landscape.

For a moment, there was silence. Klein stayed low, his heart pounding in his chest. 

*SHREEK!*

Klein's eyes widened. Shadows bled from the stonework, coiling into a writhing mass, impaled by Lina's ice dagger. It was a grotesque, pulsating eye, its form shifting and twisting as it tried to free itself. Tendrils of darkness leaked from its body, spreading like ink in water. The air around it seemed to warp, as if reality itself was bending under its presence. A low, droning hum emanated from the creature, vibrating through the ground and into Klein's bones. The smell of rot and sulfur filled the air, making his stomach churn.

"What the hell is that thing?" Klein ask, his voice rising in alarm.

Lina's face was a mask of frustration. "I should have noticed it sooner," she muttered, her tone laced with anger. She turned sharply, her cloak billowing as she strode toward the dense treeline. "We need to move. Now!"

Klein hesitated, his gaze lingering on the creature. Its screams had died away, leaving behind a haunting silence and an ice dagger embedded in the stone as its body faded into nothingness. The air felt colder, the shadows darker—as if the creature had tainted the very ground, with cold dew shimmering faintly on the stones.

"Lina, what was that thing?" Klein asked, hurrying to catch up with her.

"A scout for the Mother of Eyes," Lina replied, her pace quickening. "If she catches us out in the open, we're dead."

Klein's blood ran cold at the name. He didn't know who—or what—the Mother of Eyes was, but the tremor in Lina's voice spurred him into action. Together, they plunged into the treeline, leaving behind the ruins of Falkridge—a crumbling remnant swallowed by shadows.