ShadowBound: The Need For Power

The tunnel fell into a dead silence, heavier than stone, more suffocating than the blood-soaked air ahead.

Banen was the first to move, stepping back instinctively, his blade half-drawn. "Blan… you son of a—"

"Ah-ah," Blan interrupted smoothly, raising a blood-slicked finger. "Let's not ruin the moment with curses. You'll make it less poetic."

Serah's eyes flared crimson. The myst around her began to shimmer, threads of fiery energy crackling faintly along her fingertips as she gripped the hilt of her sword. "You betrayed us… for them?"

Blan chuckled, the sound far too casual for the scene he'd just painted. "No, Serah. I didn't betray you. I simply accepted a better vision. One where pain isn't a punishment... but an art."

Jack stepped forward, swords halfway unsheathed, fury etched on his face. "You're sick."

Blan turned to him with a lopsided grin. "And yet it took you this long to notice. Honestly, I expected better."

Aiden's gaze darted between Elene's lifeless body and Blan's relaxed posture. His voice came low, quiet with rage. "How long?"

"Since the beginning," Blan said, wiping his blade clean on the sleeve of his coat like it was routine. "Marrow Jyn reached out before your task force was even assembled. You see, he understood. The world doesn't need kings and soldiers. It needs artists... and their muse."

"You're insane," Hana muttered, stepping protectively in front of Pete.

"And you're boring," Blan replied with a shrug. "But don't worry. Your deaths will be... transcendent."

Serah unsheathed her sword, the edge glowing with deep fiery myst. "You're not walking out of here."

Blan's grin widened. "I'm not planning to."

From the far end of the tunnel—where light met shadow—a slow clap echoed. A figure emerged, stepping into view with theatrical grace. Clad in flowing crimson robes stitched with black sinew, and a golden smile mask gleaming beneath the pale tunnel glow, Marrow Jyn arrived like a maestro taking the stage.

"Well done, Blan," Jyn said, voice smooth as silk dragged through glass. "The curtain has risen... and now, the final performance begins."

Behind him, the Painters and Choir members began to flood into view, silent and gliding like phantoms, their weapons glinting, their masks grinning.

Serah didn't flinch.

Her voice was ice.

"Form up. We end this here."

***

Beneath the crimson lights of that cursed chamber, war erupted like a painting slashed open as steel shrieked, fire roared, and screams twisted into a symphony of chaos.

Serah moved first.

A jet of fire surged from her blade as she slashed downward, the myst igniting around her like a cloak of fury. Her red coat flared behind her as she launched forward, slamming into the nearest Painter. The cultist raised a curved dagger, but it melted in his grip as Serah's sword cleaved through it—and then through his neck. His body collapsed, a torch for a heartbeat before the flames consumed him entirely.

"Fan out!" she shouted, the command sharp, burning.

The cohort obeyed instantly.

Jack vanished in a swirl of gale-force myst, his form flickering between blurs as he dashed down the left flank. Two Painters lunged at him, curved blades outstretched. Jack spun low, wind trailing his limbs like smoke. He swept one leg outward, sending a gust that hurled the nearest cultist into a pillar with a sickening crunch. The second came at him from behind—but Jack was already airborne, flipping once before driving both swords down in an X across the man's chest. Blood sprayed into the air like abstract paint.

Banen raised a fist, then slammed it into the ground. Stone erupted beneath his feet, forming jagged spikes that impaled a trio of Painters mid-charge. He followed up with a massive swing of his greatsword, its edge glowing with brown myst. The force of the impact shattered a portion of the floor, sending broken tile and limbs flying in every direction.

"I've got the left—watch your rear!" he barked.

Hana flowed like liquid death. Her twin daggers moved in dance, leaving trails of mist behind each swing. She ducked under a spear, turned the momentum into a spin, and slit the throat of the attacker with her right blade. Water swirled at her heels, forming a defensive ring that blocked a barrage of poisoned needles from one of the Choir members.

She flicked a hand—needles of frozen water shot from the air, striking the masked Choir priest in the eyes. He dropped, silent.

Pete exploded forward in a burst of electricity, his body glowing blue and white. He tackled a group of three cultists, discharging a shockwave that left them twitching and convulsing on the floor. One tried to crawl away. Pete's boot came down hard on his back.

"Not today," he snarled, driving a lightning-coated short blade through the man's heart.

Aiden's blades were coated in freezing myst, every slash leaving trails of frost in the air. He parried a strike, countered with a spinning sweep, and skewered his opponent against the wall—ice spreading through the cultist's veins until he froze solid. Then, without missing a beat, he shoulder-rolled away from an incoming spell and threw a dagger mid-roll. It sank into a Vivisage's eye socket.

They all attacked without holding anything back, but it wasn't enough. Not even close.

More cultists flooded into the chamber—dozens, maybe hundreds. The Painters multiplied like shadows in candlelight, and the Mourned Choir began to sing. The sound was haunting—low, guttural moans threaded with pain that crawled into the ears and gnawed at the mind.

Aiden staggered for a moment. "The song—it's messing with my myst—!"

A blur cut across his chest.

Blood sprayed from Aiden's body as Blan appeared behind him, short blade slick with red. He twisted it in deep, then shoved Aiden forward. The boy collapsed, gasping, reaching for Serah. She turned, eyes wide—but too late. Aiden's body froze over one last time as his ice affinity reacted to his death.

"Aiden!" Hana screamed—but Blan was already moving.

He turned to Pete, grinning. "That electricity doesn't make you faster than me."

Pete launched forward, fists crackling. Blan sidestepped the first punch, grabbed his wrist mid-motion, and drove a knee into Pete's ribs hard enough to crack bone. Pete coughed blood, eyes wide, and Blan capitalized—plunging his blade twice into Pete's stomach. The lightning around his body sparked wildly, then fizzled out.

"No!" Banen roared. He slammed his sword into the ground, sending a wall of earth toward Blan—but Blan was gone, vanishing into the shadows once more.

Serah's world was now narrowing.

Two friends—gone in seconds. Her sword gripped tighter and her myst surged higher.

Fire exploded around her as she launched into the crowd of cultists, cutting down anything that moved. One leapt at her with hooked claws—she ducked, set him ablaze from the inside with a fire burst straight to his chest. Another fired a bolt of dark myst—she slashed it in half mid-air and flung a blade of pure flame into his face.

But for every one she killed, two more rose.

"Hold formation!" she shouted—but her voice was drowning in screams.

Hana was bleeding. The authentic version is on M|V|LEMPY_R.

A long gash ran down her side, and two Choir priests cornered her with scythe-like weapons made of bone and shadow. She fought like a demon, spinning between their attacks, cutting one across the throat. But the other slammed her into a wall with a myst-blast.

Jack appeared in a burst of wind, catching the priest mid-swing and driving both swords into his spine. Hana looked up, dazed as Jack grinned.

"You still owe me a drink."

Meanwhile Banen was pinned.

Three Painters danced around him with unnatural speed. His earth shield cracked with every strike. He bellowed and hurled his sword like a javelin, skewering one. Then drew his dagger, stabbing the second in the gut. The third leapt—but Hana threw a water spear straight through the cultist's eye.

Then the chamber darkened.

A hum filled the space as Marrow Jyn raised his hands.

Dozens of strings—black, glowing threads of myst—descended from the ceiling. They latched onto corpses. Aiden. Pete. The fallen cultists. Even the Choir.

And they rose.

Their bodies jerked unnaturally as they were reanimated—puppets controlled by myst. Aiden's frozen face twitched. Pete's lightning surged faintly. The dead turned on the living.

Jack's eyes widened. "He's using our dead against us?!"

Serah's fire surged again. Her coat burned at the edges as she screamed in fury.

"You will not defile them!"

She launched at Jyn like a meteor, her blade alight, myst blazing. Flames spiraled from her body in a torrent. Jyn raised his hand—strings extended to meet her. The two forces clashed in a dazzling shockwave of red fire and black thread.

Behind her, the remaining squad fought through the tide—cutting down puppet after puppet, blood and myst spilling across the chamber like the ink of a mad painter.

***

As the clash of steel and screams echoed through the blood-soaked chamber, a sudden shift in the air stilled every blade. Even Marrow Jyn, mid-swing of his myst-threads, froze.

Without warning, tendrils of shadow began to slither down from the crimson-stained ceiling, oozing like ink poured from the cracks above. Simultaneously, black tendrils erupted from the ground, coiling upward like serpents rising to feed.

In mere seconds, the entire underground chamber was swallowed whole.

A suffocating, absolute darkness fell—consuming flame, light, and sound alike.