The night felt wrong.
The moon was hanging in the sky, yet its light seemed weak, almost swallowed by the darkness covering the world. The wind had stopped, and an unnatural silence spread across the mountains.
Aria stood at the edge of the cliff, staring at the distant forest below. Something deep inside her chest felt heavy, like a warning her heart refused to ignore.
Behind her, Rowan walked closer, his boots crunching against the cold stone.
"You feel it too, don't you?" Rowan asked quietly.
Aria didn't turn around.
"Yes," she replied. "Something is comingFor a few seconds, everything remained still.
Then suddenly—
The ground trembled.
A deep rumbling sound echoed from beneath the earth, like a giant awakening after a thousand years of sleep.
Rowan instantly drew his sword.
"What was that?"
Before Aria could answer, the forest below began to move.
Not the trees.
The shadows.Dark cracks started appearing on the ground between the trees. Thin lines at first… then wider… deeper.
And from those cracks, something began to crawl out.
Black shapes.
Twisted bodies made of living darkness.
Their eyes burned with a terrifying red glow.
Rowan's face turned pale.
"Shadow creatures…"
One of them climbed out completely, standing on four distorted limbs. It let out a screech that sounded like metal being torn apart.
Then another appeared.And another.
Within seconds, dozens of them were emerging from the earth.
"No…" Aria whispered.
The creatures began moving toward the nearby villages at an unnatural speed. They didn't walk like normal animals.
They glided.
Like living nightmares.
Soon the peaceful night turned into chaos.
From the village below, terrified screams echoed through the valley.
People ran through the streets.
Doors slammed shut.A group of soldiers tried to defend the entrance of the village.
"Hold the line!" one of them shouted.
But the shadows were too fast.
One creature leaped into the air and landed directly in front of a soldier.
Before he could even react—
The creature's claws slashed through him like smoke cutting through air.
His scream ended instantly.
Rowan clenched his sword tighter.
"This is bad… really bad."
Aria's eyes darkened."Abyss Lord," she said quietly. "He's awakening."
At that moment—
A thunderous roar exploded across the sky.
The sound was so powerful that the mountains seemed to shake.
Rowan looked up.
A massive shadow moved across the clouds.
Then the Dragon descended.
Its enormous wings stretched across the sky, blocking the moonlight. Flames burned between its scales like living fire.
When it landed, the ground cracked beneath its weight.The Shadow creatures hissed and backed away.
The Dragon opened its mouth—
And unleashed a storm of fire.
A blazing wave of flames swept across the battlefield, burning dozens of Shadow creatures into ashes.
The village lit up with orange light.
For a moment, hope returned.
But only for a moment.
Because the cracks in the earth were still growing.
More shadows kept crawling out.
Ten.Twenty.
Fifty.
Hundreds.
Rowan stared in disbelief.
"They're endless…"
Aria stepped forward, gripping her blade.
"Then we fight until the last one falls."
The Dragon roared again and took to the sky, raining fire across the battlefield while Aria and Rowan charged into the darkness.
Steel clashed with shadows.
Flames met claws.
The night turned into a battlefield.And in that moment, the world changed forever.
Because that night marked the beginning of a war—
A war between light and darkness.
The beginning of the War of Shadows.