The confusion and disorientation were absolute as well. It was not just darkness, not just the absence of light, but tangible, material shadows, obfuscating everything, even if you had Skills to see in the night. I tried activating [Eyes to Pierce the Darkness]. Something returned to me. Not the grey vision I had grown accustomed to, but the feintest outlines and shapes. The sound was muted as well, even the drumming of the constant rain had been reduced to a light tapping.

I had recoiled, as the wave of shadows had rolled over me, but now I sprinted on, angling for the last position I had seen Barak Bloodbraid sinking to his knees, hands pressed to his head. The song of the Wyld had returned to him, I assumed, overwhelming him in an instant. If I just could find him. If I just ran straight...

A fist of granite impacted with the side of my head, spinning me around, throwing me to the ground. A high-pitched, monotone sound rang in my head, as I crawled around, trying to make sense of it all. I felt as if kicked by a horse, every orientation I thought to have grasped beaten out if me.

The shape of a man stalked through the darkness, claws extended, swiping left and right, fighting invisible enemies. The last warrior that had protected Barak. He could not see, he was flailing too hard for that to be a possibility, but he was heading straight for me. He must have had another sense to locate me with.

I stumbled to my feet, throwing Zero out into the darkness, where I saw the outlines of the man. He grabbed the chain with unnatural speed, not caring about the bleeding furrows the spikes and blades dug into his arms, as Zero thrashed around violently. He pulled and I flew towards him, barely able to keep my feet on the ground. Another swipe with his claws sent me tumbling, my chain shirt splitting open under the raking of his fingers of stone. Zero was being ripped out of my fingers, but I managed to keep Kingsbane as I rolled through the mud down the hill.

“Zero!“ I yelled, still quite out of it. I heard nothing but the faint sounds of grunting and battle. I still had a sense of where everyone that had taken part in the ritual yesterday was, a faint impression of their presence. Zero had not been one of them.

I stumbled around more, finally falling to my knees, as I slipped on a patch of mud and loose grass. My breast hurt, and I thought to feel warmth between the water of the rain as I touched it. Blood. I was lost now and worse, I had lost my enemy.

I could feel the White Beast, the hunters of the pack, even the humans. The White Beast was elated, thrilled even. In the utter darkness, they had the advantage. They still could cooperate, while the warriors of the Snake Clan had fallen back in confusion, stumbling around as the rest of us. But where the enemies bit and fought everything they put their claws on, the Bear Clan knew friend from foe, and felt the presence of Cogar shining like a beacon through his Skill. Maybe he had even activated his Skill [Beacon of the Clans], but I was too deep into the shadows to see it.

I could find my allies, roughly at least, but I could not find my enemy. The one that counted. My hand enclosed the coin that hung around my neck. The coin of the Wanderer. I still did not know what it had done for me or what it could do, but now I was lost and desperate enough to try it again. I needed to get to the source of the darkness. I needed to stop this.

I threw the coin, just a slight bit, catching it with both hands. I stared at the result, trying to recognize a shape, my fingers trying to feel for the small arrow that would indicate the direction I had to go to. I stumbled on, sure to have gotten it.

I fell down and I fell down hard, immediately recognizing that I had stumbled upon an ally, thanks to Cogar‘s Skill. The sense of familiarity was fuzzy, and the sense of where they were as well, but once I found him, I was sure.

I fell over the body, which answered with a groan. A man.

“Manus?“ I asked.

“Hannibal? Thank the gods, you are alive. I was not sure. Help me up.“

I pulled him to his feet, where he was leaning heavily on me. His leg did not carry him well anymore.

“They are so damn fast.“ He panted. „Quick, we have to help the others. They are fighting over...“

Out of nowhere, the head of a glaive exploded out of his breast, just beside my own head. Blood hit my face like a wet rag.

Manus gurgled, spat, mumbling something unintelligible. We were thrown forward with the force of the attack, a third man following us with his momentum, grasping the shaft of the glaive. One of the Wyldling twins, trying to rip out the glaive again.

Manus screamed hoarsely, grabbing the blade that stuck out of his body, cutting fingers and hands. But he did not let it go. He threw himself backwards, hitting the Wyldling. Both tumbled and went down. The Wyldling tried to let go of his weapon and flee, but he was a second too late and got tripped up by the weight of the Knight. Kingsbane slashed through the darkness, caught the throat of the falling Wyldling. I took his head, which fell into the mud behind them.

[Wyldling Elite Warrior defeated! Reward 47 EP]

I yelled for the [Guardian Knight] of the knightly order of the Adamant Heart, grasping his shoulder.

But he was dead already.

I ran now, my head a mess of pain and confusion. All I knew for sure was that I went roughly towards allies of mine. Was I heading towards the vulnerable [Shaman] at all?

A sound pierced the muted muffling of the rain. A woman, screaming a hoarse cry of despair. Long and haunting, no words, just a wail of immense suffering. I turned to the sound, ran through the darkness, slipping and sliding every so often.

I saw the shapes. A man laying on his back. A woman kneeling on top of him, stabbing him with two knives over and over, her head thrown back in the cry of despair, which chilled me to the bone, crawling down my spine, spreading frozen terror.

Beside them was another woman half buried in the mud, neatly cut in half. Zora. She had her sword still in her hands, grasping it even in death.

There was that high-pitched noise in my head again. No thoughts but the instinct to move towards them. No thoughts at all.

A hand grasped my foot.

“Don‘t.“ Higgins rasped. I looked at him in confusion. He laid on the side in the mud, his left leg gone, reaching out with his hand to me. His face was turned to me, but I could not see any expression. “Don‘t. Turn around and finish it. Or it will all have been for naught.“ His hand fell into the mud and he was still.

I nodded and turned around, my head hammering with a maddening headache. I threw a last look to the grieving woman, devastating the body of her enemy. The image of the raging shapes of darkness would haunt me forever.

Death. Death danced his silent jig with us.

Once more I threw the cursed coin, daring to let it spin in the air. It turned and turned and finally slapped into my hand. That had not been a sure thing. I could feel the arrow. I was sure this time. I shook my head, desperately trying to get the noise and the hammering pain out of it. Something was messing with my mind. Or I had a concussion. I could not even comprehend the death I had just seen. It just did not register with me. Just a dull ache in my heart and a knot in my throat, that no spitting or swallowing could remove.

Once more I stumbled through the darkness, following the coin in my hand. Wanderer, don‘t fail me now. Not now.

Suddenly, I broke through the fog and the light, even the dim light of the clouded and rainy day, hit me like a punch in the eyes, blinding me for a moment. In front of me knelt Barak, spewing out shadows like a geyser, which landed a few feet away from him, rolling away and swallowing the rest of the isle. Everything but this little speck of light.

He was screaming still, but there was more going on. His skin crawled, his bones moved, cracked and changed, black veins burrowing through the milky red of his flesh. Behind him was Veneir. How long has it been since this had happened? A minute in the darkness? He was rolling on the ground, his arm eaten alive by the shadows growing out of the gem he still held in his grasp. His skin pulsating, glowing and flaking off where the tendrils of shadow entered his flesh.

I jumped forward, Kingsbane held high. If I could safe one, just one soul today... Please, by the dead gods, just the one. Kingsbane fell with a squelching thud, as it burrowed deep into the dirt. The black arm of Veneir, and the gem still firmly in his hand, fell to the ground, severed at the elbow. Veneir rolled away screaming, clutching the stump.

I turned. Cold determination rushed through me, as I approached the [Shaman]. He had to pay. He had to pay for a lot. I jumped, Kingsbane pulled back for a mighty swing, my eyes fixated on his neck. Barak’s shadow slapped me out of the air like a drunken bird. Not the rolling fog of shadows. Barak Bloodbraids literal shadow had attacked me.

Landing smoothly, I only swayed a little for balance. While the real Barak was busy screaming, his own shadow had risen, taken on material form. He stood over the kneeling body, drawing a club or mace out of his own material, black in black.

Kingsbane went through him with no resistance. But as the shadow moved, his mace followed, striking my temple. Blood ran into my eyes, mixed with the water, as I stumbled, following the momentum of my sword.

The shadow was fast. I evaded a strike to my head by turning around him, jumped back as he lunged for me. I parried another strike, but my weapon again touched nothing. But the hit to my torso felt real, throwing me back a few steps as I rang for air.

I could not throw my sword. I would not throw my sword. But I pulled out the Ravenbeak, flinging it with a scream after the kneeling [Shaman]. It turned in the air, hitting Barak somewhere in the torso or neck. Not a weapon made for throwing. But the [Shaman] fell back. Nothing changed, his shadow still assaulted me.

I yelled, ducked under the next swing and rolled through the mud, ready to strike the now downed Barak, his shadow be damned. But tendrils wrapped around my arms and neck as I swung, pulling me back. Oily, slick stuff of shadows tightened around my throat as I struggled for control. [Breaker of Chains] activated, evaporating the tendrils and throwing me out of the deadly embrace. I landed on my knees, still struggling to breath. Kingsbane rose and fell.

Barak caught the blade. His hands covered in oily black mass, formed like wicked claws, just shot up and grabbed the sword. His whole torso had been transformed into a nightmare, flesh and shadow merged into an avatar of darkness itself. He rose like pulled up by strings without moving his limbs. His eyes were black pools, his skin marbled and thickly veined with black blood pumping through them. His body was misshapen, twisted and only barely resembling the man that he had been.

He threw me back like a puppet. He raised a hand and his shadow, which had been trying to strangle me again, pulled back to him, crawling up his body, reforming in his hand into the shape of a crude blade.

“Dragon of Darkness.“ He hissed in a strange melody, as if singing along to a song only he could understand. “I can hear you. I can feel you. The Song of the Wyld is nothing to the whispers I hear in the deep.“ The dark puddles of oil that were his eyes swiveled to me, his face a mad grimace.

I gripped Kingsbane with both hands, the leather of my gloves creaking under the pressure.

My feet began moving without a concious thought, carrying me towards my hated foe.