The Black smoke cleared, revealing my normal goat self.

I sat on the cool grass and decided to visit a certain place.

I closed my eyes and felt my mind sink into a dark realm.

I didn’t even need to open my eyes. The world was revealed itself to me via the dark shapes that surrounded me.

Darkness was a fundamental aspect of reality and upon looking up I saw just how much of it there was.

It stretched out into the infinite.

I had access to all of it… well, most of it.

Kenos kept warning me about absorbing too much and so I reigned myself in.

Instead, I reinforced every structure in Coh before opening my eyes.

More of my fur had turned black, but I didn’t really care.

I made my way to the waterfall and after swimming in the stream for a little bit, I made my way to Kenos’s throne room.

Yna had said the dragon King was one of the reasons why the dark expanse was so tainted, but something didn’t add up.

There was a lot of ash, but life can usually grow from within the ash. Just like after a volcano erupts. Yes, a lot is destroyed, but the potential for life to regrow is always there.

The Dark Expanse had very little plant life except for that in Eimval and the Oasis.

I entered Kenos’s throne room and saw that the Golden Sword was still stuck at its center.

Kenos said he was injured by the Golden Prince.

Is it possible that he was the main cause of all the… oh.

I nodded to myself before leaving the chamber.

I returned to the waterfall where I swam around for a little bit before noticing Yna standing by a tree near the riverbank.

I loudly sighed before hopping out of the river and sitting on the cold grass.

It was still dark out although my mostly white body was still clearly visible.

“Let’s trade.” I said.

“Mmm?” Yna sounded weakly.

“Give me your sword and…”

I created a dark disc about the size of a wheel and placed it between Yna and I.

“Swear to me that you will never kill anyone unless you’re left with no other choice. Swear this and I’ll give you a sword. With this sword, you’ll only ever fight to protect others and yourself.” I said with narrowed eyes as wisps of smoke rose from my body.

Yna took a deep breath before nodding.

“O… OK.”

I don’t know why, but I felt an excruciating amount of rage rising from somewhere within me, but I had the perfect outlet for it.

A low, bone shaking drone filled the air as what looked like a hilt materialized above the disc.

I took several deep breaths before summoning all of the darkness in the entirety of the Dark Expanse.

[Haha! You fool! This gonna hurt!]

The sky immediately darkened and a hurricane of darkness appeared over Coh.

I needed to make a sword that could withstand being held by a Golden Knight but Yna and her kind were beings that existed in a realm that I couldn’t comprehend and so I decided to cheat.

My barebones understanding of physics allowed me to imagine a weapon of such incredible mass and sharpness, it’d potentially be fatal to even wield.

This wasn’t me getting revenge on Yna.

I just needed to remind her what my dream was and what I was willing to give for it. What I was expecting her to give for it.

The sky darkened to the point where I could only see Yna and she could only see me.

The people of Coh were soundly sleeping and so I made sure the hurricane floated high into the sky.

It would serve as a funnel.

That was my true goal.

To channel darkness from the depths of space itself.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

A loud and new kind of thunder shook the air as an unimaginable amount of darkness swirled above.

My gaze then landed to Yna, who’s eyes were at their brightest.

This would also serve as an attempt at showing Kenos just what this second of life meant to me.

A voice from somewhere deep in my chest spoke and my eyes began releasing plumes of black smoke.

“AHHHHHHH!” I screamed as it felt as though someone was ripping apart my skull.

This is what it meant to be a Host.

Even through the pain, I could feel every single piece of darkness in and around Edenton. It didn’t go too far beyond the planet though.

I then looked at the hilt that floated above the disc and almost immediately after, it was struck by a bolt of blue lightning and it split into six.

Several bolts of blue lightning struck the six hilts and I watched with gnashed teeth as long blades formed above the swords, one was particularly larger than the others and it’s the one that received the most bolts of lightning.

I knew that the lighting was only the result of an extreme transfer in energy.

Satisfied with how the blades had formed, I sent all the residual darkness back into space.

The sky then cleared up, revealing five black straight swords and one great sword. The great sword had a long, narrow hole down its center that looked like it would fit something perfectly rectangular.

They all eerily floated in the newfound silence of the night.

“G- go on. The past cannot be changed. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look past what you did to the Rendaro, but as much as it frustrates me now, I need you.” I said while coughing.

“Katsíki-“

“Stand right there!” I snapped.

I was well aware that blood was pouring from my mouth, but my focus was set on Yna.

“If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably have died a long time ago, but Red Death has no place in my sanctuary.” I hissed.

Yna’s eyes glowed intensely before dimming again.

“If you don’t like it, I suggest that you either kill me or I could leave. I could always erect another city elsewhere-“

“Fine.” Yna said as she approached the great sword.

She then placed her hand on the sword’s hilt and almost immediately after, the weapon fell to the ground where it sunk deeply into the grass.

Yna stared at the blade with a dumbfounded expression.

“That is the weight of my dream. And thousands upon thousands of cubic meters of compressed darkness. I said I would stand by your side when after learning the truth and that hasn’t changed. But I know what you are now, I know who you are. Things were never just gonna be the same. So I must ask: are you willing to stand by my side even though I don’t really like you right now?” I asked.

Yna frowned at me before lifting the sword.

All of the lines on her body began glowing as she struggled lifting the damned thing.

She lifted it in front of her face before swinging it and letting it stop just before it touched the ground.

“I’m not going anywhere.” She said as she glared at me.

“Haha! Good. The other blades are for your students. Teach them the value of our sanctuary and as for the knights… I actually have no idea how we’ll deal with them.” I said as I walked towards the stream.

I then rinsed my mouth and saw that most of my fur was black and only my head hadn’t changed.

It’s also here that I realized what the black fur meant.

“After informing the high priests, it’s likely that they’ll send the Blood Ravens. They are the legion responsible for killing any traitor knights.” Yna said as she walked up to me.

“Why were they never sent for you?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe its because no one really knew where I was. I also think a lot Lanceberg was damaged by the Dragon King. A single knight was probably the least of their concerns.”

“What are the chances of you surviving an encounter with the Blood Ravens?”

“Pretty much zero. Even if I were to go one V one with any of them, I’d die. They are skilled light magicians then there’s the fact that the entire legion is made up of death magicians.”

“What?”

“Yeah. That’s why they’re sometimes called the Death Ravens.” Yna said.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Yna and I sat in silence as the sky slowly turned grey.

I was tired and in excruciating amounts of pain.

Knights from an evil sounding Legion would soon be coming to Coh and there’s nothing I could do-

“Wait a minute…” I gasped.

“Kenos could stop them.”

“What?”

[What?]

Kenos and Yna exclaimed.

“Yeah. Kenos basically told me that he was able to switch out with me. I’ll have to test it out a few times first, but-“

“Wait, just what do you plan on doing while in that form?” Yna asked.

“Defending Coh, of course.” I said before walking towards the short fence that enclosed the waterfall.

Yna followed me while carrying her new sword.

“Oh… you think that just because Kenos is the host of darkness, you’ll be able to take on the Blood Ravens.”

“It’s worth a shot, no?” I asked.

“I didn’t say you shouldn’t try.”

We eventually returned to Yna’s cabin and after dusting me, Yna sat upright on her usual spot on the bed.

She and I locked eyes for a moment.

I sighed before hopping onto her lap and she wrapped her arms around me.

To our right were two swords crossed over each other.

I looked at them as Yna gently ran her hand across my head.

My tired eyelids eventually met and I fell asleep.

.

..

“Nope.”

What? I thought as I opened my eyes.

I saw Kenos rapidly pacing back and forth.

“First you damage our body so that you can guilt a walking guillotine into staying with you now you want us to face an entire legion of knights. Wanna know what I think?” Kenos asked with wide eyes.

“You’ve grown far too comfortable with my power. When we switch, I will use that other realm to take us to another world. According to your memories, there are millions of other worlds out there. One of them has got to be better than this one. Ooh, we can go back to yours!”

“What are you so afraid of? It can’t be the Golden Prince, you said that he was severely injured. Even if he is awake now, he’s probably still not at full strength. Or could it be something else?” I asked, but Kenos simply glared at me.

“Tell me.” I said. My voice echoing infinitely in our shared mind.

“Wait a minute… you’re not just scared of Caligo… the fact that you aren’t mentioned in any Rendaro scriptures… the title of Black Prince… it doesn’t make any sense. You said that when you returned to the where Iana once was, you found nothing, but that doesn’t explain why you wouldn’t look everywhere else. Unless… you purposely hid down here-“

“Shut up.”

“You came down here and hid…”

My attention shifted to the throne.

There was no way Caligo would let the host of darkness get away no matter how badly he was wounded.

This place, the throne room was also weird.

It had been built during or after Kenos got here.

“I can’t imagine you walked all the way from Lanceberg with a sword in your chest- what really happened after you fought?”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Kenos yelled before disappeared and this time, the entire throne room disappeared as well.

I looked down to find that my body was gone as well.

I was but a pair of eyes floating in an infinite darkness.

A darkness that swayed and moved me around like waves in the sea.

I then heard one voice which sounded like it was in pleasure and another that sounded like it was in pain.

More moans and screams filled the dark space until it got to the point where I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts.

I recognized these sounds and this pain.

It was what was hidden in the white noise from my nightmare.