Malcolm returned to the surface, his Loyalists by his side. The city was ablaze, and most of the defenses he had constructed to fend off Rivel had not only been destroyed but proven worthless against the King's men. He walked down the roads, seeing them all drenched in blood. That ruthless soldier who had killed himself in front of all his men had slaughtered a few dozen people who had the bad luck to run into him.

They were assumed to be some sort of suicidal troop or tactic stalling, but they were just laggards who hadn't reached the city gates in time for the showdown. It was a pyrrhic victory to the book; all those who had surrendered had now scattered in the wind, seeking a safe haven.

He didn't know what made him feel this hollowness inside – the tortured souls that followed closely, mumbling words of a terrible afterlife; the blighted former children who oozed purulence; the scalding roads affected by the burning buildings; or the blood-soaked battlefield.

But this wasn't the time to think about any of those things. More battle lay ahead; apparently, this was only the first contingent sent by the king, an advance force, and another was coming from the horizon. Judging by the amount of dust they were leaving in their trail, it was a smaller force than the first.

It wasn't unheard of – in the battle for Cermitas, the crazed soldiers driven by strange divine magic were just an advance force, as he had later learned from testimonies. Right behind them came a smaller contingent to take over any hidden citizens or solve situations a berserker could not. It was a heavy-handed approach, especially against an unknown threat. He supposed that amidst war, the King didn't want to appear weak, unable to protect his borders.

What was worse still, if he had launched such a convincing attack, it was ninety-nine percent certain that the second contingent was carrying some manner of siege weapons or special units, and quite a lot, too. He looked to his right, and there was Kantor. He smiled, tearing up.

"It looks like this is as far as we got, Kantor. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for having judged you so harshly for your decision. At least you saved the lives of all those families who managed to evacuate, while I... Well. I guess I'm a fraud, aren't I?" The little creature cocked its head and looked at Malcolm quizzically. "Perhaps it's not that bad letting Rivel do his thing. Who knows? Maybe he'll even be right, and at least my family can enjoy lives without war."

Malcolm knew that Kantor didn't understand words but read gestures with surprising intelligence. Who knows how many creatures we assume can't understand, yet only choose to remain silent? He composed himself, wiped his tears, and tightened his grip on his sword.

"Don't misunderstand me – I will die standing. I will die for what I believe, and I don't care what happens as long as I remain true. Let's rest for the day; they'll be here by tomorrow, and I'll be damned if I let my enemies kill me due to a dull reflex caused by drowsiness." As he descended the stairs, he turned around, passing Kantor, as if seeing through him, speaking gravely. "I tried my best, Kantor. I hope it's enough."

Unfortunatly for Malcolm's plans, the sights of the hellscape described by his Loyalists haunted his dreams, and their wailings awoke him several times. Another sleepless night.

The moon was at its zenith, its yellowish-orange light dyeing the bloody, trampled grass that was the battlefield. Malcolm stood amidst it, alongside his seventy wailing Loyalists and thirty blighted, all armed and resolute. The night cloaked the enemy, but he could see that whatever it was, certainly wasn't another king's contingent – their sharp shapes and varying heights, their hungry eyes, and the ticking sound of their many feet. These weren't humans at all.

Leading them was a thin, faceless figure wrapped in shadows.

The air was dense; the atmosphere was so tense you could almost cut it with a sword. It was as if a thousand different eyes were fixed upon this battle. The shadows moved strangely, as if they were material and viscous.

Finally, they were face to face. Malcolm was slightly surprised to see Rivel, but he'd been through so much lately that his eyes widened for just a second before returning to their battle-ready focus. Rivel knew who he'd find, yet his feeling of foreboding kept him tense, making his voice sound rigid.

"When I heard from a mundane that you were running a city, I was jealous. I had to crawl through mud and dirt, blasting my way past caves of cold stone and lurking silhouettes. But now I see I had nothing to be jealous about," he said, pointing at the billowing smoke arising from the city. Malcolm answered sternly:

"That silly thing? Please. I just left my stove on." A small smile crept onto his face, past his glassy eyes.

"Good thing you can keep your humor, even after all we've been through," Rivel said. "You know, I was expecting more of the thousand-times decorated General Malcolm." He looked behind him, seeing the Loyalists grasping their heads, mumbling, and gesturing to the night.

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"They're just here to bear witness to your defeat, Rivel. I don't need an army to fend off your bug swarm." Both laughed dryly.

"Not the ending we envisioned when we were kids, eh, Malcolm?" Rivel looked at the moon above him with a tinge of melancholy, feeling the thousand eyes pulling him.

"Don't you ever feel like we're victims, playthings for something else? Like we never had a chance at life?" He joined Rivel, contemplating the sickly yellow moon and its shifting patterns as black smoke-like clouds crossed it, like a giant, infected eye. Rivel remembered the Silkborne and their pride – how even when they knew it was just a matter of time, they kept clinging to hope, to life, even if it meant eating their loved ones for sustenance.

"We're just insects, Malcolm." Malcolm looked at the swarm again and wondered how much time Rivel had spent among them to have his usual boastful demeanor affected. He sighed.

"Shall we begin?"

"Whenever you're ready." A flame-filled fist glowed at Rivel's side; Malcolm's sword glinted as he unsheathed it. All 130 spiders and 50 Thorvant prepared to pounce at the Loyalists, whose eyes darted madly across the battlefield. The pressure became unbearable; the battle began.

The blighted quickly dashed into Rivel's army, swiping madly at the spiders and having their bodies skewered by the sharp limbs. As venom spat landed on the Loyalists, they reacted as a hive mind, drawing their crossbows in unison. Rivel's fist opened, and burnt Malcolm's face as he swiped his sword overhead, missing by an entire body, having been blinded.

A tremendous explosion shook the battlefield; a dozen blighted had sacrificed their lives to make a hole in Rivel's forces, killing 50 instantly. A volley of arrows came right afterward as the Loyalists took advantage of the broken formation, and yet another 20 died.

A Loyalist missed his next arrow, for his vision was blurry, and soon his eye rolled off its socket, and his face melted under the acidic Silkborne spit. Another ten fell beside him. All Loyalists wallowed in pain, as if their faces were being burnt too, and switched to melee as their accuracy was gravely affected.

"To see is to be blind

As only the fire of darkness

Shines upon our kind"

The darkness came alive and wrapped around Malcolm and his allies, shackling them. The slowed movements cost the Loyalists a great deal of injuries at the claws of the Silkborne and Thorvant, but with seething fury, they reciprocated with inhuman strength, some dropping their heavy weapons and bashing the carapaces with their bare fists, tearing their muscles and turning their hands into bloody stumps.

They claimed as many as 30 lives while losing only 15 of their own. Malcolm also suffered from being slowed, further thrown into defensive stance, blocking Rivel's burst of blinding lightning and freezing blasts.

"You're a good mage, Rivel."

"Not a time for flattery."

"Can't you make your chants a bit more cheery?"

"Dare tell me how to use magic, mongrel?" Suddenly, Rivel saw a spear tip coming from his chest; Kantor had stabbed him from behind. The spear tip was off, crudely attached to the handle, but he recognized the shard.

"Nice try, but the dead don't feel fear." He turned to the side and grabbed Kantor by the head, rapidly unloading three different fire spells, casting his demise. Before his mushy flesh pulverized, Malcolm saw a glint of thankfulness in his eyes.

Wrathful, he swung at Rivel's back, injuring him in the shin. The Loyalists kept pressuring the Thorvant, who took the vanguard as the Silkborn showered venom spit on them, and 30 of their lives were claimed. But long-simmered hatred doesn't just vanish in a pretty speech, and the venom also showered all Thorvant.

They turned, startled by the backstabbing spiders, as their now-exposed flesh was mutilated by the Loyalists and the blighted. They were no more, leaving only 35 Silkborne to fend off 18 Loyalists and 13 blighted.

Neith saw Rivel had been injured as he fell onto the floor and took his place when Malcolm's sword descended to take his head. Rivel was grief-stricken as the insect blood dripped on him, and Neith was halved, organs spilling over Rivel.

The stench almost made him puke. He turned his sight away from his dead spider friend and away from Malcolm, and the sword descended once again, striking true this time.

Malcolm saw him shape the words "I'm sorry, thank you" as Rivel returned to his beloved void.

Malcolm's sword fell to his side as if expecting to wake up from a horrible nightmare, feeling like he couldn't move or breathe. He had never before taken the life of a fellow Tenebri, and now reality dawned upon him: he was a monster, just as he feared.

A terrible explosion once again shook him out of his reveries; the battle was not yet over, and neither was the nightmare.

All thirteen blighted had committed suicide to give him victory, to be more liked by the only one who had accepted them after the disease took hold. Ten Loyalists remained, for eight had died due to the explosions, and fifteen Silkborne.

Malcolm felt his strength wane, and he sat next to Rivel's and Kantor's corpses, watching as they took each other's lives. Those who didn't die immediately succumbed to their grave injuries shortly after.

He lay down in his mat of corpses and covered himself with a blanket of organs. That contingent of Thorvant, Thornguard, William, and his family, the Silkborne, his friend Kantor, and all the other children, High Magus Rivel – they were all claimed by those viscous, sticky shadows, transported by the billowing smoke and iron-smelling miasma to their next lives, where the Mirror Thing, now free, reigns supreme.

He had won.