Black lightning flickered soundlessly beneath the two moons as contingents of little toddlers filed into the city square. In the middle of the city square itself was a glimmering circle of white light, which seemed completely at odds against the shadowy motif the great Dark sported, but for some reason, Claud found it fitting.

Around the ring of white light were swirling rifts, a total of eight of them, each spaced evenly apart. The little toddlers of shadow were waddling into these rifts, and as they closed in, the white light seemed to erode the darkness around them.

“They’re…normal people. No, they look just like us,” Lily whispered, watching as what clearly were human children walked into the rift. “It’s…hard to believe, if we didn’t see all this.”

Claud directed his eyes to the centre of the circle, where a small, black orb floated innocuously. At first glance, anyone would have overlooked it, but these very people would also be able to immediately tell that the little orb was actually the source of the incredible pressure pressing down on them.

“Which is why I’m both glad and troubled,” Claud murmured. “I should have been more cautious, more thorough. I can wipe out entire armies with a single attack; I wonder how many orphans I’ve created.”

He sighed and hugged his legs.

The two of them were sitting atop a small tower, which was a shop that had been abandoned some time ago when its owners fled to the Lacuna Dukedom. It happened to overlook the city square, which made it the perfect place to spy…and to mourn for mistakes past.

“You’ve been regretting this for a few months now.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop regretting it,” Claud replied.

Lily looked at him, and then patted his shoulder. “I suppose that’s part of what makes you so…complicated. You have an ability that is unparalleled when it comes to mass destruction, but you’re so reserved in its use. You fear death, yet charge outwards to save the people you care about. You want to distance yourself from everything, and yet you entangle yourself with just about everything.”

She paused for a moment. “You do not want to care about people, since they become weak points, but you inevitably do so anyway.”

“We’re all weird that way. I mean, I could say the same about you, the Moon Lords and even the random pedestrian passing by. Take Dust, for instance. She doesn’t need to make friends with the ruler of the territory she’s occupying, but yet she does,” Claud replied. “If the day comes when the Dark passes down the order to kill Count Lostfon, what would she do?”

“…That’s a good question.” Lily pondered for a moment. “Maybe she’ll kill him, and then kill herself.”

“That’s…” Claud paused. “Possible.”

As his answer dissipated into the night, a formless pulse erupted from the black globe in the middle of the city square, stirring up dust and rattling the entire county. That singular pulse seemed to set off something, and the pressure that the little orb was giving out abruptly increased by a few orders of magnitude. In that instant, Claud felt his mind go blank, and his thoughts churned to a halt.

His vision changed a moment later as his body slumped to the side helplessly, and Lily joined him shortly afterwards. The mind-shattering divine might — there could be no other explanation — had directly stolen his will to even move or think, and it was all Claud could do to continue breathing.

White and black light intertwined as the orb of pure darkness rose up, supported by a piercing spike of blinding white. Claud watched on, his mind unable to stir up any emotions save for a touch of worry for Lily, and took in the entire spectacle. It felt wrong to him, but at the same time, every fibre of his being was screaming that such a combination was the only way.

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White cracks began to form on the black orb, and the rushing divine might receded. Claud pushed himself up a moment later, his back damp with sweat. As he supported Lily back up, a rush of thoughts assaulted his mind, each of them bearing memories of the Second Tutorial, and Claud paused.

The Blue Moon of Wisdom, the Lesser Half of the great Dark, the Red God, the Blue God and the Violet Goddess were killed.

“Ah.” Claud let out a small cry, and then trembled. “I…see.”

“C-Claud?” Lily looked at him, her movements jerky. “What’s wrong?”

“I remembered. The great Dark… I think it’s more than just a single entity,” Claud replied, making use of the lull to vomit out his thoughts. “When I was in the Second Tutorial, the Risti there mentioned that of the divinities I killed, one of them included the Lesser Half of the great Dark. In that case, what’s descending here probably isn’t a familiar spirit or an apostle, but the Lesser Half itself.”

“…I think going back home is a good idea now,” Lily muttered.

Before Claud could add his own quip, the white light leaking through the cracks of the black orb intensified rapidly, and a sense of impending doom swept through his mind, along with a tidal wave of horror. His body moved on it on a moment later, bursting out with surprising strength to hug Lily and prevent her from looking at the descent of the Lesser Half.

At the same time, he forced himself to look away, despite a part of him desiring to burn the arrival of the Lesser Half into his vision. Claud’s instincts were screaming madly, howling a warning that by no means should he look at the descent of the Lesser Half, and he wasn’t going to disobey them at this juncture.

Gales whipped up with a shriek as intense white light turned night into day for a single heartbeat, reaching a luminous intensity. Something seemed to happen at the peak, however, and the blinding heavens turned into the depths of dark night once more.

At the same time, the howling gales died, and a single, light step echoed through the world.

The Lesser Half had taken its first step on Grandis.

Dull explosions rang through the city, and intuitively, Claud understood that the heads of other, hidden observers that had been watching the event had burst apart on the spot.

“Claud?”

“I’m fine.” Claud gulped. “We’re never going to attend something like this again. Looking at the descent of a divinity is a death sentence. It’s not something we can look at.”

Why, though? And why did he know to look away?

Claud decided to shelve these matters for the time being. For now, however, he had a feeling that they could now lay eyes on the Lesser Half…but doing so would probably drive the two of them mad.

“Let’s go,” Claud whispered. “Don’t look back. We’ll probably turn mad if we do. It is not in our place to look at these beings…yet, anyway.”

“What’s with those last two words?” Lily asked, before groaning. “I can’t move. Give me a hand.”

Claud carried her onto his back, and after making sure that she was nice and comfortable, activated Flight. Soaring through the night, Claud made sure to not look back.

“Wait, we need to pick up that little guy.”

“Little guy?” Claud asked.

“The little shadow that never made it to the city square. Its buddies all left, remember? We can’t just leave it standing there the whole day,” Lily replied. “It’ll starve or something!”

“Uh…” Claud thought for a moment. “Oh, that shadow that you lured…are we really going to pick the little fellow up? What are we going to do with him? We can’t bring him to the city square!”

Lily paused. “But he’ll be stuck here!”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have messed around with them,” Claud muttered. “Uh…okay, we bring the fellow back with us, and then find Dust tomorrow. She’ll have a solution.”

“After scolding us, presumably.”

“You reap what you sow…but I get a feeling I’ll be included in that too,” Claud grumbled. “Now, where did we leave that little guy?”

After flying around for a bit, the two of them descended next to a shadow, who was, in a first, looking around the place. For some reason, the little fellow had grown more animated, like an extra-curious baby that was exploring the world around it. In its hands were the wrapper that had held the sweet Lily used as bait earlier, and the little guy was clutching it really tightly.

“So…what do we do here?” Lily asked, getting off his back.

“Use your sweets and bring him to the inn first. We’ll send this fellow to Lostfon Palace first thing tomorrow,” Claud replied.

“I really feel like a bad guy or a kidnapper now.”

“Considering what we’re doing? I think we very much fit that profile. Of course, we can just try to bring him to the city square and see what happens to us next,” Claud replied.

“…No.”

“Thought so.”

Lily produced a little sweet, and the toddler began to waddle over. As Lily broke Presence Nullification by scooping the little guy up, Claud broke a cold sweat at how easy those little fellows were to fool.

How on Grandis did they survive until today?