The ground creaked beneath her feet as the great bck stone walls drew closer with each step. The living shadows that had once surrounded her now gave her space as she stood before the temple walls.

  A cold breeze escaped from between its columns as an unseen presence seemed to observe her, assess her, before finally retreating.

  She took a step forward, finally entering its interior. Its corridors were crumbling, victims more of time than of battle. But they still told a great story.

  To those unfamiliar with the ancient nguages, they would appear as mere hidden decorations, but she could understand: the myth, the fable of creation itself. The birth of seven gods from the first fme hidden in chaos.

  Seven… not six. A strange weight settled with that information… worsening her headache. Averting her gaze, she continued wandering through its corridors, glimpsing the echoes of a vanished past.

  The time of the gods, when they themselves fought in the mortal world to banish the beings of the void. She wondered for a moment if her father, and the other demon deities, had a temple dedicated to them somewhere like this.

  No—she answered herself instantly.

  Finally, her eyes fell on a stone base in the center of a room, broken long ago by some kind of impact. But the reason mattered little, for she had found her target.

  With heavy steps, she stood beside the structure, carefully feeling the fine engravings. It was part of a ritual, a supplication, a wish carved in blood to get the gods' attention. But the gods were dead, and there was no one left to listen… except one.

  Her hand rose, summoning the true darkness that dwelled in her heart, condensing it as best she could in her palm. The darkness swirled, cracking her palm with the gathered density. Then, she pierced her own chest.

  Saint fell to his knees, ruby ??dust cascading down in a shower. Even so, it didn't stop; it twisted his arm as if searching for something, until finally it caught him.

  A dense mass of dark threads was forcibly pulled away, as if refusing to let go of his heart—no, his soul. Tiny tendrils tried to cling to his flesh, to be torn away skin from his body.

  A cascade of shadows and darkness spread through the area, filling the ground with an eerie mist. Within, his shadows stirred, sensing the death of their bearer.

  Not only had he recently lost a soul core, but now a second one was being excised shortly after. Even with his soul's immense resilience, his identity was being torn away.

  Breaking. It wouldn't be surprising if she were reduced to nothing more than a mindless statue at any moment. Even so, she pressed on, driven by a will filled with madness.

  She pced the core of her soul upon a sacrificial pedestal and, with a simple rock in her hand, struck it without breaking eye contact.

  The first blow resonated throughout the chamber. The core, exposed to the world, didn't even flinch, but an explosion of pain coursed through Saint's body. Her vision blurred and her arm seemed to tremble. But with ragged breath, she struck the core again, and again.

  Each blow seemed to resonate with greater force, with more defiance. The shadows, filled with terror, retreated, but others seemed to respond.

  The very guardian of the temple approached, merging with the other shadows into that simple rock, striking the core with a force beyond the mundane.

  A single crack appeared on the dark surface of the soul's core, and that was all it took for everything to change.

  A scream escaped Saint's lips. Not through her body, but from her very being. In her eyes, the cloud of corruption once again burned her soul, shattering her mind and testing her will.

  She was once again at her father's forge, hammering the pieces of her existence with divine efficiency.

  She gazed into the eyes of her master, who looked down upon her, stabbing her in the heart after centuries upon centuries of torment.

  And she saw herself, curled on the ground, weeping tears of bck blood as her soul tore to pieces.

  Then it happened. The shadows froze, sound ceased. The world went blind for an instant. And then shadow whispered.

  “WHAT WAS ETERNAL IS NO LONGER SO, AND WHAT WAS DIVINE IS NOW ABOUT TO DISAPPEAR. YOU HAVE FULFILLED YOUR OBJECTIVE, AND NOW ALL THAT REMAINS IS FOR YOU TO OBSERVE, FOR EVEN A DEMON MUST RESPECT.”

  A thin thread escaped from Saint’s body, the wounded fragment of Shadow’s domain that y trapped within her. It moved like a serpent, coiling around the core of her soul, only to crush it with fury.

  A spasm coursed through her entire body. Her consciousness flickered and shifted. The whispers intensified, as if awakened by another consciousness. She could no longer hear anything, only those whispers… then she heard it.

  “Attack me.”

  It was the voice of her master, standing before her in that hidden room of the cathedral. He looked the same, with that tattered cloth armor, his bck hair disheveled, and those eyes filled with apparent malice.

  For a moment she hesitated, not understanding her situation.

  "Huh? Are you hesitating to hurt your master? Well, well, I admit that makes me somewhat happy, but that won't help me if you can't attack me so we can train."

  She didn't hesitate any longer; she punched him directly in the face.

  Her master barely reacted in time, reducing the force of the impact with a miraculous movement; even so, blood trickled from his nose.

  "Ouch! Was that a surprise attack? Have you learned more from me than I have from you?" He stood up, giving her a malicious smile. “Well, don’t think that will do you any good twice.”

  Her master attacked, using the edge of his sword to try and stab her, but she easily dodged it, responding with an elbow strike aimed at his stomach, only for him to avoid it by bending over unnaturally.

  The fight continued for a few seconds, only for him to fall defeated. Her master uttered a string of curses before getting up, rubbing his back, to look at her once more with reproach etched on his face.

  Soon, the fight was repeated once, twice, and more. Each time she fell, pain and blood were abundant. If it hadn't been for her quick reflexes and strange resilience, her training would have gone from a simple fight to a gruesome death, but it didn't. Instead, her master began to adapt, to learn. With each defeat, she seemed to grow, to become faster, smarter. Fights that sted seconds stretched into minutes, and although she always found weaknesses to exploit, she couldn't help but smile faintly beneath her helmet.

  It was then that her master stopped, looking directly into her eyes with a calcuting expression, before his mask shattered and he ughed like a madman.

  "Ha, I finally made you smile. I knew my charm as a merchant could one day surpass even a stone statue."

  She froze.

  "Don't make that face, Saint. It doesn't suit you." He snorted, sitting down in an absurdly elegant chair. "What a mess the world has become, and what a mess you've gotten yourself into. Trapped in the epicenter of a battle between the remnants of a stalking demon and a reclusive god who, according to the novel, was already long dead. Seriously, why can't things in this world just stay dead? The worst part is, I died!! Are we crazy or what?" She just stared at him, paralyzed. But far from being annoyed, her master, Sunless, smiled smugly. – “At least you’ve followed my example in that respect.”

  Saint closed her eyes for a moment, absorbing the image of her master intently, as if afraid of forgetting a single detail.

  The truth was… she missed him. Even when she gained freedom, even when she absorbed his shadow. She felt something was missing, as if things weren't meant to be this way. And it wasn't because of something like that bond that created her, nor because of a twist of fate, but because she hadn't believed things would end like this.

  In those moments, when they trained alone, she had truly come to respect him, not because he was her master, but because he was weak… and yet strong.

  He didn't dwell on his mistakes and improved. He didn't become perfect, and yet he felt a spark of desire greater than anyone else's, even that of Changing Star.

  She admired him and believed he would only surprise her again ter. But he died, not in a great battle, but as if the world itself had snapped its fingers. That was why she resisted calling him just her former master.

  She didn't want this; she didn't want this purposeless freedom. She wanted to fight and grow alongside him, not as his servant, but as his equal. But now that was impossible… Her master snorted – “Well, life isn’t very fair. I literally spent my entire life savings on a drink that tasted like sock water… don’t ask how I know that.”

  He took a few steps until he stood before her and spoke, not with that mocking tone from before, but with the seriousness of an assassin – “What you should be questioning is whether you should continue fighting… and why you will. Any other question means you have too much free time!!”

  He took a few steps back, pointing his sword at her. But this was no longer the stance of a novice, but one that perfectly reflected his style… and that sword was not the weapon he held before, but the serpent of the soul.

  For a moment the pce remained silent, awaiting his response, but the reaction was not soft words, nor a refined movement, it was pure power.

  Sunny's head exploded into pieces, spilling shadows, causing his body to reel to the ground. The soul serpent was gathered up by Saint, who looked at his sprawling body with amusement.

  "Yeah, yeah, damned power of an ascended one, how is it fair that I'm still stuck with the strength of a sleeper?!" A moment ter, he smiled. "But it's good you reacted, because I can't take it anymore."

  The scene changed abruptly. The cathedral vanished, giving way to an endless sea of ??shadows, Saint's sea of ??souls.

  There, the world seemed on the verge of colpse. Turbulent tides rose like mountains, threatening to swallow everything. Their soul cores spun rapidly, like a heart about to go into cardiac arrest. And in the distance, an obsidian tower wobbled, fracturing little by little.

  But none of that mattered before the epicenter, where a single shadow rested within a core… which was completely fractured. The shadows and true darkness residing inside moved, guided by the shadows of their master and serpent, trying to prevent the core from colpsing.

  She took a step forward, feeling the weight of that shadow's will. Her very soul seemed to shrink with each step, until it was impossible for her to get any closer.

  “You are me.”

  “And you must be the heir.”

  “An imposter must not be.”

  “Or a bad path will come.”

  She observed the formless creature, which shifted between a spider-like creature, a human, a beast. Its form was not fixed, and observing it gnawed at her own mind. Its veins, where Weavel's blood had fused so long ago, resonated, as if trying to approach and merge with its original. It was as if its blood wanted to escape its own veins. Even so, even as the whispers grew clearer with each passing moment and the external will suffocated her, she realized a vital fact. That shadow was merely a fragment without will. A remnant of a being that only echoed the thoughts of a much greater one.

  She took another step, and another, even as her other cores cracked. She no longer cared, because she realized that her will was stronger than his. Because she had no reason to fear the shadows, when they were part of her domain.

  < Your attribute [Underworld Monstrosity] has evolved to [Underworld Princess] >

  I am not you, for you have always been me and I have always been you.

  The shadow within her faltered, the cracks widened, and the essence of her soul seeped through them. But more true darkness poured from her other cores, emptying them completely into the sealed prison. The immense shadow of Shadow's domain shifted, like a tide to cover all the cracks, preventing colpse.

  "No, I am not you, you are me."

  There's no point in lying, no point in hesitating, no point in looking any further, for the only thing that matters is that your dy is here.

  "I am you... and nothing else matters, for that"

  "Is Shadow's will" -

  It is Shadow's will -

  IT IS SHADOW'S WILL -

  < Your rank is increasing >

  < Attribute Description [Saint of the Underworld]>

  Forged, not born. From death, from nothingness, from the base element that composes you. You who have the will to command that which should not coexist. You are its ruler, its mistress, its link to the divine. May darkness and shadows never oppose your word, my saint.

  End of Volume 4: Land of Shadows