CHAPTER 165: THE SHADOW GENERAL

Their earlier rituals had needed candles, chalk, crude blades fashioned from bone. But not this one. Darkness itself gave off a light stronger than flame, and in that black radiance the cult had gathered.

From the grooves of the circle rose wisps of shadow, thin at first, then thickening into strands that climbed into the air like smoke given purpose.

They reached upward until they wove into a dome that sealed the chamber from sight, a cocoon of black through which no mortal gaze could pierce.

At the rim of the circle, the Cult Master lifted his arms. His voice cut through the droning chant, raw and rasping, yet commanding as it clawed across the chamber’s stone.

"Through blood, through devotion, through the tearing of the veil, rise!"

The word echoed. The others took it up, voices swelling in volume until the language dissolved, no longer words but a vibration that gnawed at the bones of all who heard it. The chamber shook.

Dust rained from the ceiling. The circle glowed like a wound forced open, and then the stone floor split apart.

A rush of energy howled upward.

The academy above had no warning. One moment the grounds were still, moonlight draped soft across towers and gardens. The next, a column of shadow tore from the depths, ripping through soil and stone as though neither were more than paper.

It roared into the sky, spiraling, consuming air and sound alike. The stars overhead dimmed. The moon’s light bent and twisted, shrouded by a curtain of black that spread wider with every heartbeat.

Students jolted awake with screams. Beds rattled, windows cracked, and glass shattered as the column struck the heavens. The calm night fractured into chaos.

Alarm bells rang. First one, then another, until the entire academy resounded with their metallic peals.

Teachers stumbled from their quarters, robes still half-fastened, clutching staffs or blades as their eyes turned wide with disbelief at the growing rift above.

Students ran into corridors, some armed with half-learned charms, others clutching whatever weapons they had stolen from training halls.

Beneath them all, the chamber reached its peak.

The rift opened directly above the circle, jagged and raw, tearing like flesh split by unseen claws. The air was dragged inward with violent force, pulling at robes and hair, pressing bodies to the stone.

From the wound in the sky came shrieks without origin, not the cries of beast or man but echoes of something vast and cruel pressing against the thin barrier of reality.

Then the shadow spilled through.

It came in tendrils first, each one thick as a man’s arm, writhing as they poured from the rift. They coiled and twisted, pulling together until they took on shape, a suggestion of a body outlined in living black.

It grew taller, wider, armor forming from shadow itself, plates that crawled and slithered even as they hardened. Its head bore no face.

Instead, a single burning sigil flared where eyes and mouth should have been, pulsing like a star bleeding red into the void.

The chamber groaned beneath its presence. The air itself seemed to bow.

The pressure of its voice shook the stone.

A Shadow General.

Every cultist froze. Their chanting died at once, cut away as if a knife had slit their throats. Only the ragged sound of their breathing remained, harsh in the silence. The Cult Master stood transfixed, arms still raised, but his body trembled despite his iron will.

The Shadow General extended one clawed hand. From it surged a storm of shadow, faster than thought, striking the Cult Master’s chest.

His scream ripped through the chamber as the darkness pierced him. It wormed into his veins, turning them black beneath the skin, twisting his flesh as if it were clay forced into a new mold.

His skin bubbled, blistered, then split. Black ichor seeped from his eyes, his mouth, his pores.

His limbs stretched to unnatural lengths, bones cracking, snapping, realigning with sickening pops. Smoke poured from his sockets.

His jaw snapped open and then broke apart entirely before reforming into something jagged and wrong.

No one moved to help. Not a single voice dared speak.

The Shadow General did not step through the rift. It had no need. It had chosen.

The Cult Master’s body tore and reknit in violent sequence. His torso warped, his ribs thrusting outward only to be swallowed by a growing shell of shadow.

His face collapsed in on itself, features liquefying into fire-blackened sludge before hardening into a mask of flame and darkness. Armor coalesced over his limbs, not metal but a dripping substance that shifted and breathed, alive in its hunger.

By the time the writhing tendrils withdrew, the man who had been Cult Master no longer remained.

"This vessel... will suffice."

The words were spoken by many voices at once, layered and discordant, like a choir dragged across broken glass. The sound reverberated through the chamber and rattled the very marrow of the listeners’ bones.

Every cultist dropped to the ground, prostrating themselves so fully that foreheads cracked against stone.

Above, the rift widened again. More shadow vomited outward, sweeping over the academy grounds in black waves.

Instructors shouted commands, their voices raw with urgency, students scattering in panic as the tide of darkness advanced.

"Form squads! Protect the dorms!" one instructor bellowed, though his order was nearly drowned out by the unending toll of bells.

Barriers flared into existence, wards etched into the academy’s walls and towers igniting with desperate light. Lines of brilliance lanced upward, forming fragile lattices against the spreading dark.

The shadows lashed out like whips, battering against the defenses with each strike shaking stone foundations.

Underground, the vessel straightened. The Shadow General’s presence settled into it, stabilizing, dripping from its limbs like tar.

It raised one malformed arm, and the ceiling itself trembled as a torrent of darkness blasted upward, piercing through chamber and soil to strike the night above.

On the surface, students staggered back in terror as the towers of the academy were caught, ensnared by tendrils of shadow that wrapped tight around their spires.

At the cultists’ feet, the ritual circle flared. Its grooves seared white-hot, hissing like molten metal, then burst apart.

Ash spiraled upward, then fell dead to the ground. The chanting was over. The summoning complete.

Silence claimed the chamber, broken only by the hiss of the rift bleeding its endless stream of shadow.

A new force had crossed over, and it had chosen its body.

The Shadow General had arrived.