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Then a weight seemed to be lifted suddenly. The power, the insistent bursts of energy, had dimmed, almost faded. ...Nihilian.... After releasing his stare from the tower, Ranpu looked around. He was surrounded by soldiers. They seemed to have felt something too, they were shocked. But Ranpu was luckier than that: they had not noticed him appear from the shadow. But that did not last long.
One of the soldiers turned around to find an enemy in their midst. Charged with the new sorrow of a fallen leader (again), he lifted his sword to direct a blow at Ranpu. But he was just quick enough to draw his weapon and stop the soldier's sword in the air, a few centimeters away from his head. To the sound of clashing swords, the other nearby soldiers became aware of Ranpu's presence. Ranpu turned to block another, lower blow. But right when about half a dozen soldiers had surrounded him, ready to attack all at once, leaving Ranpu with no other possible fate than death, a shadow passed over them. And the soldiers were left by themselves, shocked, to hit each other, since Ranpu was no longer before them.

Gene was no longer standing in the valley anymore. He was standing on the outer parts of the area, watching in. Everything confused him; the lights, the attacks, disapperances, and even Nihilian's death. Gene turned his back on the magnificant show and walked away from the site, deeper into the shadows and darkness of Drathel. "Maybe I was holding them back," he thought. "Or the other way around," another side of him said. Gene's flaw was to never make a descision that he decided on; it was always someone else to decide for him. He thought maybe he can do much more alone, although not having any real reputation could set him back a little. Gene was more on the good side, but the darkness made him feel better. It made him feel invisible, like no one could find him; save insanity and lonliness. He walked into Drathel with a goal, and he was determined with getting the goal accomplished. "Become one of them, it's the only way," the back part of his brain whispered to him. The only way to get a reputation is to live like them, become one of them. Lie, cheat, steal, kill, rob, destroy, and defeat. Everything he couldn't stand doing may become his only friend.

((Does any one know it?))

In the silence around her fire, for even the distant roar of that strange not-battle could not pierce beyond that stranger light, there was a sound like a mirror falling to the stone, a thousand fragments echoing down the hall.
For a moment, the fire vanished, icy air rushed in to fill the marrow of her bones, and those of anyone who stood within the fire's reach. For an instant, all was impenetrable darkness, ice, and void.
And then the warm light fluttered back to life, no images housed within its core, nothing but embers and ash feeding it its strength. Anyara gasped , her palms set flat upon the ground, her fingers curled into the weak grass that struggled to survive in this ill land. Her eyes were wide, staring at the nothing within the fire as sweat crawled down her back. She didn't know what had just happened, didn't know why she suddenly felt as though something most terrible was about to begin, something more horrible to her eyes than even the Drathelian assault upon her sister nation.
There was something she needed to do, something she was supposed to say, but her muscles felt like water, and her throat was dry and tight with a strange kind of pain.
Kennin staggered from the fire, shedding the death-like chill as he bawled orders: they were to withdraw immediately, far enough to be out of reach, close enough that they could strike at any given moment. The mages of the camp stepped forward, knowing magic would not banish this thing so many died to create. Their lives gave it a reality, their power gave it life. The few Masters in the Rebellion could only hope to strike injury, not dissipate the beast to the nothingness from which it had come.
Behind Anyara and to the left, Rich swallowed hard, his skin gleaming in the firelight's return. He didn't need to be a seer to know that too many men would die fighting that beast, that it would cripple their forces, if not totally eradicate them. No matter the threads of Fate and weaving of the Norns... This construct did not bode well for them at all.

((Evil can't post 'til Kiku takes her turn. You want a post, get one from her.))

((EDIT: Poke me and I'll bite your finger off.))

((Hmm, yeah I'm pretty sure he said his name... it was when they were on the way to Drathel.

Evil... talk about poking... stare
Anyway I was referring to something else, but never mind. ))

True darkness is like no other kind of darkness.
No shadows run deep enough to even resemble it.
No fear of the dark is enough to impress upon one the sheer darkness of such darkness.
No man could ever experience such darkness and survive.
The ones who only graze the surface forget it almost immediately.
Correction: They repress it.
They mutter something vague about "light at the end of a dark tunnel" and believe themselves whenever anyone asks.
The truth is, they just got disoriented.
The light wasn't their final destination.
It was the place they had just left.
There's a very good reason why no one survives true darkness.
You have to be dead to encounter it.

~~~

And dead Nihilian was.
Death is inevitable.
It is also excruciatingly painful.
There is no such thing as a painless death.
The consciousness is ripped forcefully from the body that housed it.
You see, the human body comes standard with a simple defense mechanism.
This causes it to re-experience every bit of pain it has ever experienced while the spirit is removed from the body.
This comes in very handy when you're atacked by body-snatchers, but it really just sucks when you're just dying.
But enough with the technicalities of it.
Suffice to say, dying sucks.
It sucks big fat monkey balls.
The literal kind, not the big ol' plastic ones with the animated chimps inside from that video game.
Though, on second thought, those work too...

~~~

Well, back to the matter at hand?
Nihilian was dead.
Really and truly spiritually dead.
Six feet under and all that jazz.
Physically he was as fit as a fiddle, metaphorically, of course.
While the fiddle is a wonderful instrument, it is typically inanimate.
And physically, Nihilian was right as rain, also metaphorically, of course.
But we won't go into that one.

~~~

Nihilian's body was alive.
The finest medics, doctors, and clerics in the land made sure that he remained stable and alive.
The only serious wound that he had sustained was the gaping hole in his back, but that had been patched up.
His minor wounds had been treated as well.
After all, there was no service but the best for the new prince of Drathel.

Ranpu was, in a way, unconscious. He had no thought or awareness, not either awake or asleep. He was not even dreaming. He only had Nightmare by his side. He just existed, wrapped, not in darkness, but in shadows, until his name was uttered again, by a being with enough light to reveal his existence in the material world once again.