The first thing Dracula realized—
was that the sky was gone.
Not darkened.
Not eclipsed.
Gone.
Rayon raised one hand.
No incantation.
No build-up.
Just a breath.
"Endless Night."
The world folded inward.
Day collapsed like a dying star. The sun didn't set—it was erased, swallowed by a darkness so absolute it devoured color, sound, and depth. Stars blinked out one by one as if embarrassed to exist.
Averis was wrapped in the first night.
Dracula's arcane core flared instinctively, runes igniting across his body as layers of stellar magic activated. His guards reacted faster—five elites spreading out, core power roaring as arcane shields, elemental barriers, and celestial wards snapped into place.
Too late.
Darkness wasn't pressing down.
It was everywhere.
Rayon stepped forward—and vanished.
Not invisibility.
Nonexistence between shadows.
Dracula snarled. "Scatter! Lock your perception anchors—!"
A blade whispered into being behind him.
Not forged.
Remembered.
A sword of pure darkness—edge thin as a thought, surface swallowing light, time, and intention itself. No reflection. No presence. Just finality.
Rayon moved.
The first guard died without realizing he'd been struck.
His arcane shield didn't shatter—it forgot how to exist. His core tried to react, to regenerate, to rewrite—
The blade passed through him.
Clean.
His body slid apart soundlessly, halves dissolving into black ash that never reached the ground.
Nyk laughed.
Not cruel.
Thrilled.
"Finally," he muttered—and stepped forward.
The Primordial of Ruin awakened fully.
The air around Nyk cracked, space buckling as conceptual instability spread from his presence. Where he walked, possibilities collapsed. Outcomes narrowed. Futures died screaming before they were born.
One guard lunged at him, arcane lightning spiraling into a spear meant to erase matter.
Nyk caught it.
Bare-handed.
"Wrong approach," he said—and clenched his fist.
He didn't destroy the guard.
He destroyed the idea that the guard could win.
The moment snapped.
Reality corrected itself violently.
The guard's body imploded inward, crushed by the absence of favorable outcomes. Bones folded. Flesh unraveled. His core tried to retreat—
Nyk snapped his fingers.
Ruin rippled.
The core shattered like glass struck by inevitability.
Another guard invoked a demonic transformation, wings tearing from his back, horns crowned with burning sigils.
Rayon appeared above him.
Falling.
Blade first.
The darkness around the sword expanded mid-swing, becoming a crescent of annihilation that cut through layers of reality. Demonic flesh, arcane reinforcement, celestial wards—
All meaningless.
The guard screamed once before his voice was devoured.
Then there were two.
Dracula finally moved.
He thrust his staff down, core power surging as a stellar domain bloomed around him—constellations blazing, gravity reversing, time slowing. Arcane geometry locked into place, a fortress of magic refined over centuries.
"Insignificant primitives," Dracula hissed. "You do not understand core—"
Nyk punched the air.
The domain fractured.
Not shattered.
Invalidated.
"Core power's cute," Nyk said, rolling his shoulders. "But you built it on assumptions."
He stepped through the broken domain like it was mist.
The last guard charged Rayon, screaming, pouring everything into a final spell—an arcane implosion meant to take half a continent with it.
Rayon raised his free hand.
Darkness answered.
The spell collapsed inward, swallowed by shadow like a candle drowned in oil.
Rayon leaned close.
"You're loud," he said—and drove the blade through the guard's chest.
The guard's core didn't explode.
It extinguished.
Silence followed.
Only Dracula remained.
He hovered, core blazing wildly now, panic bleeding through his refined arrogance. His power was vast—stellar, arcane, honed.
And completely outclassed.
"What are you?" Dracula demanded, voice cracking. "No resonance—no core alignment—this darkness—"
Rayon walked toward him.
Each step erased light.
"I am not part of your system," Rayon said calmly. "I am what came before it."
Nyk appeared beside him, cigarette already lit again.
"And I'm the bad ending," he added cheerfully.
Dracula roared, unleashing everything—stellar collapse, arcane annihilation, dimensional severance—layers upon layers of refined magic.
Rayon stepped through it.
Unharmed.
The darkness peeled the spells apart like paper soaked in water.
Rayon raised his blade.
Nyk raised his hand.
Together.
Ruin and Night converged.
Dracula tried to flee.
There was nowhere to go.
Nyk erased the possibility of escape.
Rayon swung.
The blade passed through Dracula's body, his core, his name, his legacy.
For a fraction of a second, Dracula existed as a question—
Then even that was gone.
The darkness receded.
Endless Night lifted.
The sun returned hesitantly, light spilling back into Averis like it wasn't sure it was welcome.
The sky healed.
No crater.
No scars.
Only absence.
Nyk exhaled smoke and grinned. "Damn. That was therapeutic."
Rayon looked at his blade as it dissolved back into shadow.
"Foreign powers will notice," he said.
Nyk shrugged. "Good. Saves us the trouble of inviting them."
They turned back toward Isola Krein.
Behind them, the universe quietly updated its understanding of Averis.
This world was no longer available for conquest.
And somewhere far above, in places that watched too much and acted too late—
Something took interest.