The road to the old estate was long and silent, save for the whispering wind and the distant howls of unseen creatures. The sky overhead was a sickly gray, shrouded in thick clouds that refused to part, as if even the heavens turned their gaze from the forsaken land near the Greatest Abyss.
Valen rode in grim silence, his fingers curled around the hilt of Crimson, still strapped to his back. The weapon had not spoken since he left Orlen's forge, yet its presence lingered at the edge of his mind a gnawing sensation, like a voice just beyond hearing. The air around the blade felt colder, heavier, as though reality itself bent under its weight.
The old estate loomed in the distance, its once-grand spires now reduced to jagged ruins. Ivy strangled the broken stone, and the great iron gate lay twisted and half-buried in the earth. Smoke curled from the shattered windows, and the guttural snarls of goblins echoed through the hollow halls.
Valen dismounted, his boots crunching against the frostbitten grass. The goblins had taken more than his home they had defiled it, scrawling crude symbols in blood across the walls. His fingers twitched. The sword pulsed.
Stepping forward, he unsheathed Crimson.
The blade shimmered, its violet scales shifting like the skin of a living thing. The gem in the hilt throbbed, eager. A shadow crawled along the edges of Valen's vision, and the whispers returned, faint but insistent.
More...
Valen pushed the voices aside and advanced into the ruins.
The first goblin never saw him coming. A single, fluid strike and Crimson carved through its flesh like silk. The blade passed through skin and bone with terrifying ease, the cut so clean the goblin remained standing for a breathless moment before collapsing. But as the creature fell, the sword drank.
A cold shock shot through Valen's arm. The blade pulsed, its gem flashing with a deep crimson glow, and he felt it—the life leaving the goblin, flowing into the sword. The corpse shriveled, skin turning gray and taut over bone. Valen stumbled back, his breath ragged.
The whispers surged. More. More.
The goblins had heard the death cry of their kin. They poured from the ruins, chittering in their guttural tongue, rusted blades raised. Valen tightened his grip. He could feel the hunger in Crimson, pulsing through his veins like a second heartbeat.
A goblin lunged. Valen twisted his body, sidestepping the clumsy attack before driving Crimson upward, piercing through its ribcage. The creature gasped, its breath hitching, before the sword fed. Energy surged through Valen's arm, invigorating him, making his senses sharper. The goblin withered in his grasp, its eyes rolling back into its skull.
Another came from the side. Valen ducked low, sweeping his blade in a vicious arc. Crimson tore through tendon and flesh, severing the goblin's leg at the knee. It shrieked, falling to the dirt, but Valen did not hesitate. He brought the sword down, silencing it.
A third enemy charged from behind. Without thinking, Valen whirled around, Crimson moving faster than his mind. The goblin's head separated from its body in an instant, rolling across the ruined stone floor.
Blood sprayed across the battlefield, but Crimson did not let a single drop touch the ground.
It absorbed everything.
Valen's breathing grew erratic. His limbs burned, not with exhaustion, but with something else—something deep, something primal. His strikes became more savage, his movements less controlled. He felt stronger, faster, but the whispers twisted into something darker. The world blurred at the edges, shadows writhing around him.
A goblin lunged. Valen impaled it, but as he did, he felt something push back. For a split second, he was not holding the sword. The sword was holding him.
He gasped and wrenched himself free. The last goblin fled, screaming into the trees. The ruins fell silent, save for the drip of blood on stone. Valen stood amid the carnage, his chest heaving. He looked down at Crimson.
The blade pulsed, satisfied.
Valen was not.
He had won the battle. But for the first time, he questioned if he had truly fought it alone.