The mockingbird shrieked—a distorted, ear-splitting scream that echoed through the ruined house as it darted low under the broken beams. Eclipse didn't hesitate. His muscles screamed from days of starvation, but rage moved faster than hunger.
He jumped.
Midair, his fingers caught the slick bone-feathers of the creature's back. It thrashed violently, wings flaring, but Eclipse had already drawn Confessor. With a feral roar, he plunged the ghostly blade down between its wings.
Confessor sank in without resistance, like stabbing smoke made solid. The spectral blade flared bright as soul met steel. The priest's muffled scream rang out from the hilt, overlapping with the mockingbird's distorted wail.
The bird shot upward, wild and panicked, crashing through the roof—Eclipse still clinging to its back, anchored by the sword jammed into its spine.
Blood and soul-light spewed from the wound. The creature's mimicry warped into chaos—his own voice shouting at him, then of a priest, then of a girl, then silence.
But Eclipse didn't stop, he twisted the blade and whispered.
"Mock me now."
The mockingbird thrashed like a beast on fire, its wings flailing with broken rhythm as it burst into the sky. Eclipse held tight, legs wrapped around its convulsing frame, Confessor still buried deep in its back.
They cleared the rooftop—barely—before the creature's flight faltered. One wing spasmed, then crumpled entirely. Blood, thick and black, sprayed through the air as it lost control. The soul-light pulsing from the wound dimmed to a sickly flicker.
Eclipse glanced down.
They were high.
Too high.
Then the world flipped.
The mockingbird let out one final screech—more a broken whistle than a cry—as its body gave out completely. They plummeted, spinning through the air. The wind screamed past Eclipse's ears, but his grip never loosened. If he was going down, it was going with him.
They slammed into the treetops.
Branches cracked. Bark exploded. Thorns tore at Eclipse's coat as he and the dying monster crashed down through layer after layer of the forest, until finally—
THUD.
The ground hit like a hammer. Eclipse's breath was knocked from his lungs. The mockingbird's body slammed down beside him in a heap of tangled wings and twitching limbs.
The mockingbird twitched in the dirt, one wing bent at an impossible angle, the other fluttering weakly as if still trying to fly. Its chest heaved, letting out a sick, mangled version of a laugh—it was his laugh, twisted and breathless. Mocking him even now.
Confessor still pulsed faintly with spectral light in Eclipse's hand, its edge flickering like a ghost's breath.
He rose from the shattered earth, blood trickling from his mouth, his ribs screaming with pain. But his eyes burned with something colder than fire.
He walked toward the beast.
The bird tried to scurry, clawing through the dirt with broken talons. It whimpered in fragments of stolen voices—a mother's lullaby, a prayer from the priest, even his own cry from the night he was he almost gave in to desolation.
Eclipse didn't speak, but a grin appeared on his bloodied face
He lifted Confessor—and stabbed.
The ghost-blade slid into the creature's back again. It shrieked, voice morphing from mimicry to agony.
Again.
And again.
Each stab sank deeper than the flesh. Each thrust tore away another piece of its soul.
"You followed me for days," Eclipse muttered, voice hoarse. "You sang. You laughed. You fed."
Another stab. The beast coughed up blood and sound.
"Well—choke on it."
With a final cry that shattered into a chorus of collapsing voices, the mockingbird collapsed fully, wings twitching once more—then falling still.
The air turned cold.
Eclipse eyes of truth was turned on so he could see the soul of the Stain.
Its soul began to rise, screaming in silence as it curled, twisted, it tried to escape but a force held it still, then it started to compress and the a sword was formed, the sword flew at Eclipse, who quickly arched backwards trying to get away from the sword but it was faster. It disappeared into eclipse chest, Eclipse waited for pain but all he got was a notification.
[You have succeeded in killing a Stain]
[Nemei]
[You have gained a Whisper]
[Echofang].
Type]: [Sword]
[Description]: [Forged from the fractured soul of a parasitic mimic, Echofang is the manifestation of a cursed predator that fed not on flesh, but on sound, thought, and identity. The being was slain by the Nihilion after days of torment, in a moment of raw, primal vengeance.
The blade is semi-fluid in appearance—feathers and fangs woven into steel that never quite stops shifting. The more silence surrounds it, the more it pulses with sound-memory: laughter, sobs, words never spoken.]
[Ability]: [Mimic Shatter]– [Once per imprint, mimic and distort a technique, spell, or battle cry. But when unleashed the blade disintegrate]
[Predator's Whisper] – [Grants silence to the sword]
[Feed on Fracture]– [Grows stronger in the presence of fear, anxiety, or mental instability.]
[Soul price]– [Prolonged use distorts the user's perception of time and sound. Echoes of self may begin to speak without will, and often at times blurt out the wielder's thoughts without his will.]
[The soul of the Mockingbird, twisted into a blade by the vengeful Nihilion who hunted it for days. It sang no more after he carved its voice from its throat. To others the mockingbird song was a soothing tone but in the Nihilion's hand it is vengeance made audible—suffering given voice.]
With little effort he withdraw the blade from his soul nexus, a short, curved blade—almost like a hybrid between a sickle and a dagger. It shimmers faintly in the light, but never looks the same twice. Its edges distort, flickering with shifting shapes—like it's trying to mimic other weapons, or even other realities. The metal appears feathered in texture, light-catching, oily, iridescent.
"How does it feel, I mean the quiet isn't it soothing". Eclipse said in joy, but something else spoke.
"Yeah it's soothing". He turned around eyes flickering left and right his two weapons on his hand as he waited hoping against Fate it was a human like him but all he got was silence.
"Was it just my head". He wondered who was it that he was already missing the vile mockingbird.
"Yes your head". This time he caught the voice, turning around he saw— himself.
A version of himself appeared in front of him, broken and injured.
The apparition turned it's head looked at the dead Stain then chuckled.
"You seem to have outdone yourself". Eclipse glanced at confessor then without second thoughts unsummoned it and with that the Apparition disappeared.
"Why can't normal things happen to me".
Eclipse stood over the corpse, chest heaving, blood drying on his face. The mockingbird's form was still, but he knew it wasn't finished. Not completely.
He knelt.
Ripped open the beast's chest with cold precision, bones snapping under Echofang, he did it as a form of revenge, using it to tear it's previous body. Nestled inside, just above the remains of its heart, was the soul shard—a jagged, black crystal, faintly pulsing with stolen echoes.
It shimmered with fragments of mimicry. Snippets of his voice. A mother's. Laughter that wasn't laughter.
He didn't flinch.
Without hesitation, Eclipse reached in, yanked it free—and stared at it in his blood-soaked palm.
The shard vibrated, whining in a dozen voices.
Eclipse said nothing.
He clenched his fist.
CRACK.
The shard shattered with a flash of pale light, cutting into his palm. The voices died instantly—no scream, no defiance. Just silence.
And Eclipse?
He could feel a rush of Aether saturating his core and providing Aether, Aether which rushed to heal his energy.
Then he tore through the abdomen of the Stain in search of it's heart, it was a Nether-borne beast, making it have two hearts. He saw the heart and plucked it then he crushed it, it was just another core, but it beated like a heart so in lack for better names human decided to hame it heart. Even in his hand it was no different from the soul shard he previously crushed.
The he collapsed on the ground looking at the sickly grey sky
"What now".
He spoke to no one and no one answered.