The whisper rang-out in the night, and Viscount Dillan Dilstardt was immediately roused by the weapon on his bedside table. That twisted dagger, a creature of the Ashai, suddenly sounded panicked. “Run. We must escape” It hissed, “It’s an elder.”

“What?” Dillan muttered, sitting-up “an elder won’t come here. They don’t make pacts with humans, and this is a human city. They would never risk breaking the ancient law.” Dillan was a man in his forties with thinning hair and a beard that grew too mottled to ever appear well kept. Dillan could not hear whispers and, having never attended one of the worlds magic institutes, he knew nothing about their existence. His area of knowledge only included information on spirits, not because he was involved with them often through magic, but because it was part of his job to know what he was transporting. To him, his dagger was overreacting for no reason at all.

A scream rang out somewhere on a floor below them, but it was cut short.

“What’s going on down there?” Dillan asked, taking the dagger in-hand and opening his door. There, four guards stood in the hallway, weapons drawn, but none of them showed any sign of answering.

“Kizlat, what’s going-on?” he asked again, this time lifting his blade, but the weapon was now just a regular dagger. “Kizlat? Kizlat?” He roared and threw it to the floor. The spirit within had already retreated back to its own world.

The guards spread-out as another scream came from just down the hallway, and the two foremost guards began whispering.

Dillan was a man who knew nothing about magic, but he wasn’t stupid enough not to employ people who did. The Dilstardt family was the sixth most wealthy in Windria, and while Dillan was the younger brother to the family head, and not a wealthy man himself, his involvement with the Ashai meant that security was of the utmost importance. All four of his personal guards were trained magisters, and all four were assisted by Ashai. They were nothing like those magisters that honed their skills to match the greatest monsters of the Southern continent in battle, but for Northern magisters, they were considered quite skilful.

At the end of the hallway the door opened, and a young man wearing tattered old clothes emerged. For a second, Dillan thought that he saw something moving behind him in the dark, but whatever it was, it did not show itself.

one of the guards whispered immediately. Magisters that used groups of powerful, bound force-carrion had a distinct advantage over other magisters. With a single whisper they could unleash a powerful and invisible surprise attack that would destroy any unarmoured human that it came into contact with, and even if the defending magister had spirits that could hear the whisper beforehand and warn them of the coming attack, the attacking spirits would always be faster. Just as free-spirit combat was the best means of defeating humans with no magic, bound force-carrion were the best means of defeating other magisters.

The youth at the end of the hallway took two quick steps to the right, and the force blew past him. he whispered a coded command, and from the darkness of the doorway behind him a black blade flew like an arrow, instantly sinking itself in the chest of the magister that had fired the force cannon. the blade flew back into the darkness. .

As the body of the foremost guard hit the floor, the others’ eyes widened in shock. “Lightbringer” One of their number warned them.

Alex had heard the whisper of the first guard, and dodged the attack, and the others had interpreted this to mean that he was possessed by a Lightbringer. Normally, the only magisters that could dodge after a whisper were ones possessed by Lightbringers. While this assumption was off-the-mark, they had still successfully guessed of Stars existence.

“I’ve always wanted to kill me a lightbringer!” one of the other guards shouted and rushed forward, lightly rotating his twin swords “I hear they’re all amazing fighters.”

As he reached Alex and moved-in to strike, Alex suddenly shone with a blinding light and his voice rang out, “To fight a lightbringer is to fight without the use of your eyes.” The sound of a body striking the floor could be heard.

Dillan turned, and feeling-out the doorway behind him, made his way back inside the room, closing the door. With darkness once again surrounding him, he went to the window, and quickly opened it, climbing out into the night. Dillan’s room was on the second floor, but such a fall was far less dangerous than facing the person who had just killed two of his personal guards in a matter of seconds.

Hitting the floor below, Dillan started running towards the main yard, his passage slowed by the strange flickering lights and noises in the air all around him, and as he ran he yelled to anyone within earshot to rally.

The third guard had released heat-carrion, so that they would burn Alex of their own volition without the whispers to warn him of coming attacks, and then approached with his own two-handed blade to fight Alex in a cloud of fire, but Star had collected the second guards twin swords, and those spirits had fallen even before the battle had begun, the guard quickly following them.

The fourth guard was far more difficult. He had not been able to act while the others were in the way, but once alone, he came-out in full force. Carrying an axe as large as he was, and wearing sigil-engraved armour possessed by an automata, he was able to swing his weapon with force enough to tear through the wooden walls like paper, and he had speed enough that Star couldn’t get within striking range. With that defensive covering that could withstand a strike from Zero he advanced, and even blinded by the light, managed to push Alex back.

In the air within the hallway, small carrion spirits from different clans were clashing. Now that the sigils that separated the manor from the outside world were being ignored for the first time because of Star’s orders, law-abiding carrion had rushed-in, and the illegal carrion that had been summoned from the spirit world, or snuck-in in boxes, were fighting them off. The victor would inevitably be the lawful carrion as their numbers were far greater, but carrion were not intelligent creatures, and many of the Ashai failed to understand this, choosing not to withdraw.

Banging sounds could be heard from the walls and floor, flashing lights would suddenly flicker in-and-out of existence, and far worse, small fires were starting throughout the building.

Star backed-up again. The battle wasn’t going in Alex’s favour, and he needed to get outside and track down the noble who had run away. He still didn’t even know whose manor this was. So, seeing no other choice, he raised his finger and pointed it at the man’s chest. he whispered, and an intense light formed at the tip of his finger. It was not a regular light that shone in a thin line at the guard before him, but scorchlight: it was the intense light that only the strongest of lightbringers could form, and once that light faded, the guard fell to the floor dead, with a finger-sized hole through his heart. Alex immediately felt the backlash of that power on his lifeforce and had to resist the urge to stop and rest. Instead he made his way back down-stairs.

Dillan Dilstardt stood in the central yard, but around him only a handful of guards had gathered.

“I had over twenty people here. What the hell happened? Where are my monsters?”

The guards around him were silent. They were as clueless as him about the situation. They only looked around in confusion at all the strange noises.

From across the yard, a voice called out, “I will give you a chance to live, noble. What is your name? How do you know who I am? And who else knows?” Alex walked towards them, unperturbed by the presence of the few guards by Dillan’s side.

Dillan watched him approaching and gestured for his men to stay where they were. He was well aware that these men weren’t as skilled as his personal group, so he knew that it was unlikely that any of them would be of use against Alex. “I am Viscount Dillan Dilstardt. As for you, I have no idea who you are. I’d answer the third question if I could, but like I said, I don’t know who you are.”

Alex stopped, only five metres from where they stood, frowning. “Then why were your men spying on me at the coffee shop today?”

“Ah!” Dillan raised one hand and pointed his finger at Alex in surprise “You’re the boy from the alley today!” Then he stood there for a few moments confused, before looking at his now burning manor and a few of the bodies lying by the door and swallowing. With a scared face he then turned back to Alex. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m asking the questions. Why were your men watching me? I’ll only ask one more time.”

Dillan raised his empty hands in surrender. “No, no, we weren’t watching you…”

At that answer Alex frowned. The man didn’t appear to be lying. “Then what were your men doing there?”

Dillan looked around awkwardly. “I can’t. If I answer that, my brother will kill me. Please…”

“Art Dilstardt.” Alex muttered the name. Both Dillan’s, and Art’s names were on his list. Then he turned his head to the side, because something had caught his attention. Something was moving in the burning building.

“Look, we can all just stop this here, okay? The city guards will get here soon, and I think that it’d be better for both of us if we just let things go at this. We both have a lot to lose in this, you know? If this operation is discovered, things will be really bad for you too. They won’t just stop at killing you, you know? My brother will probably have your family and friends all killed too, right? You don’t want that, right?”

Alex knew. He knew it all-too-well, but he wasn’t even thinking about that, because his mind was completely elsewhere. Opening the porters-entrance to the manor, a great, black silhouette had emerged, and around it on the floor were bits of servants clothing and pieces of armour scattered about: the last scraps left after the creature’s meal.

Looking at those pieces, Alex understood what had happened. The moment that Alex had told the spirits to gather around the property, the more intelligent creatures among the Ashai had turned on their human allies, staying out of Alex’s path. Being surrounded by enemies on all sides and vastly outnumbered, they had known that there was no chance of being victorious in the first place, so instead, they had drunk and eaten their fill, and gathered as much power as possible before returning to the spirit world. They had absorbed the blood and parts into their own bodies and used them as building blocks to enhance their physical form, which in-turn altered the blueprint that they used to enter the physical world.

Alex would have laughed at this nightmarish, but very predictable outcome, if it weren’t for the fact that these foolish peoples’ deaths fed and gave power to the enemy of humankind.

A roar washed over everyone present, and Dillan saw the creature for the first time, suddenly smiling. He turned back to Alex. “You lost your chance to kill me. Whoever you are, this is the end for you.”

Alex watched Dillan calmly. . It was a simple request to emit a small amount of light; enough light to let that creature of the Ashai see Star within him. As expected, it chose to avoid him.

What followed was a bloodbath. The creature was a skyshadow: a winged beast with rows of needle-like teeth and razor-sharp claws. While the weaker ones only acted as scouts, utilizing their incredible hearing and eyesight to monitor enemies from great distances, this one had grown and developed its body for the sole purpose of tearing humans to pieces.

The resistance that those guards put up was completely negligible, and it cut the whole group down in only a few seconds, before it then turned and looked at him. Alex had watched the whole thing with a sense of calm accomplishment. He would not have had the heart to so thoroughly ruin these people with violence, but he felt that they deserved it. Because he felt this way, he did not blink, but instead watched the brutality play-out as though it were a beautiful dance. Once the creature had finished, he almost felt like thanking it, at-least until Stars voice came to him.

“Alex…” She whispered simply in a pained voice. She didn’t need to say more; he knew that she didn’t approve of his methods. It hadn’t been a pleasant sight, and he had forced her to watch the bloodbath too, so Alex did feel that he might have gone a little bit overboard.

“Sorry.”

The creature slowly moved its head low, facing him, and looked directly into his eyes, trying to determine whether it should fight him or finish its meal and return to its world.

As he returned the gaze, Alex thought something similar: should he fight and kill it, or just let it go? He had already killed the traitor, and his identity was still unknown, so as far as he was concerned, his job here was finished. He had no real desire to challenge the creature; ‘It’s a real monster after-all’ he thought ‘so it would be better if I can just avoid fighting it and go back.’ Then as he was considering this, a vision came to him of this creature in five years, no longer an adolescent but a fully developed god of death and destruction, falling from the nights-sky above the continent of Glass to attack Serah, Scarlet and Alaya.

“Skyshadow” Alex whispered, and his whisper carried across the ether to the thing.

The monster grinned widely and opened its bloody jaws, intrigued. “Yessss?”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Alex answered, too quietly for it to hear, with fire in his eyes and a dead expression.

In that moment, Zero struck. It had fallen fast from high-up in the darkness, building speed completely silently, to then pierce right below the rear section of the creature’s skull at the top of its neck, severing it’s spine with a stroke that had been carefully practiced hundreds of times; a stroke that would be executed with that single word.

The creature fell to the floor dead, and a rush of ether blew past them as its spirit was destroyed.

“…Alex, are you angry with me?” Star questioned, sounding a little confused.

“No no, never mind that, I just had an unpleasant thought. It’s not something for you to worry about.”

“Oh, Okay.”

“Good work tonight. Thank you for the assistance.”

“Yeah, you too.”

Alex took a deep breath and suppressed the sudden anger that had risen in him, then because he could hear the city guard at the gate, he quickly made his escape.