The axe came crashing down with the force of an avalanche.

  Tirion activated his defensive stance and a blue glow wrapped around his tower shield, reinforcing the metal with protective energy. Almost simultaneously, I saw purple shadows curl around his form.

  Dark magic seeped into his muscles to enhance his physical capabilities.

  The impact of axe on shield sent a shockwave of dark energy rippling through the chamber. Stone cracked. Ancient dust rained from the ceiling. The sound was like a thunderclap in an enclosed space, leaving our ears ringing.

  Tirion's knees buckled under the blow. Even with Lysa's strength enhancement, even with his shield skill active, even with his perfect defensive stance - it wasn't enough. The shield's surface rippled like water where the dark weapon made contact. His boots scraped against the stone floor, leaving deep gouges as he was pushed back inch by inch. Tirion's arms were shaking now, his enhanced strength reaching its limit.

  "The shield won't last!" Lysa's voice carried an edge of panic as she channeled her shadow magic. "She’s too strong!"

  Estella's chakrams were already in motion, spinning through the air in complex patterns. They sliced through the dark orc , but Renna's corrupted form was more agile than she seemed. Her figure seemed to twist in impossible ways and her body flowed around the attack like smoke. Still, it was enough to cause her to disengage from Tirion.

  "Thank you," Tirion said to Estella, shaking out his shield arm. The chakrams had bought him precious seconds, driving Renna back just enough to prevent his shield from completely shattering.

  Renna regrouped with the other two Dark Zombies. They turned to look at us with burning eyes that fixed on us. What had been Silver Wolf warriors now moved with the jerky motions of puppets with too many joints. Their movements were choppy, like a corrupted animation file that skipped frames. Their weapons left trails of purple fire as they jerked around in the air.

  As I watched their puppet-like movements, something clicking in my mind. "These monsters... they're exactly like the monsters from the surface." The same wrongness, the same corruption of the natural order - just twisted by darkness instead of light.

  "That's an astute observation." The voice came from the shadows before the masked man materialized against the chamber wall. He held a Papayras scroll in one arm while his other hand moved across it with a black quill that that scratched its surface.

  "The human body is such a fascinating thing, wouldn't you agree?" He continued making notes, his mask's empty eyes somehow conveying academic interest. "So fragile and yet so filled with potential. The way it responds to stimuli, the way it... adapts." He gestured toward Renna with his quill, drops of ink falling from its tip to leave spots on the stone floor.

  "Veiled Crown!" Tirion's voice carried all the righteous fury of a knight confronting evil. He surged forward, shield raised despite its damaged state. But Renna was between them in the flash on an eye, her corrupted axe split the air between them. Tirion barely got his shield up in time, the impact driving him back several steps.

  "Don't mind me," the masked man said, continuing his notes with scientific detachment. "I would pay more attention to your adversary if I were you. I'm just here to observe." His mask tilted slightly.

  The masked man's presence seemed to agitate the corrupted warriors. The purple flames in their eyes burned flared brighter and they jerked around at a higher frequency. One of the dark zombies suddenly convulsed. Its spine bent backward before snapping forward. The corrupted warrior lunged at Estella, its blade leaving ribbons of darkness in its wake. But Estella was already moving. She spun left in a perfect circle, her hair just barely missing the corrupted blade's edge.

  From his position against the wall, the masked man made another note, his quill scratching against the ancient scroll with enthusiasm.

  "Did you know that the human body is made out of the delicate balance of the six elements?" The masked man's quill never stopped moving as he spoke.

  A corrupted blade whistled past my ear. I ducked, feeling the dark energy crackling where it passed.

  "Light, Dark, Fire, Ice, Earth, and Air," he continued, watching as Renna's axe carved a crater in the floor beside me. "All in perfect harmony." His mask tilted, studying how Renna's corrupted form circled around Estella's counter-attack. "By upsetting that balance, by flooding the system with a single element..."

  Another Dark Zombie lunged at Lysa. Tirion's shield met it with a thunderous crash.

  "Well," the masked man gestured with his quill, "the resulting composition ceases to be what could be called human -"

  "You're wrong." Lysa's shadow magic erupted from her staff, dark tentacles reaching for the masked man with lethal intent. "[Shadow Crush]!" The spell carried enough force to shatter stone, concentrated into piercing tendrils of pure darkness.

  But he simply... wasn't there anymore. Between one blink and the next, he appeared beside the point of impact, watching the shadow magic dissipate with apparent interest. His mask turned slightly toward Lysa. "Fascinating application. Your control over shadow element is quite refined. Perhaps you'd be interested in seeing my research notes? I’m quite the scholar of shadow magic as well."

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  Lysa cut him off, her staff blazing with power. The spell manifested as a spear of concentrated darkness, aimed straight for his mask. Her normally composed voice shook with rage. "You're not a scholar. You're a monster who twists everything he touches!"

  But he dodged it with the same casualness, stepping aside as if avoiding a gentle rain. The shadow lance crashed into the wall behind him, leaving a perfectly circular hole. “I’ll take that as a no.” he continued, making another note on his scroll. "Such passion though. Such precision in your spellwork! Tell me, do you feel the shadows respond more strongly to emotional stimuli, or is it purely a matter of technical expertise?"

  "It's none of that. It's about faith and belief in the Shadow Lord!" Lysa's yelled with religious conviction, but her words were cut short as a Dark Zombie lunged at her, forcing Tirion to intercept with his damaged shield.

  “Right…” The masked man said in a disinterested tone. Even through his mask, his dismissal of religious fervor was obvious. "So as I was saying ,for many years, we have struggled against those above. Their army of light-corrupted monsters has thwarted our every advance." His mask turned toward the Dark Zombies.

  "But after much experimentation, I've managed to replicate their work. Better, even. All you need..." He gestured at Renna's massive corrupted form. "...is to upset the balance.”

  “The Church creates their monsters through prolonged light saturation," he continued. "Crude and slow, but effective. My method is more... elegant. A strong dose of pure unfiltered darkness to overwhelm the balance.” He tilted his head to observe as one of the Dark Zombies contorted its body. “The results speak for themselves, wouldn't you agree?"

  Swissh

  Estella’s Chakram sliced through him but it was all for naught. As the blades passed through him, the masked man’s form simply ceased to exist where her weapons passed, dissolving into wisps of black mist.

  "Now, now," he chided, still writing in his scroll as if the attack was merely a minor interruption. "I told you I'm just here to observe. Although..." He looked up from his notes. "Your form was excellent. The rotation speed of those chakrams should have been more than sufficient to sever a normal body. Would you mind if I made a few measurements? For research purposes, of course."

  "Sorry," Estella's smile was razor-sharp as she caught her chakrams. "I don't perform for monsters. Especially ones who hide behind masks."

  "A pity," the masked man continued, seemingly amused by Estella’s defiance. "After all, one must be thorough in documenting these things. The transformation of the Silver Wolves has provided excellent data, but I'm quite curious about how other combat styles might adapt to the corruption process."

  "Keep wondering," Estella's voice was ice-cold now. "Because the only thing you'll be documenting today is failure."

  “I concur… although whose failure is a subject of interpretation.” The masked man's form rippled and dissolved into shadow.

  "You know... The church says those who lack faith turn to monsters." His voice came from the shadows, resonating through the stone walls with unnatural clarity. Then, between one heartbeat and the next, he materialized directly in front of me. So close I could see every detail of his mask's craftsmanship – intricate spirals of gold carved with fine artistry. Behind the mask's eyeholes were eyes of absolute darkness, like looking into wells that went down forever.

  "But I disagree," he leaned in closer, his whisper somehow more intimate and more terrifying than any shout. "Faith or not… There's a monster in all of us."

  Those empty eyes held mine, and I felt reality starting to slip. The chamber seemed to fall away, leaving just those two points of absolute darkness.

  "You would make such an interesting specimen. Such limitless potential," he said, examining me like a particularly fascinating insect under glass. In one hand, he held a vial of darkness. His other hand reached up, almost but not quite touching my face. Where his fingers passed, I felt reality distort, like the skin of the world was being pulled too tight.

  In those bottomless eyes, I saw myself reflected a thousand times. I saw versions of myself consumed by darkness, twisted by light, corrupted by power. A knight in shining armor, a demon lord on a throne of bones, a being of pure shadow – each one as real as the next. The detachment in his voice made it worse somehow. Like we were all just specimens in some cosmic experiment.

  Purple mist swirled around the edges of my vision, probing for any crack in my mental defenses. Each tendril carried whispers of power, promises of strength, visions of what I could become. But my passive skill held firm, the petrified layers of my mind rejected the intrusion. My heart had learned to turn to stone when it needed to.

  “Get lost!” Regaining my senses, I swung my sword at him, but yet again, the masked man's form distorted like a glitch and my weapon passed through empty space where he had been a fraction of a second before. He blinked back to his position against the wall in one smooth motion.

  "Noctus!" Estella's chakrams spun through the air where the masked man had been. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine." My hands were shaking. Whatever that vision was, it had felt too real. "Just really starting to hate this guy's whole disappearing act."

  “Your mental fortitude is commendable,” he said, making another note on his scroll. "Most subjects succumb to the trance state almost immediately. Their minds are so... malleable. But you..." He turned to look at me. "You've developed quite the interesting resistance. I wonder..."

  "He's trying to get in your head," Tirion called out, shield raised. "Don't let him." A Dark Zombie's blade cut off his warning, forcing him back into defensive stance.

  The scroll in his hands had grown thicker, new pages seemingly manifesting from the shadows themselves as he continued to write. “Your resistance to my little trance makes me all the more curious about how you'd respond to proper corruption. Sometimes the strongest minds make the most interesting transformations."

  "The only thing transforming here will be your face when I rearrange it!" I growled.

  "Such spirited responses." He smiled with apparent amusement. "I do enjoy when test subjects show personality."

  The masked man rolled his scroll closed and his quill dissolved between his fingers like smoke in the wind. "Of course, this is just a preliminary test. Now if you would excuse me, I've got an audience with the king."

  Renna's roar hit us like a physical force. Ancient dust cascaded from the ceiling as the chamber shook. But when I turned back from the sound, the masked man was already unraveling into shadows.

  "Oh, and do try to survive," his voice whispered in the winds. "Long-term observation subjects are so hard to find these days." His last words echoed in the chamber as his body dissolved completely. "Especially such interesting ones..."

  In the silence that followed, Renna's corruption flared with renewed intensity. The purple flames pouring from her mouth and eyes burned brighter than ever, and the corruption leaking from her twisted axe began to eat into the stone floor with renewed vigor.

  She charged at us.