The dark dimension had become easier to bear as she knew the feeling of imprisonment and compression it brought with it. Tristessa had understood that it was a matter of sensing the hidden air in order to breathe, every molecule of oxygen concealed in the darkness; for that was what Reiden's Divinity was all about.

One became one with the shadows and embraced their mysterious, swift, and silent nature. Shadow-veiled, far from the light...or devouring it.

Together with Reiden, they swiftly traversed the interior of the eastern side of the Feydra Forest, dodging trees and vegetation with great ease, as if every obstacle had moved out of the way before them. Or it could also be interpreted as them, in a state of concealed nature, flowing around like the movement of the waters of a river seeking to pass through the easiest spaces available to traverse.

In the end, the how didn't matter, but rather managing to distance themselves from the Dullahan.

In that soundless dimension, she had had no sense of distance since Reiden embraced her and activated his Divinity. The last thing she'd heard was the neigh of her Nemesis's spectral steed, accepting the challenge of chasing them down.

"If only I could tell Reiden more about the Dullahan..." she thought, feeling the contact with his body, but unable to see it or transmit any information. Isolation, stranded in that dark dimension and bound to Reiden's decisions. "Damn, it's so hard to breathe..."

The resistance of the air entering her already quasi-static lungs wasn't helping. Her insides were burning, all her vital functions hanging by a thread. Even the beats of her heart were almost imperceptible. As if it was about to stop.

"...!"

Suddenly, the dark space shattered with a violent jolt, as if the material plane had been forced upon it. Tristessa saw the world spinning without control, before she felt the hard contact of the ground. No matter how the grass cushioned some of the impact, she hit her head and other parts of her body until she lost all the momentum she'd carried with her from the shadow-speed granted by Reiden's Divinity.

"Uh, fuck... W-what the hell was that, Rei..." Tristessa saw next to her that the mercenary had suffered the same setback, only he was already getting up from the ground with a grimace of annoyance and fresh blood dripping from a cut under his right eye. "What happened?"

Clearly, the sudden way in which the [Divinity of Shadowstep] had canceled itself hadn't been intentional. It happened the moment they entered one of the forest's many clearings, where the land surface mingled with geographical faults that raised rocky terrain.

And such place wasn't uninhabited.

"Well damn me, look at this, Katriel!" A man lying on a very damaged animal-skin blanket jumped up, alerted by the presence of two unwanted guests. He was wearing old black rags, deliberately blending into the darkness. He wore a hood and a mask over his mouth and nose to maintain his anonymity and protect himself from the cold. "Two fell thanks to the detection rune!"

In the center of the clearing, on the rocky surface, a tentative camp had been set up, consisting of a small bonfire, backpacks, and more sleeping mats. Five men used the place as a refugee; all of them dressed in the same shabby manner except for the leader, who, in addition to wearing a fine black tunic, also wore lightweight wooden arm and leg armor.

Five people Tristessa was unfortunately familiar with.

"Damn, these guys again! I didn't expect to meet them at least for a couple more hours!" she thought, helped by Reiden to her feet. With their guard up and their weapons drawn, the two not only had to worry about the pursuer behind them, but also about the group of men who had caused them trouble on the previous loop. "This is going to get tough... Also, why the heck did Reiden's Divinity fail? That didn't happen before!"

Tristessa looked back at the edge of the forest, and she saw something strange at the floor caught her attention: a smooth, hexagonal stone with a black glyph etched into it, as if it had been burned into its surface.

"That's a rune? Fuck my luck…"

She had heard of those devices; minerals carved with glyphs that channeled thaumaturgical spells on their volume. Severus had mentioned them as a casual topic of conversation. She hadn't given it much thought since, according to the elf, it was very difficult to imbue an object with a spell for proper use, and because over time, the natural entropy of magic caused it to lose effectiveness.

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"I told you it was a good investment," said the man named Bennett, only recognizable to Tristessa by his voice.

"Investment? You cost a thaumaturge his neck to get it!" another replied, laughing and descending the small hill while unsheathing his rusty dagger. Judging by his voice, it was Zef, someone the gray-eyed girl knew more privately, thanks to his soul that she had returned from the void. "Be thankful Fio knows some thaumaturgy to activate it."

"Ha! You didn't have faith in me," said the man named Fio, laughing, contrary to how Tristessa remembered him: screaming in fear and pain while Zef, transformed into a revenant, stabbed him and crushed his head with blows until he died. "Too bad that rune is a one-use rune, anyway."

"Shut your mouths, you three. Don't get distracted… Or you'll let the old man and that miss escape," Ludvig said, the second in command after the man who had yet to leave the camp.

That man with black hair and eyes, the only one not wearing a hood, looked on with a smile and his arms crossed, supervising his associates' actions.

Katriel Strauss, the leader of the Ghost Daggers. A threat to End-World. Charismatic and perceptive… Too perceptive, demonstrated by the sudden frown he had when he looked at the two newcomers more closely, and his smile faded slightly.

"Guys, wait a moment," the bandit leader indicated, drawing the attention of the other four men. "What Ludvig said concerns me. The word escape… You, old man! Judging by that symbol on your cloak, you must be from the Fireclaw Company! You know very well how this works, so tell me, what are you doing running in the middle of the woods?"

Reiden didn't answer him, nor did he intend to. It was a waste of time and he and Tristessa were critically running against it, with two serious problems in front and behind. Tristessa understood the mercenary's lack of knowledge regarding the Dullahan, without having had the opportunity to explain, and now she had to add the Ghost Daggers as another opposing strike force.

Much uncertainty, numerical disadvantage, and a certain level of spiritual fatigue given the perspiration trickling down the sides of his head and the small spasms that made him tremble involuntarily.

"Tristessa," he whispered her name. "I need several minutes to use my Divinity again. What are we up against? What is that dark phantom? Why is it tormenting you?"

"She wants to kill me, or for me to defeat her. She has no other goal," she replied halfheartedly, unable to elaborate further without risking talking about what she shouldn't. "She's skilled with a sword and uses dark thaumaturgy. I... I-I've seen her kill an entire team of mercenaries, just for getting in her way."

Those eyes glittered with the memories of a past that no longer exists, but they recalled the carnage. The screams, heads rolling, a raging beast, and the frozen, lifeless body of that same man who was standing beside her. Having given his life in vain.

"I see you've been through some tough circumstances…" the mercenary whispered, seeing the suffering written on her face. "This is going to get very ugly, I won't lie to you."

Yes, she could feel it in his voice: the mercenary saw a high chance of dying that night, just like in Tristessa, which was why he kept her close to him. To protect her above his own well-being. Like the hero he once was and always will be, no matter how much he decides to leave the past behind.

"Hey, man! Answer me! Damn it… We're the Ghost Daggers, you must have heard of us!" Katriel exclaimed, offended at being ignored and turning his attention to Tristessa. "What say you, miss? By Kantrus, you're quite pretty. A shame you smell like a rotten dead body… You know about us?"

"Y-yes, I know who you are," she managed to reply, perhaps the reaction none of them had expected. "Criminals. You roam these lands looking for innocent victims."

That response made Katriel convinced that something strange was going on.

"You know who we are, our reputation, and yet you're standing there doing nothing. You'd rather stay here than go back the way you came? That just means there's something more dangerous out there than a group of knife-wielding entrepreneurs like us," he reasoned, surprising Tristessa even more with his shrewdness. He drew one of his curved daggers, made of black mineral, and pointed it at the darkness behind them. "You're escaping from something… And you just led it to this place, you damn idiots?"

Before anyone could say anything, a sinister voice sounded with unholy magnificence from within the forest, echoing in the darkness. Only Tristessa managed to understand the words of her Nemesis, casting dark thaumaturgy without warning:

"Emprosa Athanaton."

"BACK OFF, REIDEN!"

Tristessa pushed the mercenary in the direction of the Ghost Daggers just in time to avoid being touched by glyphs that manifested out of thin air, so dark they devoured every speck of light around them. They formed a giant halo on the ground, enclosing the entire perimeter of the clearing, and when activated, they raised great ghostly walls of solid shadows.

Enclosing everyone in a supernatural cage, from which escape was only possible by flying into the skies like a bird, symbol of Life and Death in some cultures back on Earth.

But no one there had wings like the birds. No one there could fly into salvation. They were trapped. Alone. At the mercy of that foe that could move in between the fabrics of space and time. A foe that had a sole aim, and she has come to fulfill it.

The Dullahan has come to take Tristessa's life.

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