Chapter 38 – Too Easy
Umbra stared, and for a long moment she did not understand what she was looking at.
The world felt wrong in a way that was difficult to describe, as though reality itself had been shaken loose and dropped back together improperly. Her vision swam and tilted, everything sideways and distant, and it took several long seconds before she understood why nothing around her made sense.
Why could she see her own body lying further down the road?
Why was it half buried beneath a ruined city bus?
Her thoughts stumbled over themselves as memory came rushing back in broken pieces. She had been shaping the spell. The perfect darkness had been right there in her hands, almost ready, almost beautiful. She had seen the knight move and had expected the spear. She had even smiled because she had already planned for that.
What she had not planned for, what had never once crossed her mind, was the bus.
The spell had collapsed when the spear struck it. Darkness had exploded outward in every direction, the street vanishing beneath a violent wave of her own magic. She remembered being thrown backwards by the blast, dazed but otherwise unharmed, and then opening her eyes just in time to see the knight wrench a ruined bus out of the road and throw it at her like an oversized brick.
The memory landed with humiliating clarity.
The bus had hit her.
Then, after that, things had become much worse.
Now her vision shifted again as her severed head was lifted from the broken pavement, fingers tangling into her hair as the world swung sickeningly before settling. She found herself staring straight at the knight.
“Too easy,” the knight roared, her voice shaking with grief and fury alike as she held Umbra's bodiless head aloft . “This was far too easy. All those lives, all that suffering, and this was all you were?”
She unleashed a monstrous snarl, before her expression schooled into something much cooler, more focused.
“This is the end,” the knight said with a growl. “There will be no escape this time.”
Umbra pouted, her lips trembling with exaggerated offense despite the fact that her body lay several steps away without its head. “Why are you trying to hurt me?” she demanded, her tone almost childish. “I only want to help everyone.”
The knight’s expression hardened, though there was something like grief beneath it. “Your version of help is annihilation. You twist the world until it no longer has a will of its own, you smother choice, you choke the land until nothing remains but what you decide it should be.”
Umbra rolled her eyes, as if the answer were obvious. “But they are happier! Look at them, my smart servants… They adore their new forms, even if some of them have questionable taste. I gave them gifts.”
“You stole their minds,” the knight hissed, fury breaking through her composure. “You hollowed them out and remade them into killers who believed it was their own choice.”
Umbra’s severed head tilted slightly in annoyance. “You simply do not recognize potential. I improved them.”
“This conversation is pointless,” the knight replied at last, her voice going cold. “Goodbye, Witch of the Void. May you dissolve into the nothingness you worship.”
Still holding Umbra’s head, the knight strode over to the fallen body and dropped it beside the neck stump without ceremony. With her free hand she summoned her spear, and it tore through the air obediently before slapping solidly into her palm.
She positioned the blade carefully over the center of Umbra’s chest.
The spear drove downward in a single, merciless thrust.
Umbra felt something strange then, a sensation unlike pain but far worse. It was as though invisible hooks had lodged into every fragment of her being and were pulling in opposite directions, stretching her across distances she could not comprehend. Her thoughts began to blur, thinning like mist under harsh sunlight.
“No!” she shrieked, her voice rising in genuine fear for the first time. “Stop! That hurts!”
The knight withdrew the spear only to strike again, this time not with brute force but with cold precision. She carved into the body with a dozen measured cuts, peeling back flesh as though opening a grotesque flower.
Inside there were no organs, no heart or lungs or bone as there should have been.
There was only black ichor, thick and viscous, pooling within the hollow cavity. At its center lay a fractured crystal, once radiant but now splintered and unstable, pulsing weakly as if struggling to hold itself together.
The knight looked down at it with undisguised contempt.
“Goodbye,” she said bitterly, “my oldest enemy.”
She aligned the spear tip with the shattered crystal at the core and drew back her arm, preparing to drive the weapon through it once and for all.
And then—
Luna’s body began to tremble without warning, a violent shudder that ran from the top of her head down to the tips of her fingers as though something inside her had suddenly shattered. The pain that followed was unlike anything she had ever felt before, not a simple wound or a broken bone, but a deep and all-consuming agony that burned through every fibre of her being. It felt as if something essential had been ripped out of her, leaving behind only raw nerves and emptiness. Her vision swam as she forced herself to look around, barely able to move her head.
All around her, her friends were collapsing in similar fashion, their bodies jerking and convulsing as if struck by invisible lightning. They clutched at their chests and temples, some curling into themselves, others falling flat against the ruined pavement. The only exception was Sarah, whose broken form was slowly and steadily knitting itself back together, torn flesh pulling closed with an unnatural patience. While the others writhed and gasped, Sarah simply lay there, breathing hard, but not screaming.
What is happening to us?
The question echoed uselessly in Luna’s mind as another wave of pain tore through her. It felt like she was on fire, like every nerve had been exposed to open flame, and along with the physical torment came something far worse. Her thoughts flooded with memories that did not unfold normally but instead crashed over her all at once, stretched and distorted, as if months of horror were being forced into her mind in a single instant. She saw herself laughing while buildings burned. She saw herself giving orders that led to bloodshed. She saw faces… so many faces… so many twisted in terror.
She tried to scream, but her body would not obey her. Her jaw trembled uselessly. Tears streamed down her flawless face, cutting clean paths through the grime and ash that clung to her skin, yet no sound came out.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, the pain stopped.
The absence of it was worse.
It was not relief or comfort, it was a brutal clarity. It felt as though a heavy fog that she had never noticed before had been lifted from her mind. For the first time in what felt like forever, her thoughts were entirely her own. There was no gentle nudge guiding them, no soft voice whispering reassurances, no warm certainty telling her that everything she did was justified. It was as if she had been a marionette suspended by invisible strings, and someone had finally cut them.
Realisation dawned slowly, and when it did, it struck harder than any blade.
Luna bolted upright with a strangled gasp and immediately doubled over, retching violently onto the shattered pavement beside her. Her stomach heaved again and again, as if her body were trying to purge something far deeper than food.
She was a murderer. Worse than that, she had not even questioned it, nor felt anything resembling guilt. She had believed it was necessary, that it was right.
She was a monster.
A scream finally tore free from her throat, raw and broken, as she clawed desperately at her own face. Her nails raked across her skin as though she could peel away the person she had been and uncover someone innocent beneath.
Around her, more screams rose into the air, mingled with sobbing and panicked breaths as the others came to the same horrifying understanding.
Suddenly her wrists were seized, her hands pulled away from her face with firm, unyielding strength. Through her blurred vision she forced herself to focus on the figure crouching over her.
“Stop. It’s over,” came a firm, rasping voice.
“Who… what…?” Luna whimpered, her voice barely more than air.
The knight crouched in front of her, still towering above her, her monstrous features softened by something that looked almost like pity. The same knight Luna had tried to kill only moments ago.
“It is over now,” the knight repeated. “Do you surrender?”
Luna’s shoulders sagged as though the question had drained what little strength she had left. “Kill me,” she breathed.
“No.”
“I am a monster.”
“No.”
“I deserve death.”
The knight’s expression did not change. “Do you blame the weapon when someone is slain? Or do you blame the one who wielded it?”
Luna blinked at her in confusion, tears still spilling freely. “What?”
“Your mind was not your own,” the knight said firmly. “The guilt you feel belongs to the Witch of the Void. She twisted your thoughts and made you believe lies.”
“But everyone,” Luna choked. “So many people are dead.”
“And many more were saved,” the knight replied.
“But after everything I did…”
“Enough.” The knight let out a slow breath. “You are not responsible for actions committed under her domination. That much is clear to me. I cannot promise that this world will see it so easily. I have lost companions to her influence before. She distorts their perception, convinces them of false truths, and then turns them against their own people. The trauma you feel will remain, but the blame does not rest on your shoulders.”
“Ugh. That hurt,” came Sarah’s voice suddenly.
Luna turned toward her in disbelief. Sarah was sitting up now, brushing debris from her ruined clothing. A long scar ran diagonally from her shoulder down to her hip where the spear had struck her, but the wound itself had closed. She looked shaken, but not shattered. Not like the others, who were still curled on the ground, sobbing or clutching their heads.
Why was Sarah all right?
A cold, creeping realisation began to settle into Luna’s stomach.
“Sarah,” she said slowly, her voice trembling. “You were under her control too… right?”
Sarah met her gaze and hesitated for the briefest moment before nodding. “I—yeah. Of course.”
Luna did not respond immediately. Instead, she slowly turned her head toward the knight.
The knight was already staring at Sarah, her gaze narrowed in careful suspicion. She held Sarah’s eyes for several long, uncomfortable seconds, the silence stretching tight between them, before finally turning her attention back to Luna.
“I am going to attend to my wife,” the knight said firm tone, but laced with urgency that she could not quite conceal. “You are all going to remain here until I return, won’t you?”
Luna found that she could not summon the strength for anything more than a small, mechanical nod. Her thoughts still felt fragile, like glass that might crack again if handled too roughly.
The knight studied her for a moment longer, as if weighing the sincerity of that silent agreement. Then she gave a short nod of her own. “Good. I will be back soon.”
She rose to her full height once more, and even exhausted and wounded, she was an imposing figure. The torn edges of her armor caught what little light remained, and for a brief second Luna was struck by how overwhelming the knight’s presence truly was. Then the knight turned away and strode over to where the fallen angel lay.
With a care that contrasted sharply with her earlier violence, the knight bent down and gathered the angel into her arms, lifting her as though she weighed nothing at all. The transformation in her posture was subtle but undeniable; the rigid warrior became something gentler, protective in a way that made Luna’s chest ache.
Before leaving, the knight looked back at them one final time.
“Do. Not. Move.”
Then, without another glance, she broke into a sprint. Her armored boots pounded against the ruined asphalt as she accelerated with startling speed, vanishing down the broken road in a matter of seconds until only drifting dust marked her departure.
Silence settled over the street.
Luna remained where she was, knees drawn loosely to her chest, staring blankly at the empty stretch of road where the knight had disappeared.
What was she supposed to do now? There was no commanding voice in her mind anymore, no reassuring whisper guiding her next step. Just her own torturous thoughts raw in her mind..
Sit, she supposed.
She lifted a trembling hand to her face, brushing her fingertips across the gouges she had carved into her own skin in her panic. The wounds were already knitting themselves closed, the torn flesh smoothing over as if the damage had never been there at all..
“A gift, huh,” she murmured to herself, her voice hollow.
The word felt bitter now.