The world seemed even more deserted than the nightmare desert itself. There, although the only inhabitants were corrupted abominations, you could find movement every so often prowling the wastend.

  Instead, what Saint's eyes could see with the help of her shadow were nothing but endless snow-covered mountain ranges. It seemed like all the enemies of the world were heading toward the same pces. Which were likely the traces of humanity.

  So, what to do?

  The question might have been short, but it involved many things. She would fight; that was her main reason for existing. To defy danger and overcome it, to grow, improve, and move the world. But what would be the best way? That was the real question.

  She would have preferred to follow the mysterious creatures, but it was clear to her that facing a great titan was simply a pointless death, so what could she do?

  Saint was just an ascended devil. Even if her strength had surpassed the threshold long ago, it wasn't enough to face such beings. That became clear to her when she faced the Corpse Puppet Master's vessel. She would have died if not for her elemental power, which gave her the advantage to escape like a shadow during the night; when she was strongest.

  Her shadow continued scanning her surroundings, trying to better understand her capabilities, but a tug on her consciousness called to her senses.

  Far in the distance, where a snowstorm completely covered the horizon, a familiar sensation called to her. A being of darkness, one not as powerful, but far more vast than the hundred-footer of the hollow mountains; had noticed her presence.

  In the face of that, nothing else mattered to her. Not the state of the world, nor her own choice, for that being had marked her as its target and she as its prey.

  Born as a creature of darkness to hunt the beings that live within it. Even if its purpose and being had changed, that goal remained intact.

  Sinking into the shadows, she advanced like a tide.

  The encounter between the heart of darkness and the Saint of the Underworld was about to begin.

  …

  Among the frozen dunes of snow, an ancient fortress was found, now frozen in time. Buildings about to fall remained static in the air, as if all time had stopped, and perhaps it had.

  People, millions of them, rested eternally around them. Some tranquil, others filled with panic, and others in a war cry. All buried beneath the ice, death was preserved like a grim photograph of the end of that siege.

  Even a gigantic ship, packed with people fleeing in panic, remained motionless on the shore of what was once part of the sea.

  In the distance, a raging blizzard was slowly approaching; annoying. More like a natural force than a living being.

  Atop a giant hunk of metal, a remnant of what had once been a wall, a shadow stood high above, observing everything with an expression as indifferent as ever, but its shadow trembled, either from the cold or from the terror they were about to face.

  They were unprepared, any of them knew that. Their greatest strength was their superior command of elemental forces, which allowed them to attack or escape with greater efficiency than any ascended being in all of history. But whatever looked down on them had no need to fear that, for its dominion in that darkness was as great as the statue.

  Saint walked through the frozen streets cautiously. Her instinct—no, her senses—told her that the creature was there, hiding somewhere, watching her with interest and hunger, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly where the creature was.

  It was pying with her, no, it was its way of hunting, waiting for her to enter its territory and then closing its jaws. She could guess, because that was the kind of presence she sensed. But she didn't care; if the creature foolishly believed everything would turn out so well, she would be especially happy to cut its throat to prove otherwise.

  As her firm steps advanced through the frozen streets, a strange crunch resonated under the sole of her foot. She looked curiously at the ground where a stone boot had crushed someone's frozen arm, but that wasn't what caught her attention.

  From the severed limb, small bck bugs slowly emerged, trying to reach her, to pierce her armor. She crushed them mercilessly.

  Around her, the human ice statues, contorted in an eternal grimace of terror, began to creak. From their eye sockets, nostrils, mouths, and ears, a torrent of bugs emerged like bck water.

  She readied her weapons as their shadows engulfed her body, but before she could move, the towering stone and steel structures around her colpsed, releasing a rain of rain from the sky.

  Saint moved through the shadows, standing atop a mppost. The spot where she had once stood was now completely flooded by the vermin. She moved, summoning her steel shield and swapping her weapon for a gigantic warhammer.

  The structure she stood on gave way, either from the weight of the statue or the bites of the swarm.

  Saint leaped, dashing away to leave the city, but the tide surged from every structure, cutting off all possible passage. The worst part was that she couldn't just dive into the shadows, no, because those creatures were able to reach her even there.

  Then, Saint attacked, swinging the gigantic hammer of darkness and shadows, the weapon's ft surface smming into a tumult of those creatures. The result was instantly noticeable.

  The beetles hit exploded, being unched like deadly shrapnel that pierced others of their kind meters behind, and didn't stop there, piercing walls and entire structures. The impact and resistance of those beings turned an entire block into rubble. Unfortunately, this only caused more of those creatures to emerge from their nests, as if they were a colony of ants.

  Saint didn't give it much thought. She took an even more powerful step, smming the hammer into the ground. The impact was like a thundercp that shook the ground. The closest creatures simply exploded from the force of the impact, while the luckier ones were sent flying far away.

  The elegant knight continued advancing, destroying the terrain with ruthless ferocity. But their advance wasn't fair. Whether through aggression or simple luck, the quintuplet beetles climbed onto her armor, leaving scratch after scratch in an attempt to pierce its surface; only for a tentacle of shadows to emerge from her own skin and tear them apart under its pressure.

  Their escape sted only a couple of minutes, but the exchange reduced a third of the city to rubble.

  Only Saint managed to reach the outskirts of that pce; the bck beetles seemed to stop. But she herself knew: the hunt wasn't over. Only the true predator had finally decided to show its presence.

  The mountains trembled, at first calmly, like a faint, steady hum, but then they gained strength. The very ground shook, fractured, and the mountains colpsed in a bck tide.

  The pristine white was repced by the gleaming, glossy bck of the carapace of millions of bck beetles. The heart of darkness, that Titan hidden in the remains of a lost city, had awakened from its slumber.

  Saint looked up, observing the event with shining eyes. There was no fear or concern in her gaze, only the anticipation of having found worthy prey.

  On the horizon, beyond the swarm of bck beetles, the snowstorm stirred, sensing the disturbance in its domain. As if a storm had swallowed the world, the snow moved swiftly toward the battlefield.