Savior in Shadow Slave

Twilight stained the Village sky, not with the hues of the setting sun, but with the warped luminance of battle. A golden halo, radiant and violent, had erupted above the capital—replacing calm with chaos.

Murphy, the one hated by the Spell, floated above the spires. His form glowed like a fallen star, cloaked in an aura of divine judgment. Light hummed at his fingertips—holy, ancient, merciless.

Below him, standing calmly atop a tower as if it were his natural throne, was the Terror. Her dress danced in the static-charged air.

"I must commend you," Murphy said, watching the dark foe. "You've kept your desire of freedom alive all these centuries."

"And you," Terror replied, her voice echoing with centuries of desire, "have let monsters make you dance."

Terror closed her eyes briefly, as if mourning something only she could see.

Murphy raised his hand—and the world responded.

Swords of Light manifested in the sky, glowing like starlit daggers, ten thousand of them, hanging motionless for a heartbeat... then all at once rained down like divine wrath.

This ability was something he couldn't use until Murphy felt something change within him after the burial.

Terror didn't flinch.

She raised one hand, and a book appeared, a book of abilities, her book spinned rapidly behind her, pages turning faster than eyes could follow.

11th Head Elder's ability, Dark Curtain.

A Dark veil of flowing symbols erupted upward, distorting the air like heat mirage. The swords struck... and paused mid-air, frozen in their deadly arcs, and then got absorbed in that river of darkness.

Terror vanished.

An Ascended's Ability, Portal Dash.

Reappearing behind Murphy in the blink of an eye.

"One month."

A whip of dark runes followed his gesture, ready to bind—but Murphy was already gone, blinking away in a burst of light particles, reforming a hundred meters away.

"You're not the only one who can be fast, Terror" Murphy said with a bitter smirk.

And then with a roar, Murphy fired a beam of condensed sunlight, a spiral of raw energy wide enough to engulf a castle.

Terror's eyes flashed.

An Awakened's Ability, Invincible for a moment.

She stepped into the beam—and emerged from it, unharmed, the attack flowing around her like a river around a stone.

But Murphy anticipated this.

He moved his hands on the air, writing a rune—Art of Sacrifice: Dead's Embrace!—and dozens of radiant shackles erupted from the bodies of those he stitched, chaining through the air like serpent-fangs, spiraling toward Terror.

Terror was caught.

For a breath.

Then her body flickered like a glitch.

37th Head Elder's ability, Parallel Escape.

She stepped through the dimensions and appeared above Murphy, bringing down a hammer of pure compressed mental attack, shaped like an ancient ghost's hand.

Murphy used Half a year of his time and summoned a barrier of light, and the hammer shattered it—only for the barrier's shards to explode, each a homing blade of radiance.

Terror spiraled downward, dodging with elegance, tracing dark runes in her wake.

But one blade nicked her. Blood spattered the sky.

And he rushed towards her with [Rengoku] in his hands. Terror seeing this lashed out whips of shadow from the shadow of the village.

Murphy dodged them with extreme efforts.

By then, 45 seconds had passed.

Murphy landed across from her atop a floating stone. His breath heavy. His aura, wild.

"You said you have told me every truth. There is still one left!"

Terror wiped the blood from her lips.

"Why were you chained? Why did Shepherd's herd kidnapped only you?"

Hearing this, Terror's hand trembled. Her face cracked between rage and sorrow.

18th Head Elder's ability, Judgment.

From the sky, a massive spear of Lightning formed—burning blue and white, forged from centuries of grief.

Murphy looked up.

He closed his eyes and whispered.

"I'm sorry."

He extended both hands. His radiance burned violently.

Three years.

Golden lights materialized in the air, gigantic, ancient, layered in divine complexity. Sacredness itself condensed into solid form. The spear clashed—

—and was slowly unraveled, deconstructed in midair, like it did not dare to punish A God.

But the price was heavy. For both of them.

Three minutes passed.

The Radiance dimmed. His body trembled. His time... was running out.

Murphy launched forward, blade drawn. Trying his best to appear tough.

Terror met him mid-air.

Sword clashed with runes. Radiance seared. Screams echoed.

Every strike caused massive destructions. At one point, the village itself was half destroyed.

But it was being a bit too much. Even for him.

Murphy's blade cut deep across her chest.

The Terror fell.

The sky began to dim.

But—

She smiled.

As she fell, she raised one trembling hand toward Murphy.

Awakened's ability, Unbroken.

She unleashed every second of desire and hatred she had stored—years of stolen moments, stored from near-deaths during the time with Shepherd's herd, despairing breaths, broken hearts.

The essence surged.

She willed her own death to be delayed by a few minutes.

Long enough to catch Murphy off guard—And bind him.

51st Head Elder's ability, Coffin of hatred.

Murphy was frozen. Held in his own hatred. Unable to move.

Terror floated down slowly, gasping.

"I must say Murphy even if I am weakened for feeding you my soul for 5 long years, I still possess enough strength to rival a Transcendent Terror, I am happy as your mother."

After a pause, she said.

"You wanted justice," she whispered. "I just wanted...freedom."

The dusk above the village had gone still, as if even time feared to breathe.

Murphy, bound in the Coffin of Hatred—his own hatred—felt every ounce of power he had offered in sacrifice clawing at him from within. Time he'd spent. Time he'd burned. Now it raged like trapped fire inside a sealed glass, unable to move. The radiant golden shimmer of his divine form dimmed, reduced to flickers around his silhouette, barely resisting the dark bonds coiling tighter with each heartbeat.

And she… floated before him. Her chest torn open, blood dripping like rubies down her ribs, staining her dress. But her posture was graceful, proud. Beautiful in the most horrifying way.

Terror, the broken devil, the dancer of nightmares, hovered just inches from him now. One hand clutching her wound. The other gently caressing his frozen cheek.

"You see," she whispered, her voice thick with maternal ache and something deeply obscene, "you always called me a monster, Murphy. But isn't it funny… even monsters can feel love."

Her eyes shimmered—red and gold, sorrow and madness dancing together in her gaze.

"You thought I did all this to escape. To destroy. To devour." She leaned closer, her lips brushing against his ear like a curse. "But I did it… to be free."

His breath caught in his throat. His hatred surged against the coffin of runes—but her ability wasn't external. It used him against himself.

"Don't," Murphy rasped through clenched teeth. "Don't try to justify this."

Terror's smile twisted, and her voice dropped low.

"Five long years, Murphy. I watched you live and reset. Sixty-six times. I rebuilt you with care, like sculpting a statue from ashes. I gave you strength when you were weak. Gave you joy when you had none. I wept with you... laughed when you did. I became your breath. Your shadow."

Terror hummed gracefully and said: "I shall finally take my freedom."

She extended her hand, now turned phase through and forcefully dug it in his mind.

She chuckled. "Now… You will become my most loveable child."

A long silence.

"I don't want to be your anything," he said, almost pleading. "You're not a mother. You're a sickness that calls itself love."

Her face faltered. Her eyes lost some of their glow.

While he spoke, Murphy was already at work—quietly transmuting the hatred that bound him into something else. Into will. Into the stubborn, flickering fire of life. He reshaped it, thread by thread, so subtly that even she did not notice.

And then—he broke free.

A single, blinding pulse of golden light erupted from him, so fierce and absolute that the sky recoiled. The clouds screamed and scattered. The very fabric of space trembled.

Terror's body was hurled backwards, spiraling through the storm of divine radiance. Yet even as she bled, even as her dress tore and the runes flickered wildly across her skin, she smiled.

Still smiling.

"You've grown so beautifully, my sweet," she whispered, crimson trailing from her lips like a lover's kiss.

But Murphy had no wish to hear another word.

His voice thundered across the sky, drowning hers in a divine roar:

"I sacrifice all my remaining time leaving behind only one day... for a single strike."

[Rengoku] trembled in his hands. And then—it roared.

From its edge, light surged. Not ordinary light—but something infinitely compressed, impossibly dense. A weightless singularity. A spark that bent time, space, and death itself into its orbit.

Art of Sacrifice: Singularity.

A single swing that will defy every law.

A slash that will tore through dimensions, eclipsing the heavens and burning through every fate written before this moment.

A sword strike that would sow the seeds of terror in the hearts of gods... and whisper dread into the cold dreams of creatures beyond the void.

The moment his blade fell, the world wept.

A soundless scream tore through the heavens as the Art of Sacrifice: Singularity carved into existence itself. The sky fractured. Clouds unraveled like threads pulled from divine fabric.

And below—

The village ceased to be.

What had once been a cradle of false peace and haunted laughter, now lay buried beneath mountains of ruin. Homes were reduced to cinders. Stone cracked like brittle bones. Even the wind held its breath—ash and memory drifting together in ghostlike spirals.

Leaving behind only few things.

Where the sun once watched in judgment, only a hollowed sky remained.

It was not a battle.

It was extinction.

In that last moment, he revealed the strength of a... Supreme.

Murphy hovered in the silence that followed, framed by the fading afterglow of his own light. His body trembled, not from fear, but collapse. Cracks lined his arms like shattered porcelain. The golden light that had once radiated with godlike fury now pulsed weakly—flickering, fading.

He had sacrificed everything.

His adulthood. His midlife. Half his old age.

And now, only one day remained.

Across from him, Terror lay sprawled atop a crumbled tower, her limbs bent at unnatural angles. Blood—dark and shimmering—poured from wounds that refused to close. Her once-immaculate black dress clung to her body like mourning cloth. Her feet, once dancing across memory and madness, twitched weakly—leaving streaks of blood wherever they brushed stone.

But she smiled.

Even now.

Through shattered lips, cracked ribs, and punctured pride.

"You've grown… so beautifully," she rasped, her voice both a lullaby and a curse. "My sweet... broken boy."

Murphy's eyes dimmed. He landed gently on a slab of stone, every step heavier than the last. The remains of [Rengoku] dragged behind him, its radiant edge dulled.

He didn't answer.

But Terror… still had one last thread to pull.

She forced her broken body upright. Her fingers curled slowly into a claw, trembling. From her chest, where the blood ran thickest, a rune began to burn—scarlet and violent.

A Mother's Wrath.

Terror's Ability—Cradle Reversal.

"I won't die alone," she whispered, voice trembling with sorrow, hunger… and finality.

The rune exploded outward, forming a crimson cradle around her—a cocoon of flesh, resentment, memory, and stolen love. A dome forged from every soul she ever manipulated. Every death she ever orchestrated. The sky turned crimson once more.

Murphy's eyes widened, too late.

The cradle imploded.

A singularity of sorrow burst forth—ravenous and infinite. It targeted the last thread of his time.

He screamed—not from pain, but from realization.

She wasn't trying to kill him.

She was trying to steal the last day he had left.

Golden wings of light burst from his back as he surged upward, using his last reserve of strength to dodge. The blast scraped his side, burning years from his bones. His hair turned slightly grey at the edges. His limbs shuddered.

He landed across the crater. Knees buckled. Blood at the corner of his mouth.

Terror had collapsed again—her final attack spent.

Both of them were dying.

And the world… the world was already dead.

The village had become nothing but a canvas of ruin, the sky above a warped sheet of grief. Stones floated aimlessly, time stuttering around them.

Murphy staggered forward.

Terror, lying in a pool of her own blood, watched him approach with half-lidded eyes, her smile soft now. Motherly. Faintly obscene.

"You always were... such a stubborn child," she breathed. "Even now… you burn so bright. It hurts to look at you."

Murphy stood over her.

One final swing would end it.

But as he raised his sword, she whispered:

"You still have... a day left. Will you spend it ending me, Murphy? Or will you… live it?"

Murphy sat beside her, both of them cocooned in the soft hush of ruin. The sky no longer burned. The winds no longer howled. Only the quiet aftermath of a world unmade.

He glanced at her—this broken Devil, this mother of nightmares—and spoke softly.

"Terror… I lied to you."

She turned her head toward him slowly, her eyes heavy with exhaustion, but still curious. There was no malice in her gaze anymore—only the final embers of what once was.

He gave her a tired smile. "You see… Apparition, the one who guided me… she left something behind. A gift. Or maybe a gamble."

Terror blinked, blood pooling beneath her. "A gift?"

Murphy nodded. "An ability. One she made using the last of her power—her remaining authority as the Goddess of Rebirth. It can only be used once every one year. And only when I have... a single day of life left."

Her lips parted faintly, forming the words without breath. "What… ability?"

He closed his eyes and whispered, as if offering a prayer to the dying world itself:

"I call it—Samsara."

And then—

his body began to glow.

No blood. No pain. Just radiance. A thousand tiny motes of golden light began to rise from his skin, flickering like fireflies in the twilight.

Terror's eyes widened in silent awe.

His skin dissolved into light.

His soul fractured and scattered—like seeds on the wind.

And where once sat a weary man on the edge of annihilation, now lay a newborn child. One year old. Wrapped in a cocoon of golden feathers, eyes wide and ancient. Innocent, yet unknowably deep.

Murphy had died.

And Murphy was born again.

A new cycle.

A child untouched by hatred… yet carrying the weight of all he had seen.

Terror, breathless and broken, reached toward the child—not in malice, not in hunger, but in desperate wonder.

Her hand trembled, fingers splayed like the memory of a mother who had once cradled life, not ended it.

But the light—so bright, so impossibly pure—was just beyond her reach.

She smiled, one last time.

It was not the smile of a victor, nor of a schemer, but of a mother who had been forgiven when she least deserved it.

Blood streaked her lips. Her bones cracked like old promises.

And then—

She crumbled.

Her body turned to ash beside the one she had once tried to consume.

The child she had twisted, nurtured, and finally wept for.

But as the silence prepared to seal her away forever—

A soft voice echoed, shrill and innocent.

A child's voice.

But laced with ancient authority.

"I have given you two years of my time, Terror."

The ashes stirred.

"It should be enough for you to live for one more day."

The wind paused.

A golden radiance unfurled, weaving threads of light between each grain of dust, pulling them inward like threads of fate being rewoven.

Kaenaria gasped—lungs reformed, heart ignited. Her eyes snapped open, wide with disbelief.

Her body was reborn. Not as a Demon. Not as a terror.

But as a woman.

Trembling, still broken, still bleeding—but alive.

And there he stood before her, that radiant child, now 3 years old.

Hair soft as silk, eyes ancient and kind.

He wobbled as he took a step toward her, as if even rebirth had not erased his intent.

Tears welled in Kaenaria's eyes as she knelt—no longer out of power, but out of humility.

"Murphy…" she whispered, voice breaking. "Why would you…"

The child reached for her cheek.

Warmth bloomed where he touched her.

No words were spoken, but the answer lived in that tiny, luminous hand.

Because even the terror of a thousand nightmares—

Had been loved.