The Rotting Cathedral lay in ruins. The once-majestic structure, laced with bone and decay, had become nothing more than a shattered grave.
From the wreckage, a single hand emerged.
It was pale, marred with dried blood and arcane sigils. Selene Nocturna rose from the rubble, her hood still intact, shadowing her face save for the eerie smirk curling her blackened lips.
"Ending my reign?" she mused, dusting herself off. Her voice carried no fear. Only amusement.
The Harbinger stood several feet away, their form still fluctuating—caught between life, death, and something far worse. The plague they had consumed had reshaped them, molding them into something that even Selene did not recognize.
For the first time in centuries, she had lost control of the disease.
Selene licked the blood from her lips, intrigued. She had never imagined a pawn breaking free from her game.
"Fascinating," she purred, stepping forward. The air warped around her, reality bending as the tendrils of the Whispering Doom coiled from her fingertips.
The Harbinger twitched, their corrupted veins pulsing as the cathedral's lingering spirits wailed around them.
"You should not exist," Selene continued. "My plagues consume. They do not transform."
The Harbinger smiled.
"Then perhaps you made a mistake, Nocturna."
Selene laughed—a low, guttural sound that sent the remaining corpses shivering in their broken graves.
"I do not make mistakes."
But the Harbinger was already moving.
With a whisper, the corrupted fog surrounding them rushed forward, weaving through the cathedral's remains. The bodies buried within the rubble twitched—then stood.
Selene's smirk faltered as she felt something rip through her connection to the dead.
The Harbinger was no longer just an infected soul. They were a rival.
The realization was a slow, creeping horror that itched at the edge of her thoughts.
Still, Selene Nocturna was no prey.
With a flick of her wrist, the talismans around her neck glowed with sickly light. A shriek tore through the air as blackened, spined tendrils erupted from the cathedral's ruins, spiraling toward the Harbinger.
Selene's golden eye narrowed. They were still learning.
That meant they were still breakable.
She surged forward, venom dripping from her elongated nails. If she could not control the Harbinger, she would consume them.
"Let me show you what true power looks like."
The cathedral's ruins trembled again.
This time, not in ruin— but in resurrection.