The Rotting Cathedral was no longer a ruin.
It stood, impossibly restored. Its walls pulsed as if alive, veins of necrotic energy spreading across the stained glass, which bled instead of glowed. The air was thick with rot and whispers, voices of the forsaken singing in agony.
At its center, Selene Nocturna stood, watching.
The Harbinger had vanished into the dark corridors, but she could still feel them. A sickness she did not design, a corruption that had festered beyond her control.
And Selene Nocturna did not tolerate things beyond her control.
With a slow, deliberate motion, she reached into her cloak and retrieved a vial of black ichor. The liquid shifted, forming skeletal faces that screamed before dissolving.
"To play a game with me is to lose a thousand times before death takes you," Selene whispered, breaking the vial against her palm.
The ichor sank into her flesh, veins darkening, muscles tightening with unnatural strength. Her breath came cold, a mist curling from her lips as she whispered an incantation.
The walls of the cathedral shuddered.
The bodies buried beneath it twitched.
Selene smirked as her army began to stir.
The Harbinger watched from the shadows. Their pulse was erratic, their flesh mutating even further. They could feel it—the sickness inside them had turned into something greater, something that even Selene had not predicted.
They clenched their fists, feeling the unnatural energy course through their veins.
With a low hiss, they moved, weaving through the crypts below the cathedral. The plague-born creatures around them did not attack.
The Harbinger exhaled, their breath coming in ragged, uneven gasps.
And Selene Nocturna would learn what it meant to be hunted.
The cathedral's great hall rumbled.
Selene lifted her gaze just in time to see the shadows split apart. The Harbinger emerged, no longer trembling, no longer weak.
They stood tall, their body laced with sinewy veins of darkness, eyes burning with the glow of something ancient.
Selene's smirk returned.
"Ah, you've ripened."
The Harbinger's voice was no longer fully their own. It echoed, layered with something unnatural.
"Your plague was only the beginning, Nocturna."
Selene tilted her head.
"And you think you've surpassed me?"
She stepped forward, her aura unfurling like a funeral shroud. The shadows around her screamed, her undead legions snarling in anticipation.
The Harbinger did not flinch.
They raised a single, clawed hand—and the cathedral itself howled.
Selene's smirk faded.
For the first time in centuries, she had found something worthy of devouring.