A veil of necrotic mist hung over the Rotting Cathedral.
Selene Nocturna stood at its heart, her fingers lifting the edges of her hood, adjusting the shroud that draped over her form like a second skin. Whispers of the dead slithered through the air, their voices coiling around her like unseen serpents.
Across the ruined sanctuary, the Paladin of Aetheris stood firm, his warhammer still crackling with divine energy. The holy fire that had surged moments before was already fading, swallowed by the corruption that pulsed within the cathedral's walls.
"So bold, stepping into my domain," Selene murmured, her voice laced with something both seductive and venomous. She tilted her head, her glowing eyes locking onto the paladin's. "Do you truly believe your light can outlast the abyss?"
The paladin raised his warhammer. "I don't need to outlast you, Widow. I only need to end you."
Selene's lips curled into a crimson-stained smirk.
With a sudden flick of her wrists, her shroud unfurled. The tattered fabric expanded unnaturally, stretching into the darkness, shifting like living tendrils. From its folds, blackened hands emerged, clawing their way toward the paladin.
He swung his hammer, a pulse of radiant energy rippling outward. The spectral hands shriveled and burned, but the shroud merely reshaped itself, shifting into something else.
From the abyssal fabric, figures began to rise. Hollowed warriors, their bodies wrapped in the same plague-ridden cloth, their faces obscured save for the haunting glow of their sunken eyes. The Widow's Veil.
They were her sentinels, twisted revenants bound by her curse.
The paladin braced himself as they descended upon him.
With a mighty swing, he crushed the skull of the first revenant, sending a burst of divine flame through its body. But for every one he destroyed, two more emerged from the ever-shifting shroud.
Selene watched, amused, adjusting her hood as though this were nothing more than a simple game.
"How long can you fight, I wonder?" she mused, stepping forward. Her very presence made the air thick with decay. "Will you still stand when your strength is drained? When your light flickers? When your faith cracks?"
The paladin gritted his teeth, feeling the weight of the darkness pressing in. He knew what she was doing—wearing him down, drowning him in a tide of the undead.
With a surge of resolve, he drove his hammer into the cathedral floor. A holy sigil erupted, sending forth a shockwave of blinding light.
The revenants wailed in agony, their forms disintegrating.
For the first time, Selene's smirk faltered.
The paladin stood tall, his eyes blazing. "Your veil won't hide you from judgment, Selene."
She lowered her hood slightly, her expression unreadable.
"Oh, darling. I'm not hiding."
The shadows collapsed inward