The Rotting Cathedral pulsed with a sickly glow, its bones creaking as if the structure itself breathed. The Black Hymn still echoed faintly, retreating into the cold corridors like a ghost unwilling to depart.
Kruger lay motionless, his body wrecked by shadow and plague. The corruption had spread—dark veins twisted across his skin, his breath ragged, barely clinging to consciousness.
Selene Nocturna loomed over him, her features unreadable, her lips curled into something between amusement and cruelty. Her skin was deathly pale, her veins laced with unnatural silver, and her golden eyes shimmered like candlelight in an abyss.
"How fragile you mortals are," she whispered, crouching beside him. Her fingers brushed his cheek, tracing the lines of decay now etched into his flesh. "And yet… you refuse to break. Do you think your gods will save you?"
Kruger's jaw clenched. His body was failing him, but his hatred remained intact. He spat blood onto the cathedral floor.
"You're no god, Nocturna."
Selene chuckled, tilting her head.
She stood, her cloak shifting like oil in the dim candlelight. Chains rattled in the distance, and from the cathedral's great doors, the first of her creations slithered forth—a monstrosity of bone and rot, a stitched-together soldier of her own design.
"You will watch," Selene murmured, extending her arms, welcoming the abomination as it knelt before her. "You will witness what comes next."
The creature growled, its eyeless sockets locked onto Kruger.
Selene turned away from him, stepping toward her throne—a twisted, organic thing of bone and rotting vines, pulsing with the black ichor that flowed through her veins.
She ran a finger over the armrest, deep in thought.
"They called me many things, you know," she mused aloud. "A witch. A plaguebringer. A nightmare."
She exhaled slowly, her gaze lifting to the towering stained-glass window that once depicted a saint—now corrupted, the figure's face twisted into something monstrous.
She lowered herself onto the throne.
"That is something new."
The room trembled. The plague spread. The cathedral breathed with her.
Selene's smile widened, revealing the blackened tips of her teeth.
Kruger's fingers twitched toward his sword, but Selene simply lifted a hand.
"Don't," she said gently, her power coiling around his limbs, keeping him still. "Your part isn't over yet."
"Sleep, Kruger. Dream of me."