A Background Character’s Path to Power

"SWOOOSH-!"

The mountain split like brittle bone under the force of concentrated void.

"BOOOM-!"

A beam of absolute darkness carved through stone and earth, leaving nothing behind save a widening chasm that swallowed everything in its path. Ancient peaks, millennia in the making, collapsed into dust within heartbeats. The strongest sect of the Eastern Isles, nestled in the mountain's embrace, vanished without even time to scream.

Above the devastation, a figure hung suspended in the air, sword gleaming with hungry darkness.

'...'

Their face remained impassive as he surveyed the annihilation below, the menacing black eyes reflecting the void energies that still crackled around his blade. His once-noble features had hardened into something terrible, beautiful in its perfect emptiness.

The survivors came in waves.

"ATTACK-!"

"KILL HIM-!"

First were the local defenders, desperate Resonators who threw themselves against him with courage born of hopelessness. They fell like wheat before a scythe, each death adding to the spreading stain of corruption that seeped from the figure's presence.

"ARGH-!"

Their final screams echoed off the shattered mountainsides before being swallowed by the growing silence.

"YOU-! HOW DARE YOU!"

"DIE-!"

Then came the masters, powerful figures who had felt the disturbance from distant lands.

"Ancient Dragon Sealing Formation!"

"SPACE SEAL!"

"NINE SKIES ANNIHILATION!"

"..."

They coordinated their attacks, weaving complex formations and calling upon ancient techniques.

"..."

It made no difference.

"..."

The figure's sword danced through their defenses, each strike precise and merciless. Where they fell, void-touched flowers bloomed from their blood, spreading the Abyss's influence ever wider.

Through it all, the figure remained silent.

No words, no emotion, no hesitation.

The corruption had hollowed him out, leaving behind only perfect, terrible efficiency. His movements flowed like liquid shadow, teleporting through space to appear behind his enemies, his blade already cutting before they could react.

The battlefield stretched for miles now, littered with the remnants of everything that had tried to stop him. Forests withered under the weight of abyssal energy. Rivers ran black with corruption. The very air seemed to thicken with despair.

Then the wind changed.

It came as a gentle breeze at first, carrying the scent of distant meadows and clean rain. The oppressive weight of the void energies wavered, pushed back by something pure and alive.

"..?"

The figure's head lifted, his movements slowing for the first time.

"..."

She descended from the heavens like a falling star wrapped in emerald light.

Her arrival brought stillness to the chaos.

"..."

Her long green hair flowed behind her like liquid jade, two draconic horns catching the dying sunlight as she settled onto the scorched earth. She wore robes of deep forest green, untouched by the corruption that stained everything else.

Her expression was cold, controlled. Ancient power radiated from her form as she surveyed the devastation with calculating eyes. When her gaze found the figure hovering above the ruins, there was no recognition in her features, only grim determination.

"Herald of the Abyss," she called out, her voice carrying clearly across the wasteland. "Your rampage ends here."

The figure turned toward her, void energies gathering around his blade. His face remained blank, but something flickered in the depths of his corrupted eyes. Pain, perhaps. Or the shadow of a memory trying to surface.

The young woman raised her hands, wind swirling around her in complex patterns.

She moved with fluid grace, each gesture precise and deadly. Razor-sharp currents of air sliced toward the figure, invisible blades that could cut through steel.

"...Huh?"

But he had already vanished.

"!"

The space where the woman stood exploded outward as the figure materialized behind her, his sword already descending in a killing arc.

She spun at the last instant, her own blade appearing in her hand to catch his strike. The clash sent shockwaves rippling across the devastated landscape.

Clang! Clang!

Swooosh! POP!

They separated, circling each other like predators.

SWOOSH! BANG!

The woman's movements were swift, carried by winds that obeyed her slightest thought. She wove between the figure's attacks, her form blurring as she danced around his strikes. Illusions bloomed in her wake, phantom images that made it impossible to track her true position.

But the figure's battle instincts were honed to perfection. He ignored the false images, his corrupted senses cutting through her deceptions to find her real form. His blade found flesh, carving a shallow line across her shoulder. Green blood welled from the wound, steaming where it touched the void-tainted metal.

The injury slowed her for a heartbeat, and in that moment of vulnerability, the figure pressed his advantage. His sword work was a symphony of death, each strike flowing seamlessly into the next. The woman's barriers shattered under his assault, her illusions torn apart by void energies that devoured light and hope alike.

She stumbled backward, her breathing labored. Blood ran down her arm, and for the first time since her arrival, uncertainty flickered in her eyes. It was then, as the figure closed in for the killing blow, that she truly saw his face.

The blade stopped inches from her throat.

The woman's eyes widened, all pretense of cold control crumbling in an instant.

"Z..."

Her lips parted in a wordless gasp as she stared into those familiar features, now twisted by corruption but still unmistakably his. Tears gathered in her eyes, threatening to spill over.

"Z-Zephyr?"

The name escaped her lips like a prayer, soft and filled with desperate hope.

The void-touched sword trembled in his grip. Something warred behind his black eyes, a flicker of the man he had once been struggling against the corruption that claimed him. His head tilted slightly, as if trying to remember something just beyond reach.

The woman's hand rose slowly, fingers extending toward his face.

"Z-Zephyr! I-It's me," she whispered, tears now flowing freely down her cheeks. "It's Luna. I thought... I thought you were dead. I've searched for so long..."

The sword wavered, dropping a fraction of an inch.

"!"

Zephyr's expression cracked, revealing a glimpse of anguish beneath the emotionless mask.

'Luna?'

His free hand rose to press against his temple, as if fighting against some terrible pressure.

'Urgh... W-Why...!'

But the moment passed.

'...'

The void energies surged back with renewed force, drowning out whatever humanity had briefly surfaced. Zephyr's face hardened once more, becoming that perfect mask of emptiness. The sword resumed its deadly trajectory.

Luna threw herself backward, her form dissolving into wind and mist. She reappeared twenty feet away, her face stricken with grief and determination.

"Zephyr, please!" she called out, her voice breaking. "I know you're still in there! Fight it!"

He attacked in response, void beams lancing out from his blade to carve molten furrows in the earth. Luna danced between them, her movements desperate now, driven by sorrow rather than strategy. She refused to strike back with lethal force, even as his attacks grew more vicious.

The battle raged across the wasteland, a dance of love and corruption, hope and despair. Luna's dragon heritage began to manifest as the fight wore on. Scales appeared along her arms, her eyes taking on a reptilian cast. Power gathered around her, ancient and vast.

But she held back, unable to bring herself to truly harm him.

Zephyr showed no such restraint. His attacks came without mercy, each strike intended to kill. The corruption had burned away his capacity for half-measures. Luna's reluctance to fight at full strength began to tell. More wounds appeared on her body, her movements slowing with each passing moment.

The transformation began as a last resort.

Luna's form expanded, flesh reshaping itself into something magnificent and terrible.

"ROOOAR!"

Her dragon shape unfurled across the battlefield, serpentine and graceful, scales the color of deep forests glinting in the dying light. She was beauty and power made manifest, a creature of legend given form.

"Zephyr!"

Even in this state, she held back. Her claws raked the earth beside Zephyr rather than through him. Her breath, which could level mountains, dispersed harmlessly into the sky. She fought to subdue, to capture, to save rather than destroy.

"..."

Zephyr felt no such constraints.

Void aura erupted around him like a second sun, their hungry light devouring everything they touched. Luna's mighty form writhed as the corruption bit into her scales, eating away at her essence.

"Urgh..."

She fought against it, drawing on reserves of power that shook the very foundations of the world, but the Abyss was patient and inexorable.

Swoosh-!

The end came suddenly.

A moment of faltering, a single instant where Luna's guard dropped as she saw something she recognized in Zephyr's movements. His suddenly massive blade found the gap in her defenses, sliding between scales to pierce her heart.

The dragon form collapsed, shrinking back into the woman she had been. Luna fell to her knees, green blood pooling beneath her as her strength fled. Her breathing came in short gasps, each one weaker than the last.

Zephyr stood over her, his sword still dripping with her essence. His face remained impassive, but something had changed. Thin lines of black tears began to trace down his cheeks, the void itself weeping for what he had lost.

Luna looked up at him, her eyes still filled with love despite everything.

A sad smile curved her lips as she reached up with trembling fingers, almost touching his face before her strength failed.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, the words barely audible. "I'm so sorry. I never stopped... never stopped looking..."

"I'm sorry... that I didn't tell t-that... That..."

"I... love..."

"...you."

...plop.

Her hand fell.

The light faded from her eyes.

"..."

Zephyr remained motionless, the black tears flowing more freely now. They carved tracks through the void energies clinging to his face, revealing glimpses of unmarked skin beneath.

"..."

For a moment, just a moment, his expression cracked completely.

Then the corruption surged back, sealing away the cracks, drowning the pain. Zephyr turned away from Luna's body, his face once more becoming that terrible mask of emptiness.

The wasteland stretched before him, ready to receive more destruction. More death. More sorrow.

In the distance, hidden in shadows that even corrupted senses could not penetrate, a figure watched the tragedy unfold. They remained motionless until Zephyr disappeared into the void, continuing his rampage across the world.

Only then did they step forward, their presence somehow familiar yet distant, observing Luna's still form with eyes that held depths of understanding, pain, and relief.

The vision began to fade, leaving behind only the echo of what could have been, and the weight of a future that would never come to pass.

A crystallized glimpse of a tragic future(or past) that never was.