When the light cleared, I was back in the tomb. My companions gathered around me with varying expressions of concern. I was on one knee, feeling light-headed and doing my best not to fall over.

  "Noctus!" Estella was the first to reach me, her hand warm on my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

  "I’ll be fine," I managed, trying to process everything I'd just witnessed. My head was spinning with revelations about the God of Light, and the First King.

  "What did you see this time?" Lysa asked, her scholarly interest barely contained. "Something about the First King?"

  I nodded slowly, still trying to put it all into words. "I saw... I saw the night."

  That got their attention. Even Tirion's ears perked up noticeably.

  "The actual night?" Estella breathed, her eyes wide. “What… what was it like?”

  "Stars," I confirmed, remembering their beauty. "Thousands of them. And the moon. It was the night of the Gotterdammerung. I saw it, the First King. He brought about the night.”

  “What happened?” Estella asked, eyes glowing with wonder.

  “I saw him, the God of Light. A man with silver hair who fought alongside the First King against the Demon King.”

  "It's all connected," I said, standing up with Estella's help. "The Demon King, the eternal day, the light poisoning – it's all because they destroyed the balance. They defeated the darkness but didn't realize the world needed it."

  "That... actually makes sense," Estella said thoughtfully. "Like a dance needs both movement and stillness. You can't have one without the other."

  "We should probably get moving,” Lysa cut in. I don't like how that statue's eyes are glowing."

  We all turned to look. Sure enough, the First King's statue's eyes were beginning to emit a faint light.

  "Right," I said, gripping my sword tighter. "Time to go.”

  The statue's eyes grew brighter, casting twin beams of light that converged on a section of the far wall. Stone ground against stone as ancient mechanisms awakened, revealing a hidden passage that descended deeper into the tomb.

  Tirion took point. "Stay close. There might be—"

  "If you say more 'traps,' I swear I’m going to go crazy," Estella interrupted. "Besides, we passed the trials. Shouldn't we be considered welcome guests now?"

  "The First King's trials tested our worth," Lysa commented, shadows gathering around her hands as she prepared defensive magic. "But that doesn't mean the tomb itself isn't dangerous. Look at the walls."

  I followed her gaze. The corridor's walls were covered in intricate carvings, depicting various scenes. Knights battling darkness, cities rising from underground, and always, always that same scene of a starlit sky.

  The passage led us down in a gentle spiral, each turn revealing new murals, new pieces of a story that had been buried beneath centuries of light's dominion. Eventually, the passage opened into a vast circular chamber. Crystalline formations dotted the walls, each one reflecting our torchlight in ways that created the illusions of stars.

  In the center of the chamber stood a raised dais of black stone, upon which rested an ornate sarcophagus. The coffin itself was pure black and crafted from what appeared to be the same mithril-adamantium alloy as my Nightsky Blade. Its surface was etched with constellations that twinkled in with a gentle rhythm.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The ambient light from the sarcophagus caught movement, drawing our attention to a figure I hadn't noticed before. A man stood beside the First King's resting place. He wore a red leather jacket, and despite being underground in a literal tomb, dark sunglasses covered his eyes. He had wavy brown hair that fell just past his shoulders reminding me more of a rockstar than any medieval person.

  Two swords hung loosely in his hands. One a glowing blade that shone bright while the other darker and more practical. He smashed the blades together in a cross. The clash echoed through the chamber like a thunderclap, and the lighter blade shattered at the point of impact. Fragments of metal scattered across the floor.

  "Trash," he said, his voice carrying disappointment. He tossed the ruined sword's hilt away with casual disdain. It clattered somewhere in the darkness beyond the dais.

  Tirion moved in front of Lysa whose shadows began to coil more tightly around her hands.

  But as the man turned to face us, Estella gasped. “Yoru…”

  "Yorukishi? The legendary S-Rank adventurer?" Tirion's ears twitched with awe as his shield wavering slightly. "The one who defeated Scarlet? It's my first time seeing him in person." The bunny knight’s composure cracked. This wasn't just any legendary figure – this was the slayer of the undying, the warrior whose exploits had become bedtime stories in the Undercity.

  But Yoru's attention had fixed on the Nightsky Blade at my hip. His casual demeanor evaporated and his expression darkened as he gazed upon it.

  "How did you get that?" The words came out as a sneer. "The Nightsky Blade." His remaining sword, the one that had shattered its opponent, gleamed with an inner light that seemed to absorb the darkness around it.

  Before I could even process movement, he was there – directly in front of me, close enough that I could see my reflection in his sunglasses. The presence rolling off him was suffocating, like being caught in the gravity well of a black hole.

  "Only the Knight of the Night may wield the Nightsky Blade." His voice carried the weight of authority, of someone used to reality-bending to match his words. "I've been looking for it. Why do you have it?"

  Estella took a half-step forward. "Yoru, he's—"

  But Yoru gave her a glare that silenced her.

  "Well, well, if it isn't the pretty face Estella." His words dripped with honeyed venom. "I see you're still throwing yourself at any remotely strong guy you can find." Each syllable was carefully chosen to cut deep. "Still desperately searching for someone to carry you to the surface?"

  "No one's going to bring you up there, you know." Yoru's voice carried the weight of old wounds and older betrayals. "You're too weak. Always have been. Always will be."

  His hand shot out like a viper, aimed at Estella's face.

  I moved without thinking, my hand catching his wrist before the strike could land.

  Behind me, I heard Estella's sharp intake of breath, so different from her usual confidence.

  Yoru's face went very, very still. "Who. Are. You?" Each word fell like a hammer strike in the silence.

  “I am the Knight of the Night.” I declared.

  A muscle twitched in Yoru's jaw, and his grip tightened on his sword until the leather wrapping creaked. Then, suddenly, he threw his head back and laughed – a sound that held no warmth, only crystallized rage and bitter disbelief. The chamber's acoustics caught his laughter and threw it back at us, multiplied and distorted.

  "You?" The word dripped with acid as his laughter cut off abruptly. "The Knight of the Night? The heir to the First King's legacy?" His free hand shot out, grabbing the front of my armor and lifting me slightly.

  The temperature in the chamber plummeted further. The crystalline formations that had been reflecting starlight began to frost over, responding to the sheer cold fury radiating from the legendary adventurer.

  "Do you have any idea?" Yoru's voice dropped to a deadly whisper. "Do you know how many years I spent uncovering that class? The depths I had to explore? The secrets I had to unravel?" Each question landed like a physical blow. "Quest line after quest line, piecing together fragments of lore, following trails that went cold centuries ago. Diving into dungeons that have never seen light."

  He released me with a shove that sent me stumbling back. Tirion moved to steady me, but Yoru's presence kept him from intervening further.

  "I followed every lead, every whispered rumor about the night. Fought my way through the Crimson Catacombs. Solved the Riddle of Twelve Moons. Survived the Trials of Twilight. All of it led here, to this tomb, to this moment."

  The sword in his hand began to emit a dark aura that seemed to devour the ambient light. "And you're telling me this... this trash has already taken it?"

  “Ridiculous,” he hissed. “It was meant to be me.”

  He rose his sword and swung it at me.