Lira's blood tasted different than the others—bright and metallic, like lightning given form. I licked it from my knuckles as her golden System spat fractured warnings across my vision:
*[WHITE LADY PROTOCOL: CRITICAL FAILURE]*
*[SAN: 9/100]*
*[FINAL PURIFICATION ATTEMPT LOADING...]*
Snow whispered through the shattered chapel roof, hissing where it touched my shadow tendrils. The black veins crawling up my neck pulsed in time with her ragged breaths.
"You planned this." I pressed the Godslayer's Mark against her sternum, feeling her heartbeat through the brand. "Letting those farmers attack. Letting me—"
*[SYSTEM OVERRIDE PROTOCOL DETECTED]*
*[WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW HOW YOUR SHADOWS WORK?]*
Lira's hand shot up, gripping my wrist. Golden light flared—not the healing kind, but something sharper. My tendrils *screamed*.
**MEMORY FRAGMENT UNLOCKED**
*—a six-year-old Kael trapped in the root cellar, darkness pressing like a living thing—*
*—Father's voice through the door: "Stay till the shadows talk back, boy"—*
*—three days without light, without water, until the first wisp of black smoke curled from my fingertips—*
The vision shattered as Lira gasped. "They're not shadows. They're *stolen*."
Her golden System projected diagnostics between us:
**SHADOWBOND ANALYSIS**
- **Source:** Childhood trauma + System corruption
- **Composition:** 78% victim soul-energy, 22% user's fractured psyche
- **Critical Flaw:** Each use transfers 5% of your soul to the System
*[INTERRUPTION: ORIGIN STORY VERIFIED]*
*[SHADOWMANCER CLASS: TRUE NATURE REVEALED]*
*[WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS AT 100% TRANSFER?]*
Lira's nails dug into my Mark. "Don't you *dare* click that."
Outside, the wind howled through the bones of the dead farmers. Somewhere in the village, another System user screamed. And beneath it all—quiet as a knife between ribs—my shadow tendrils whispered the truth they'd been hiding:
*We were never yours.*