The one who had spoken was none other than Rukun, who jumped down from the building.

Gravity pulled him downward, but all of a sudden, he paused in the air, a flicker of red appearing faintly beneath his feet, revealing a red blade that propelled him forward.

As he arrived closer to Innumaki, he slashed out his hand, sending a powerful arc of crimson that forced Innumaki a couple of steps backward, allowing him to land between White and Innumaki.

His crimson eyes faintly trailed behind him to where White’s body lay.

Half cut in two, with a gigantic hole in his chest.

’So that’s what all that invisibility aura needed to fade. Just a bit of exhaustion, and you become helpless.’

He thought quietly, with a scornful smirk on his face.

"Get out of my way, Rukun."

Innumaki’s voice came as Rukun fully turned to White, a massive red blade appearing in his hand.

"I will... after I kill him with my own hands."

He said, raising up his blade toward White’s neck.

"Goodbye, White Deadclaw. Hahaha."

He cackled evilly, piercing the blade down with all of his strength, only for the blade to stop inches away.

It was a hand covered in slimy tentacles, and Rukun turned his head to find Innumaki’s soulless dark eyes staring at him in pure rage.

"I said fuck off!"

He roared out, blasting away Rukun, who cleaved out in anger, sending a massive red arc of energy bursting forth.

In the next moment, a ground-sundering battle began as both fought each other, blowing through buildings.

A fight to determine who would give the final blow to their enemy:

White.

As for White himself, he was barely a flicker away from his life fully extinguishing.

But even in the darkness of his vision, he could see it.

He was currently lying at the end of the centipede, which had one of its antennae wiggling, showing it too was, like him, at death’s door.

White crawled forward toward it, managing to land his head on its soft underbelly, and with the last bit of strength his half-broken jaw possessed—

He pulled back roughly against the creature’s neck, sending a tearing sound as blood came pouring out, and the centipede stopped wiggling.

In that moment, the notification flashed before White.

[Congratulations on completing the quest, Clean Up the Supernals.]

’Use 1 level-up ca...’

White barely completed the thought before finally, his consciousness gave way to the darkness.

It was familiar to him,

This concept of darkness. He never feared it anymore.

And through it, once more, a ripple came to him.

"There is a darkness in you."

As much as he couldn’t make out where exactly he had heard it before, the voice that spoke was a familiar one, and White responded in thought,

"There’s a darkness in everyone."

"We... we have it in a greater amount than most. A darkness in our souls that is darker than darkness itself."

It replied, and White paused.

The thought that occurred to him next was to ask who we were.

But he knew that answer already.

Umbrawyrs.

So what should he ask it? How should he reply?

In the end, it was a question, but not the obvious one.

"How do I find this darkness that we have in a greater amount than most?"

"Do you desire the darkness? Do you desire to go home?"

The voice asked him, and White stirred.

There was a change in everything, though everything was still only darkness.

Safe to say, there was a change in the darkness around him.

In a way, it felt unsuiting.

Comforting as it was, it also felt false, like this was not the true darkness he belonged to.

"I wish to find it... the real home."

"Then, I will lead you to it."

The ripple came, and in that moment—

Silence.

Then nothing.

To anyone who could see White now, all they would see was a badly mutilated corpse.

But if one looked deeper, they would notice it... his shadow.

It was losing its solid form and slowly dispersing outward in all directions like spilled black ink.

Every Supernal that lay dead on the ground had their shadows devoured whole, and it spread to the last place in the city where the shadow of a corpse lay.

Then, all at once, all of these dead shadows began to gather around him in suffocating waves, rolling back into his own shadow.

What came next defied all knowledge.

A shadow appeared behind White, but not one of who he was.

Not one of a severed waist, but a full shadow of a being, and in that moment, the true change began within him.

The shadow of the being that had formed beneath him— all of it— started rushing into White’s ruined body, sinking into torn flesh that was slowly regenerating from the system’s level-up effect, but darkness surpassed it.

When the being’s shadow had fully sunk into White’s body, the physical change evident to the eyes began, and it started with his frame.

It began to lengthen, rising tall and unnervingly thin, followed by what could be described as a robe of living shadow beginning to cover his skin.

His white hair, stained crimson from his blood, began to change colour, turning pitch black, then beginning to lengthen until eventually spilling past his shoulders down to his back, tangled behind him.

There were two horns on his head previously, but they began to lengthen, ending thick and sharpened like blades at the tips.

But that wasn’t all.

Two more appeared, curving upward from the temples, thick and sharpened at the tips, while another two jutted outward from the sides of his head above his ears, twisted and ridged.

All at once, they began to glow with ancient runic lines carved through their surfaces.

What followed next was his skin, becoming deathly smooth and drained of all mortal colour, marked only by creeping veins of shadow that moved beneath it in slow pulses.

Black streaks ran from both of White’s eyes, trailing down his pale face like tears that had stained the skin. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Following that, his eyebrows quiver, and his eyes slowly parted open.