Clive turned toward the voice. She stood beside a tombstone, her face tilted toward the star-scattered sky.

  "The moon is beautiful tonight, isn't it?"

  "Why?" Clive's voice echoed across the silence. "Why turn innocent people to stone? All those victims ... You were meant to be their protector, but you're the real monster here."

  The Saintess traced the inscription on the tomb. “We used to watch the moon as well, Isiah and I. Way back before any of this.” She brushed dust from the carved name. "We were going to leave Marblehaven. Find some village where no one knew us. Farm, maybe. Raise goats."

  The Saintess robes swayed in the cold wind. Clive remained silent.

  "The church fathers discovered our plans three days before we were to leave." Her hand stilled on the stone. "Karasmai himself came for Isiah. Said a templar captain consorting with a future Saintess was blasphemy. They took him to the caves, their secret hideout, where they did all sorts of unspeakable deeds."

  She turned to face him then, and in the moonlight, Clive saw the exhaustion carved into her features.

  "The result lies here." She pressed her palm against the cold stone. "Day after day, I prayed to the God of Light to bring him back. But my prayers went unanswered. Then the Demon King spoke to me in my despair, right here in these ruins. He promised that if I sacrificed the town—if I turned them all to stone—he would grant me a miracle."

  So it was for love… One life against hundreds. Clive wondered if he would have done the same for Jill. No, it wasn’t a hypothetical. He had to make that choice once, way back in the sea of fragments. A choice between a happy life with Jill or the lives of innocents who would have fallen prey to Maxwell’s contaminated drugs. He made a different choice then, but he understood the appeal. In another time, he might have made a different choice.

  "You would call me a monster?" Her laugh was brittle as frost. "Monsters are what I see whenever I look upon this world. The church fathers who took him. The townspeople who said nothing. The other clerics who told me to pray harder, to accept God's will. I have done nothing that they did not first do to me. They are the true abominations, unnatural things that deserve their fate."

  Clive stepped forward. "I understand your pain more than you know. Behind your atrocities, I see only devotion and love twisted by grief. Burying someone you love tears away pieces of your soul. Madness floods in where love once lived.”

  “Stop.”

  "But your grief isn't special. You must learn to move past—"

  "I said stop!" Her voice cracked like thunder as light erupted from her staff. ”You know nothing. Save your sermons for the chapel. Your place is not to judge me. You are here for one purpose: to join my collection of stone.”

  "So be it." Clive raised his brush. “We'll fight. Your grief is its own kind of death, so I will show you what it means to truly live."

  [Saintess Diana]

  Power level: 300

  The Saintess raised her staff that gathered holy light. "Your art against my divine power? Let's see which proves stronger."

  [Holy Light: Divine Array]

  Circles of light materialized around her. They spun above her, radiating pure power.

  "Beautiful," he admitted, already moving. But beauty isn't everything."

  The first blast of holy light aimed straight at him. He rolled behind a tombstone as more followed, each impact turning stone to vapor. The graveyard lit up like day, as her light rained down on Clive. He applied a layer of black paint to his sword.

  [Paint: Void Blade]

  His sword turned black as he emerged from the tombstone. The Saintess's holy beam rained on him, but on impact with the blade, they were snuffed out like a candle flame.

  In the gap between attacks, he moved.

  [Paint: Black Mist]

  A black mist flowed out towards the saintess. Where they touched the earth, grass withered and stone crumbled to dust.

  "You think darkness frightens me?" The Saintess’s voice rang out. Her staff blazed brighter. "I am the Light's chosen."

  [Holy Light: Purifying Lance]

  A spear of pure radiance erupted from her staff. It pierced the heart of Clive's darkness, splitting it like dawn breaking through the night. Clive barely twisted aside as it passed, feeling its heat sear his clothes. The attack continued, obliterating three tombstones before dissipating. Before he could relax, two more spears were forming and aimed straight at him.

  [Paint: Black Hole]

  Clive's brush moved with speed, painting with the darkness between stars. A sphere of perfect black formed around the Saintess's lance, bending its light into spiraling patterns before swallowing it completely.

  "Light cannot escape the void," Clive said. "Not even yours."

  "Light," the Saintess countered as her staff began to pulse with blinding intensity, "is eternal."

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  [Holy Light: Solar Flare]

  Divine power exploded outward in a nova of pure white, so bright it cast no shadows. The black hole collapsed. Clive threw his void blade up instinctively—it absorbed the wash of light that would have seared his eyes from his skull. Even through closed lids, the world went red-white-nothing.

  He couldn't see her next strike, but he smelled it—ozone and heated copper, the scent of lightning without thunder, cutting from his left. The void blade moved to meet it. Another scent: hot glass and singed air from above. He pivoted, blade overhead.

  A third attack came with the smell of sun-bleached bone and burning parchment. He parried blind, tracking each holy assault through the sharp signatures they carved into the air.

  When his vision recovered, he found the Saintess in front of him. Both of them were panting. This battle between light and darkness was a stalemate. He needed a new approach. It was time to utilize his expanded color set. Clive loaded his brush with Viridian Green, then pulled Hansa Lemon Yellow into the mix.

  [Paint: Emerald Prison]

  Six crystal pillars burst from the ground, surrounding the Saintess in a hexagonal pattern. Each pillar was translucent green, cut with precise facets like a massive gemstone. As they rose higher, smaller crystals grew between them, forming an interlocking cage.

  The saintess directed a blast at her cage. Golden light blazed against the green surface. But instead of shattering, the crystal reflected her power. The divine energy bounced from facet to facet, growing stronger with each reflection.

  She let out a cry as her own light turned against her. “Clever. Using crystals as mirrors and lenses.”

  "An artist understands how light behaves," Clive answered. “It's the foundation of all color."He touched his brush to the nearest crystal, adding some Cadmium Red pigment. The trapped light began to pulse dangerously, its color shifting from gold to crimson.

  The Saintess's eyes widened as she realized his trap. Her own light, captured and redirected, had turned her prison into a lens.

  [Paint: Prismatic Detonation]

  The crystal exploded in a nova of color, releasing all her captured power back at her. She screamed, staff raised in desperate defense. Holy light met prismatic chaos in a blast that knocked them both off their feet.

  Clive rolled to his knee, brush already moving through red paint. The familiar strokes of a fireball began to form in the air.

  [Paint: Red Fire-]

  [Holy Light: Whiteout]

  Blinding white light erupted from the Saintess's staff, drowning out his half-formed spell. The red sigil dissolved before it could stabilize. Clive blinked away spots in his vision, but she was already moving.

  [Holy Light: Rapid Burst]

  Three consecutive flashes of divine light forced him backward. Each time he tried to begin a new painting, another flash disrupted his concentration.

  "I've figured it out," the Saintess declared, twirling her staff. "Your art requires perfect strokes and careful mixing. But I only need to point and release."

  Clive started another spell.

  [Paint: Emerald Sh-]

  [Holy Light: Whiteout]

  Another flash of light pierced through his unfinished working, scattering the paint.

  "Every spell is a painting," she continued, circling him like a shark. "And paintings take time." Another flash forced him to dive behind a grave marker. "Time you don't have."

  She was right. His magic was more versatile. But each spell needed time. Meanwhile, she could cast three times in the space it took him to complete one painting.

  What now…

  If magic wasn't working, then it was time for steel. He had a sword, a mithril sword at that, while his opponent only had a staff.

  Clive's brush moved in one swift motion, touching his chest with red paint.

  [Paint: Red Rage]

  The spell was too quick to interrupt—a single touch instead of complex patterns. Red energy surged through his veins like liquid fire. His vision sharpened, time seemed to slow, and every muscle burned with supernatural strength.

  He exploded forward, covering the distance to the Saintess in three rapid strides. Her eyes widened; she'd grown too reliant on fighting him at range.

  [Holy Light: Barrier]

  The hasty shield of light formed just as his blade struck. The blade pierced halfway through before stopping, holy energy crackling against steel.

  "Too slow," Clive growled. The red rage enhanced his speed, letting him snap his blade back and strike again before she could reinforce the barrier. This time, the sword punched through completely.

  The Saintess barely managed to deflect the blade with her staff. She backpedaled, trying to create distance, but Clive pressed forward relentlessly. Each of her swings was met with precise counters. The staff might have been great for magic, but it was unwieldy in close quarters.

  Metal rang against metal as sword met staff again and again. The red rage let him see every opening, exploit every mistake. Where she'd been graceful with magic, her physical combat was stiff and unpracticed.

  "What's wrong?" he taunted, scoring a cut across her arm. "Not used to fighting up close?"

  Her response was a point-blank blast of light that forced him to dive sideways. But even as he rolled, his free hand was moving. He mixed Cobalt Blue with Titanium White and touched his legs.

  [Paint: Sky Rush]

  The color sank into his skin. Air whispered around him as his movements became weightless.

  He flowed across the battlefield like wind through leaves. The Saintess's staff swung through empty air as he slipped past her guard. Even her light seemed sluggish now, beams cutting through space where he'd been moments before.

  "Try to hit what you can't catch," he taunted, his voice carrying on the wind he generated with each motion.

  The Saintess spun, trying to track his movements, but he was already elsewhere, flowing around her defenses like air through cracks. Another cut opened on her arm, then her leg. Not deep, but each strike proved she couldn't match his supernatural speed.

  "Stand still!" she snarled, holy light flashing in all directions.

  But air cannot be caught, and neither could he. His movements had become pure flow, each attack blending into the next like currents in the wind. His sword found her staff hand, a deep cut this time. She cried out, her grip weakening.

  One final strike. His shoulder slammed into her chest while his boot swept her legs. The Saintess crashed down, her staff clattering away across the graves.

  “It’s over.” Clive pointed his blade at the now defenceless Saintess.

  “It’s never over.” Light gathered in her palm. She thrust it toward his heart.

  His sword moved without thought.

  Steel punched through flesh. Her hand fell away from his chest, the gathered light scattering like sparks from a dying fire. Blood spread across white robes, darker than the shadows between tombstones.

  The Saintess looked down at the blade buried in her chest, then up at him. Her lips parted, but no accusation came. Instead, she reached up with trembling fingers and touched the sword's hilt, as if confirming it was real.

  "Isiah," she whispered.

  The divine light beneath her skin flickered once, twice, then went out like a snuffed candle. Her hand slipped from the sword. When her head tilted back against the earth, her expression had softened into peace.

  We tell ourselves that monsters are born from evil, that cruelty springs from corrupted hearts. But I have seen love turn to obsession, devotion become destruction, and grief transform the gentlest souls into harbingers of suffering. The Saintess Diana was not our monster—she was our mirror, reflecting back the cruelty we showed her, magnified through the lens of a broken heart.

  Perhaps the true curse was never the stone. Perhaps it was our belief that some loves are worth less than others, that some griefs deserve compassion while others merit judgment.

  —Secret report XIII found in the archives of the church of the God of Light