The Epic of the Discarded Son-Chapter 37: Llluminate Nocturne

He watched helplessly as Nora shouted his name. Each scream louder than the last. Each one cracking a little more.

He couldn’t feel the Ebony Knight. Not a trace. Not a whisper. Whatever this place was, it had severed the connection completely.

’I’m alone in here.’

And with her each scream that echoed into the night sky, his heart throbbed. Breaking a little more with every desperate cry. He couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t just watch.

He drove his fist into the invisible wall between them.

It didn’t break.

It rippled.

Like the surface of water disturbed by a stone. The barrier shimmered, wobbled, then went still again.

"What the hell is—"

A familiar chime cut through his thoughts.

[Passive Skill: Limitless — Activated]

[You have sustained damage.]

[Your body grew stronger.]

He looked down. A blade sat in his chest. An inch to the left and it would’ve hit his heart.

He stared at it the way someone stares at a stain on their shirt.

’Huh.’

Through the rippling barrier, Nora was already running. Sprinting toward the main house. Screaming for anyone who could hear.

’Good girl. Stay safe.’

His fingers wrapped around the blade still buried in his chest and crushed it between his fingers. Steel crumbled into shards like it was made of nothing.

Using his other hand, same motion, without turning his head, without even shifting his gaze, he drove his dagger backward into the side of the man’s head behind him.

A wet sound. Then silence.

He turned. Slowly.

His expression was blank. Empty. Almost lifeless.

Like whatever was behind his eyes had stepped out and left something colder in its place.

Before him stood ten masked figures. Still. Waiting. And behind them—the bastard.

He took a step forward.

And appeared in front of the main one.

With a tug of his fingers. Like plucking a loose thread.

The men behind him came apart. Bodies falling in pieces before they understood they were already dead.

He swung at the masked man. Not to kill. Not yet. He wanted the mask off. Wanted to see the face underneath.

His fist cut through the air—fast, brutal, aimed straight at the porcelain surface.

The man tilted back. Just enough. The knuckles grazed the edge of the mask and nothing more.

Then they came.

From every direction. From angles that shouldn’t exist. Blades pierced his body—shoulder, ribs, spine, thigh—each one driven in with cold precision, almost like they’d rehearsed exactly where to put them. Not to kill. But to slow him down.

Over Shiro’s head, four arrows materialized in the air around him, without materializing the bow, and fired.

Their heads snapped backward before hitting the ground.

He didn’t flinch. Just reached down, grabbed the blade in his side, and ripped one of the spears free and hurled it at the man.

The masked man deflected the spear and distanced himself. Standing behind his army like a coward, wearing patience as a strategy.

He pulled the remaining blades and spears lodged in his body. The sound they made leaving his body was something he’d rather not think about. He tossed them aside and stepped forward.

More rose from the ground. Not climbing. Not crawling. Rising. Like the earth itself was giving birth to them. They emerged from the stone like water seeping through cracks, faceless, masked, already armed.

’There’s no end to them.’

They charged.

Pain became a language his body stopped translating. Every kill earned him two more. Every swing opened a gap that filled before the blood hit the ground. And with each one that fell, another drove something sharp into him on the way down.

A blade through the shoulder. A spear through the ribs. Something jagged and nameless tearing through his side.

The chime he used to love never stopped ringing.

[You have sustained damage.]

[Your body grew stronger.]

[You have sustained damage.]

[Your body grew stronger.]

[You have sustained damage.]

[Your body grew stronger.]

Over and over. Relentless. Like a bell tolling for something that refused to die.

His body healed. Tore open. Healed again. Each wound closing just fast enough to make room for the next one. Blood soaked through his clothes, pooled at his feet, painted the ground beneath him in a widening circle of red.

And still he moved forward.

One step. Then another. Killing everything that stood between him and the masked man.

And the worst part—they didn’t stop fighting when they died.

With their last breath, their last twitch of muscle, they’d drive whatever they were holding into him. A final, spiteful gift. One buried a blade into his shoulder on the way down. Another drove a broken spear through his ribs mid-collapse. They aimed for whatever was closest—legs, gut, spine—like dying was just an excuse to take one more piece of him with them.

His healing did its best. Stitching. Mending. Racing to close wounds that kept multiplying.

But it’s hard to heal when you’re more hole than person.

Even pain gave up trying to make sense of it. The signals crossed, overlapped, canceled each other out—until his body just stopped reporting altogether. Like his nerves had filed too many complaints and the system crashed.

Which is probably why he didn’t notice his right hand was gone.

He looked down. Stump. Clean cut. Blood pouring out of it like a faucet someone forgot to close. His hand was somewhere behind him—lost in the mess of bodies and steel and mud.

He stared at it.

And chuckled.

’My luck is really something.’

"If I’m going to die—" He spat blood. Grinned. The wrong kind of grin. "I’m taking you with me."

His eyes drifted shut for half a second. Not from exhaustion. From something quieter.

’I don’t know if you can hear me, Ari.’

A breath.

’Ebony Knight—I wish I’d given you a name.’

Another.

’Watch over Nora for me.’

The arrow he’d been charging—holding, building, feeding every last scrap of mana he had left into it—flew into the sky.

And detonated.

Thousands of arrows rained down like burning hail. They hit everything. The masked figures. The ground. Him. He felt them punch through his shoulders, his legs, his back—but he didn’t care.

Because it opened a path.

A straight, blood-soaked line between him and the bastard.

He shot forward. Everything he had left—every broken bone, every torn muscle, every ounce of spite keeping him upright—poured into one desperate lunge. His dagger aimed straight for the man’s throat.

The masked man sidestepped. Barely. The blade grazed his shoulder, drawing a thin red line.

And at the same moment, Shiro felt something hit the ground beside him.

His left arm.

’Ah.’

His second dagger materialized midair. He caught it between his teeth—bit down hard—and threw himself at the man again.

A spear came down through his back.

It drove him into the ground. Pinned him. Then another. And another. Cold metal tearing through flesh, nailing him to the earth like something that needed to stay buried.

He lay there. Helpless. Like a butterfly pressed under glass.

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t lift his head. Could barely breathe. The dagger fell from his teeth and clattered against the stone.

But through the haze—through the blood pooling under his face and the darkness eating the edges of his vision—he saw the masked man sink to one knee.

’Good.’

The man pressed his hand over the wound. Steadied himself. "Go get the girl."

"What." His voice came out calm.

One word. Barely a whisper. But something behind it shifted. Something old.

His blood began to boil. Not metaphorically. He could feel it—heat climbing through his veins, spreading outward, burning hotter with each heartbeat. His vision blurred. The edges went white.

And then—silence.

The chime that had been ringing nonstop since the fight began—gone. The sounds of battle—gone. The screams, the steel, the wet noise of blades leaving flesh—all of it swallowed whole.

Like sound itself was afraid to exist near him.

Every masked figure in the pocket dimension froze. Not by choice. Their bodies locked. Muscles seized. Like the air around them had turned to stone.

He pushed himself up.

The weapons buried in his back—the spears, the blades, the jagged metal pinning him to the ground—crumbled. Dissolved into dust and sand and nothing. Falling away from his body like they’d never been real.

Mana threads slithered from the stump of his severed arm. Thin. Alive. Searching. They snaked across the ground—through blood and rubble and broken steel—until they found it. His arm. Lying ten feet away in the dirt.

The threads wrapped around it. Pulled. And with a sound like wet rope snapping taut, reattached it.

His fingers twitched. Then closed into a fist.

Then—out of thin air—a scabbard materialized at his side.

"Illuminate—Nocturne."

He gripped the scabbard. Pulled the hilt.

And the world turned silver.

Blinding light erupted from the blade—pure, violent, absolute—flooding every corner of the pocket dimension like a second sun being born. The masked figures recoiled. The air itself flinched.

A grin spread across his face. Slow. Devilish. Broken.

His voice came out ruined. Barely a whisper. Cracked and bleeding.

But it held weight.

"On your knees, vermin."

Every single one of them dropped. Not willingly. Their legs buckled. Their bodies folded. Forced down by something they couldn’t see and couldn’t fight.

He raised the blade. Held it steady. And swung once.

Gently. Almost tenderly. Like brushing dust off a shelf.

In the silent world, the only sound was the air being cut. A thin, sharp hiss. And around him—slashes appeared. Thin as thread. Sharp as light. Thousand of them. From every angle. Every direction.

"Sever—Nocturne," he whispered.

Everything within the radius came apart.

Bodies dropped. Not in pieces—in sections. Clean. Precise. Like reality itself had been sliced and neatly folded.

The pocket dimension screamed. Cracks spiderwebbed across the sky, across the ground, across the air itself. The copied world couldn’t hold. It shattered. Tore open like paper.

And spat him back out.

Same courtyard. Same night sky. Same spot he’d been taken from.

The sword vanished from his hand. His body went numb. Every nerve, every muscle, every fiber gone offline. Done.

He stood there. Surrounded by countless severed figures that hadn’t existed in this world until he brought them back with him.

"Shiro!"

The voice echoed. Distant. Familiar.

At the corner of his vision—Nora. Running toward him. And behind her, others. Captains. Armed men.

’She is okay.’

’Good.’

That was enough. His body had nothing left. His knees hit the ground first. Then the rest of him followed.

Face first into the cold stone.