Page 16 of The Dark Lord Awakens
I closed my eyes, remembering how it felt to use this ability in the game—the satisfaction of a perfectly timed weapon summons, the rush of executing a flawless combo. I reached for that feeling, that confidence that had been so easy when it was just pixels on a screen.
The air around my hand suddenly grew cold enough to make a freezer jealous. When I opened my eyes, I was holding… well, sort of holding… a sword made of shifting darkness. Unlike the clean, defined edges of the game weapon, this one pulsed and rippled like it was only barely maintaining its shape, edges constantly dissolving and reforming. It looked like someone had tried to make a sword out of television static.
“Now we’re talking.” I grinned, giving it an experimental swing that nearly sent me pirouetting across the room like a very deadly ballerina. In the game, shadow weapons had been weightless, but this felt substantial—not heavy exactly butpossessing a presence that required actual physical effort to control.
I swung at a nearby training dummy, expecting the clean, precise damage animation I was used to. Instead, the blade passed through with a sound like tearing silk, leaving a jagged gash that leaked shadows instead of blood. The cut edges smoldered with dark energy, gradually disintegrating rather than making a clean separation. Less like a clean sword cut and more like I’d introduced the dummy to a very angry paper shredder.
“Whoa,” I breathed. “Definitely not just a reskin of a regular sword. More like a delete button with a handle.”
The weapon dissipated as my concentration wavered, darkness scattering like smoke in wind or my savings account after a sale. Creating it again was easier the second time, my body remembering the feeling. With each attempt, the blade became more defined, more stable, less like it was suffering from an existential crisis.
I moved on to another ability—Abyssal Flames. In the game, this had been a straightforward area of effect attack that dealt shadow damage over time, perfect for taking down groups of enemies or making s’mores if you were into the whole “void-flavored marshmallow” thing.
I focused on the concept of dark fire, extending my hand toward another dummy with all the confidence of a pyromaniac at a fireworks factory.
Nothing happened. The dummy stared back at me with its featureless face, somehow managing to look smug despite not having actual facial features.
“Come on,” I muttered. “Burn, baby, burn. Disco inferno. Or void inferno. Whatever works.”
Still nothing. Performance issues already? And here I thought magical powers would at least wait until the second date to disappoint me.
Frustrated, I tried to recall exactly how this had worked in gameplay. The animation had shown Lucien gathering shadows in his palm before launching black flames. I mimicked the gesture, cupping my hand as if holding something precious, like the last pizza roll or a winning lottery ticket.
This time, I felt a cold tingling in my palm, like pins and needles but pleasant—the sensation you might get if your hand fell asleep in the Arctic. A small flicker of darkness appeared, dancing above my skin like a flame in negative—not giving off light but somehow consuming it, creating a deeper darkness in the shape of fire. It was like someone had taken the concept of fire and inverted it, creating something that burned with absence rather than presence.
“Yes!” I hissed, excitement making the flame grow larger, feeding on my emotion like a particularly needy houseplant. “Now we’re cooking with… well, not gas, but whatever fuels shadow fire. Existential dread, probably.”
I thrust my hand toward the dummy, expecting the flame to shoot forward like a pyromaniac’s dream. Instead, it clung to my palm stubbornly.
“Go,” I commanded. “Attack. Fly. Do the thing! Sic ’em, boy!”
The flame flickered mockingly, about as responsive as tech support during a holiday weekend.
“Ugh, why is this so hard?” I groaned. “In the game I just pressed F3 and?—”
That’s when it hit me. In the game, I’d been controlling Lucien from the outside. Now I was Lucien. These weren’t abilities to be activated; they were extensions of myself. Less like pressing buttons on a controller and more like wiggling yourears—something that’s technically part of you but requires a weird mental connection you can’t quite explain.
I took a deep breath, focusing not on commanding the flame but on extending my will through it. I imagined it as part of me, like an extra limb or that third arm you always wish you had when carrying too many groceries.
The black fire responded immediately, surging from my palm in a torrent that engulfed the dummy like a hungry shadow. Unlike normal fire, it didn’t burn with heat but with cold—a bone-deep chill that spread through the air, making my teeth chatter like castanets. The dummy didn’t burst into flames; instead, it began to disintegrate, parts of it simply ceasing to exist where the dark fire touched, like watching someone erase a drawing one stroke at a time.
“Okay, that’s both awesome and terrifying,” I said, closing my fist to extinguish the flames before they decided to get creative with their destruction. “Note to self: don’t use that at parties. Or to light birthday candles. Or ever, if I can help it.”
Over the next hour, I worked through more abilities with varying degrees of success and property damage. Void Perception came naturally—a sudden expansion of awareness that let me sense shadows throughout the chamber and beyond, like having X-ray vision if X-rays only showed you where darkness lurked. Shadow Dominion proved trickier, my attempts to manipulate gravity resulting in a section of floor being temporarily converted to ceiling, complete with training equipment now dangling precariously overhead like the world’s most threatening pinata display.
The failures were as educational as the successes, in the same way that touching a hot stove is educational. My attempt at summoning a shadow construct—Devouring Night in the game—resulted in a formless blob that oozed around the floor consuming small objects before I managed to dismiss it. It waslike watching a very hungry amoeba with goth tendencies. An effort to create a shadow clone (a basic utility skill in-game) produced a vaguely humanoid shape that stood motionless before collapsing into a puddle of darkness. So much for sending my double to attend meetings while I napped.
“This is nothing like the game,” I panted, taking a break after a particularly strenuous attempt at combining abilities had left me lightheaded and seeing spots that might or might not have been tiny void portals. My lungs burned like I’d just run a marathon while carrying someone on my back. “It’s… messier. More intuitive but less precise. Like trying to write with your nondominant hand while riding a mechanical bull.”
And that was the key difference—these abilities weren’t clean, programmed skills with defined parameters. They were raw, responsive to my emotions and intentions in ways a game could never replicate. When I was confident, they worked better. When I doubted myself, they faltered. It was like my powers had combined with my anxiety to create the world’s most dangerous mood ring.
“One more,” I decided, climbing back to my feet with all the determination of someone who’s already ordered dessert despite being full. “The big one.”
In the game, Eclipse had been Lucien’s ultimate ability—a transformation that merged him with shadows, making him nearly invulnerable for a short time. It had come with a massive cooldown and had saved my digital bacon more times than I could count. It was the magical equivalent of hitting the panic button or calling your mom when adulting got too hard.
I closed my eyes, focusing on the feeling I imagined this ability would create—becoming one with darkness itself. Unlike the other skills, I didn’t try to force it or direct it. I simply opened myself to it, inviting the shadows in, like hosting a dinner party for the void and telling it to make itself at home.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then I felt it—a profound shift in perception, like the boundary between me and the darkness around me was dissolving faster than my resolve in front of a plate of fresh cookies. My skin tingled as shadows began to seep into it, not covering me but becoming me, like ink soaking into paper until you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
