Dusk, 8,496th Sun of Ivoris - The End of Days

Ceridis stood, looking out over a broken wall. Her order's temple was near ruined, but it was still the tallest structure in the land. There were so few of them left.

"Ceridis, my lady. We don't know how much longer it will hold. She's breaking through."

Ceridis Skrye, leader of the Equus Sanctimony, turned to her aide with a sigh.

"It's only a matter of time. We have to proceed with the plan."

"S-surely, there's another way?"

"I wish you were right, Iema... I really do."

Ceridis walked through the broken door. Their prisoner was in another room, the only thing that separated their chambers was the only intact structure left in the temple - a long stone tunnel, suspended at least four stories high. Entering the hallway, she was met by her champions. Where there were once ten, there were now only seven left. Sansyr, Elvennya, and Vikas had fallen to the enemy. Their bodies lay strewn outside the temple gates, impaled by the swords of their former allies.

As she took step after step, toward the inevitable, Ceridis closed her eyes. They had fallen so far. There had once been a great city here.

Ivoris... Arcani has ruined you so.

Ceridis cleared her mind. The trials that stood before her required nothing less.

She opened the door at the end of the tunnel. Before her, trapped in a Arcanic barrier, was the prisoner. She was a shadow. An inky black from head to toe. She wielded two black blades that seemed to fuse with her hands that gripped them. She attacked the barrier furiously, driven not by a desire to be free, but by an animalistic need - an insatiable bloodlust that needed to be fulfilled.

The prisoner was no magical being. She was once... is a normal human being. A normal human girl, sealed in an impossibly tight suit of Ebon. She was Ebonclad. She was not driven by power. She was not an agent of political agenda. She was a victim.