Silent Shadow (Earth-5875)

"We are the Silent Shadow. Once our charge was varied—assassination, extraction—direct and thorough acts of violence. Our goals, strategic—pointed and precise. Our ends, religious, verging on Godly. Those days are over. Or, at best, on hold. Now we have but one aim… the slaughter of beasts."

- - Resa 'Azavayl

The Silent Shadow was a secret division of sangheili warriors in the Covenant Special Operations, composed of numerous squads which wore modified infiltration harness and were led by Furst Blade officers. They went on numerous missions before and during the First Contact War, which included assassinations, extractions, and espionage of enemy territory.

First Contact War
"You can sense your end, human. That is good. If it brings you any peace, the whole of your kind will soon follow suit."

- - First Blade officer In September 2547, a Silent Shadow unit devised a trap for two teams of SPARTAN-III Headhunters on a desolate moon in Covenant territory, where ten Covenant base camps were constructed to dig for forerunner artifacts, with the Spartans being ordered to destroy. The Spartan-IIIs observed these bases for two days, identifying the patrols, enemies and control sites, unblinkingly falling directly into a trap. They infiltrated the bases, killed all enemies, and attached explosive devices through the installations. After eliminating all jiralhanae leaders, the Spartans were surprised by the Silent Shadow, with their First Blade officer impaling the first of them in the chest with his energy sword, killing him immediately. He then ordered his subordinates to surround the other Spartan, whereupon the First Blade demanded him to surrender, revealing they had already killed the other Headhunter team. Refusing to be captured and tortured, Jonah blew the charges, killing himself and the sangheili surrounding him.

In late 2547, following a xenomorph outbreak on Terra Nova, a group of six Silent Shadow warriors led by Dark were sent to the human planet in search of Special Operations forces that became unresponsive after they settled to spy and search for orokin artifacts. Upon arriving on the planet, they discovered all Covenant forces had been massacred by the flood and UNSC Marines. After the end of the battle and the massacre of the flood forces, Dark became the only living Silent Shadow.

Great Schism
After the Hierarchs betrayed the sangheili and ordered their purge at the hands of the jiralhanae, leading to the Great Schism, a group of Silent Shadows led by First Blade Resa 'Azavayl became bent on exterminating all jiralhanae they could find, including forces in their command. This led them to wipe out an entire jiralhanae pack in the fourth moon of Victor's Truth, forces aboard the SDV-class heavy corvette Adherent, as well as multiple forces on Thalia and Sansar, alongside the last remaining forces loyal to Chieftain Tartarus aboard Rapid Conversion.

During one of their assassinations, the Silent Shadow sought to eliminate all jiralhanae aboard the corvette Elegy's Lament, but unknown to them, it was a ship of the Banished, led by its commander, Atriox. After they entered the corvette, the sangheili warriors killed many jiralhanae and unggoy soldiers, entering the bridge cloaked, but despite this they were still detected by Atriox, who sensed their smell. Atriox revealed to the sangheili that he was different from other members of his race, and that he and his pack had not betrayed the sangheili, wanting to include them in his Banished, offering them a place. Despite the Silent Shadow attempting to convince Resa that Atriox was different, he was filled with hatred and attempted to kill the Chieftain, only be to repeatedly stabbed and killed by his subordinates, who wanted to join the Banished.