Clank. Clank
Borak's colossal axe whistled down again, a blur of dark iron aimed to shatter Lucien's guard.
CLANG!
Whisper met it, not head-on, but angled. Lucien twisted his wrist, a subtle, brutal torque. The axe shrieked as it skittered off the silver blade, its force deflected harmlessly into the mulch with a heavy thump. Borak grunted, thrown slightly off-balance by his own redirected momentum.
Lucien didn't wait. He flowed.
Not back. Forward.
He slid inside the giant's guard as Borak recovered his stance. A flick of Whisper's point traced a thin, red line across Borak's thick forearm, just above the vambrace. It was a paper cut on a mountain, barely drawing blood.
Borak snarled, more insulted than hurt. He wrenched the axe back, swinging it horizontally in a brutal, sweeping arc meant to bisect Lucien at the waist. "Stand still!"
"Hah."
Lucien exhaled sharply.
He dropped, not to the ground, but into a low crouch. The axe passed harmlessly overhead, ruffling his hair. As Borak's swing carried through, leaving his flank exposed for a fraction of a second, Lucien's focus shifted.
Krakun, sensing an opening, lunged from the side, jaws wide, aiming to crush Lucien's crouched form.
Timing.
Lucien pushed off the ground, not away, but towards the bear. He tucked into a roll, passing under the snapping jaws.
As he rolled, Whisper flashed out sideways, not a slash, but a precise, powerful thrust. The tip punched through Krakun's thick hide just behind the massive foreleg, sinking deep into muscle.
"RRROOOAAARRGHH!"
The monstrous bear's bellow shook the trees, a sound of pure agony and fury. It stumbled, the leg buckling momentarily, thick, dark blood welling from the puncture.
Lucien came out of the roll smoothly, already pivoting to face Borak again, Whisper held low and ready, its tip stained. He didn't smirk. His expression remained cold granite, but his eyes held a new, dangerous glint. Control.
Borak's crimson eyes blazed, seeing his mount wounded.
"YOU WRETCH!"
He charged, abandoning finesse for overwhelming power, the axe raised high for a devastating overhead smash. Pure, predictable rage.
Lucien met the charge, not with a block, but with movement. He sidestepped the descending axe at the last possible moment, so close the wind of its passage stung his cheek.
CRUNCH
As the axe slammed into the earth, Lucien was already moving with Borak's momentum. He stepped in close behind the giant's extended arm and delivered a savage, armoured elbow strike to Borak's kidney.
"Guh!" Borak gasped, a sound of genuine shock and pain. He staggered forward a step, the axe momentarily forgotten as he clutched his side.
Lucien pressed the advantage. A swift, low kick swept Borak's lead leg. "Tch!" Borak stumbled, catching himself on the embedded axe haft. Before he could recover, Whisper flickered again.
Shink!
A deeper cut opened high on Borak's thigh, slicing through leather and skin. This time, blood flowed freely, dark against the green cloth.
Borak roared, wrenching his axe free and spinning, a wild backhand swing forcing Lucien to leap back.
"Filthy tricks! No honour!" Spittle flew from his lips.
"Honour didn't save your leg," Lucien countered coldly, his breath even, controlled. He circled, light on his feet, Whisper held in a relaxed guard that promised instant death. Borak was breathing heavily now, favouring his bleeding thigh. Krakun limped nearby, a low, pained growl rumbling in its chest, yellow eyes fixed on Lucien with hate, but the coordination between mount and rider was broken.
The dominance was palpable now. Not overwhelming strength, but utter, terrifying mastery. Lucien dictated the space. He feinted high. Borak flinched, raising his axe defensively. Lucien dropped low instantly, Whisper licking out like a serpent's tongue.
Shink!
Another cut, this time across Borak's ribs, parting leather and drawing a sharp hiss of pain from the giant. The cut wasn't deep, but it stung, a burning reminder of his failing defense.
"RAAAAAGH!"
Borak bellowed, swinging the axe in a desperate, wide arc, trying to create space. Lucien simply leaned back, letting the heavy blade whistle past his chest with inches to spare. He didn't retreat. He held his ground as the axe passed, then stepped in as Borak's swing ended.
A swift, brutal pommel strike hammered into Borak's jaw. The giant knight's head snapped back. He stumbled, eyes momentarily unfocused, blood trickling from his split lip.
Lucien stood before him, untouched, Whisper held loosely at his side, the tip dripping Borak's blood onto the dark forest floor. The oppressive silence of the hollow woods had returned, broken only by Borak's ragged breathing, Krakun's pained whimpers, and the soft drip… drip… of blood onto loam.
Lucien raised Whisper, the point aimed unwaveringly at Borak's heart.
"Your pet is crippled. You bleed. And you tire."
He tilted his head slightly, a predator assessing wounded prey. "How does the Third Knight of the Crimson Watch wish to meet his worms?"
"All that noise about Crimson Watches and Great Ones... and the Third Seat buckles so easily?"
"Tell me, 'Borak'. That supposed power you cling to, or is swinging that oversized axe truly the limit? Or does Vathyls's esteemed Third Knight actually possess something worth seeing?" He gestured vaguely, encompassing Borak's bleeding leg, his heaving chest, the limping Krakun.
"Show me your 'Expression'. Surely you should be capable of that."
Borak's crimson eyes bulged, fury warring with pain and the dawning chill of disadvantage. The cuts burned, his jaw throbbed, Krakun's injury was a glaring weakness. "You... insolent... maggot!" he rasped. "You dare demand—"
"Demand?" Lucien cut him off, taking a single, deliberate step forward.
"I'm offering you a chance to die with a shred of dignity intact. A final performance before the curtain falls." A cold, mirthless smile touched his lips. "I could have ended this minutes ago. Consider it... morbid curiosity. Show me what your Great One deems worthy before the worms feast."
The words were gasoline on the fire of Borak's humiliation. The sheer, icy contempt in being offered a chance to display his power before execution… it shattered the last vestiges of restraint. Rage, pure and incandescent, consumed the pain, the fear, the doubt.
"ENOUGH!" Borak's roar wasn't just sound; it was a physical force that vibrated the very air, making the leaves shiver. Krakun flinched despite its own pain. "YOU WANT TO SEE POWER, SHADOW? I'LL SHOW YOU THE WEIGHT OF VAATHYLS'S DECREE!"
He slammed the haft of his axe into the earth. Not a strike, but a declaration. "GRAVITIC ANCHOR!"
The world shifted. Not violently, but profoundly. A shimmering, barely visible aura erupted from Borak, washing outwards in a ripple. Where it touched the ground, the loam compacted instantly, forming sudden, shallow craters beneath his boots and Krakun's paws. The air itself felt thick, resistant, like wading through deep water.
Lucien felt it immediately. His next step, intended as a fluid advance, became sluggish, heavy. It was as if invisible chains had latched onto his limbs, dragging him down. His eyes narrowing, instantly reassessing.
Borak stood straighter within his shimmering aura, the bleeding wounds seeming less significant against the sudden, grounded solidity he projected. He moved, lifting his axe. It wasn't faster; it was heavier. Each step he took didn't just fall; it impacted, cratering the earth further. He moved like a walking mountain, the air groaning around him. Krakun, still limping, seemed steadier within the field, its growl taking on a deeper, more resonant timbre.
"Not bad," Lucien conceded. He adjusted his stance, muscles coiling like springs under pressure. "A useful trick for a thug who needs to stand still."
Borak's scarred face twisted in a rictus of fury beneath his shimmering aura. "TRICK?! YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING! BEHOLD THE TRUE FAVOR OF THE GREAT ONE!" He threw his head back, not in pain, but in fervent, terrifying invocation. "BY THE BLOODSTONE THRONE! DECREE OF VAATHYLS!"
The crimson palace in the distance seemed to pulse. A deep, resonant thrum, felt more than heard, vibrated through the hollow woods, shaking the gnarled trees to their roots. From the palace, a visible wave of deep, blood-red energy surged outwards, streaking across the distance like liquid lightning. It struck Borak and Krakun simultaneously.
The shimmering gravity aura flared crimson. Then, the very earth around Borak and his monstrous mount cracked and heaved. Jagged shards of deep red stone, glistening like wet blood, erupted from the ground. They didn't just encase Borak and Krakun; they fused with them.
Living carapaces of bloodstone armor flowed over Borak's massive form, sealing over his wounds, thickening over his leathers, forming jagged pauldrons and a horned helm that seemed to grow from his skull. It pulsed with a faint, dark light, veins of deeper crimson threading through it. Krakun's transformation was more grotesque. The bloodstone encased its body, reinforcing its spiked spine, forming plates over its injured leg, even extending in jagged growths around its jaws and claws. The stone seemed to *breathe*, shifting minutely with their movements, responding to their will. Borak roared, a sound mingled with agony and ecstasy as the stone fused with his flesh. Krakun's bellow was pure, resonant power.
"THE THRONE CHOOSES ITS CHAMPION!" Borak's voice boomed, amplified and distorted by the bloodstone helm, echoing with unnatural power. "VAATHYLS RECOGNIZES MY RIGHT! ITS FLESH IS MY ARMOR! ITS WILL, MY STRENGTH! NOW, DIE KNOWING YOU FACED THE SOVEREIGN OF THIS HOLLOW!"
He moved. Not slow, like before, but with terrifying, ponderous speed amplified by the raw power radiating from him and his fused mount. Krakun, its limp gone, charged, no longer an animal, but a living siege engine clad in living stone. Borak raised his axe, now sheathed in crackling crimson energy, and brought it down in a blow that seemed to drag the very air down with it.
Lucien didn't block. He *flowed, but the Gravitic Anchor still pulled. His dodge was less a graceful sidestep and more a desperate, powerful lunge. The axe slammed into the space he vacated that shattered the compacted earth, sending shards of bloodstone-infused soil flying. The shockwave hit Lucien mid-lunge, staggering him.
He rolled, coming up just as Krakun's stone-reinforced paw, the size of a boulder, swiped at him. He ducked, feeling the wind of its passage ruffle his hair, the jagged stone spikes scraping the air where his neck had been. He tried to riposte, Whisper striking like lightning at Krakun's stone-plated underbelly.
CLANG-SPARK!
The blade screeched against the living rock, scoring a deep groove but failing to penetrate.
Borak was already turning, impossibly fast for his size and armor, the gravity field intensifying around him, trying to pin Lucien down. The axe came around in a brutal horizontal sweep. Lucien planted his feet, bracing against the gravitational pull, and met it with Whisper.
CLAAAAANG!
The impact was colossal, a sound like a mountain cracking. Lucien skidded back several feet, boots gouging trenches in the compacted earth.
Krakun lunged again, jaws snapping, stone teeth gleaming. Lucien twisted away but Borak was already capitalizing, bringing the axe down in a relentless overhead smash. Lucien rolled forward, under the descending axe head, coming up inside Borak's guard. He drove Whisper in a vicious thrust towards a joint in the bloodstone armor near the giant's hip.
CLINK!
The tip sparked, finding purchase in a seam, but the living stone seemed to *tighten* instantly, trapping the blade for a fraction of a second. Borak roared, not in pain, but in fury, and slammed his stone-encased fist down like a hammer.
Lucien wrenched Whisper free just in time, leaping back pas the fist cratered the ground where he'd been. He landed lightly despite the gravity, breathing harder now, his icy composure replaced by focused intensity. He circled, eyes darting between the bloodstone-clad knight and his fused, monstrous mount. The Gravitic Anchor pulled, the bloodstone armor deflected his blows, and the raw power emanating from the fused pair was palpable.
Clank. Thud.
The bloodstone fist slammed into the cratered earth where Lucien had been a fraction before. He'd twisted aside with a fluid, almost contemptuous ease, landing lightly despite Borak's Gravitic Anchor still tugging at his limbs like invisible chains. Krakun's stone-reinforced jaws snapped shut on empty air inches from his flank, the sound like boulders grinding together.
Lucien danced back two paces, putting a shattered tree stump between himself and the fused monstrosities. He didn't pant, but his breaths were controlled, measured. His icy gaze flickered between the enraged, bloodstone-clad knight and the armored bear, a cold calculation replacing the earlier intensity.
"Hmmmmm," Lucien murmured, the sound almost lost beneath Krakun's enraged bellow. He tilted his head, examining Borak's pulsing carapace, the way the stone seemed to breathe.
"This is… quite interesting. Sturdier than expected." He deflected a wild axe swing, letting the force spin him gracefully aside as Krakun charged the stump, reducing it to splinter.
"If I continue like this," he continued, his voice calm, almost conversational, "it might take more time than I care to waste."
He landed from the spin, boots skidding slightly on the compacted earth. Borak roared, heaving his axe for another crushing blow. "STOP TALKING AND DIE, VERMIN!"
Lucien ignored him. His grip on Whisper shifted subtly. The blade, already gleaming silver, seemed to drink the oppressive gloom of the hollow woods. Then, faintly at first, a glow began to emanate from its edge – not fire, but pure, focused light, drawn from some unseen source above the twisted canopy. Prismatic flares, like trapped rainbows, danced along the steel.
"Ohk," Lucien said, a note of chilling finality entering his tone. He raised Whisper, not in a guard, but like a conductor raising a baton. The light intensified, coalescing, vibrating with contained power.
"Since you've shown your… Expression…" He locked eyes with Borak, who was mid-charge, Krakun thundering beside him. "...let me bless your eyes with mine."
"Bloodglass: Sunfire Guillotine."
Whisper flashed down. Not a slash, but a release. A blade of pure, coherent sunlight, ten meters long and blindingly brilliant, screamed into existence. It hummed with terrifying energy, the air around it sizzling, the very light seeming to bend towards its incandescent edge. It cut through the gloom like divine judgment, aimed not at Borak, but directly at the fused mass of knight and beast.
Borak's crimson eyes widened in primal terror. He didn't try to block the impossible blade head-on. Instinct screamed 'deflect!'
With a desperate, guttural "GRAAH!" he wrenched his massive, polished bloodstone shield from his back and slammed it into the light-blade's path at a sharp angle.
SCREEEEEECH—BOOOM!
The contact wasn't metal on energy; it was a cataclysm. The sunfire blade shrieked as it was deflected, gouging a molten trench across the compacted earth. But the deflection wasn't clean. Where the blade touched the ground, ambient mana ignited. A searing wall of white-hot plasma erupted upwards with a thunderous BOOM, a living curtain of destruction directly in Krakun's path.
The monstrous bear, fused in stone, had no time to react. It charged into the erupting plasma field.
The sound was horrific – a wet, sizzling CRUNCH-HISSSS mixed with a final, truncated ROAR of agony. The living stone armor flashed molten red, then blackened and cracked. Flesh beneath vaporized instantly. Krakun, Vathyls's fused champion-beast, was reduced to charred bone and slag mid-stride, collapsing in a smoldering, grotesque heap.
Borak stumbled back, shield arm smoking, the polished stone surface scarred and glowing faintly red. He stared at the ruin of his mount, then at Lucien. Rage, pure and unadulterated, twisted his bloodstone-encased features into a mask of pure hatred.
"KRAKUUUN! YOU... YOU KILLED HIM! I'LL TEAR YOU APART WITH MY BARE HANDS!"
Spittle flew from his lips, sizzling on his stone chin. He dropped his axe, forgotten, and charged like a bloodstone avalanche, fists clenched, the Gravitic Anchor flaring wildly around him, trying to pin Lucien down.
Lucien didn't move. He watched the enraged giant close the distance, a faint, almost bored expression on his face.
As Borak's massive fist descended, Lucien simply… sidestepped. Not quickly, but with impossible precision, leaning back just enough for the stone knuckles to whistle past his nose.
He flowed around a wild backhand swing like smoke, his boots barely whispering on the scorched earth.
"So you survived that, huh?" he mused, his voice flat. He effortlessly avoided another crushing blow, ducking under Borak's guard. "Seems I'm getting rusty."
Borak roared, a sound of pure, impotent fury, swinging wildly, each blow cratering the ground but finding only air. Lucien moved with eerie calm, a ghost within the giant's rage. "ENOUGH GAMES!" Borak bellowed, trying to corner him against a gnarled tree.
"Games?" Lucien echoed, a cold smile touching his lips. He stopped retreating.
"Very well. Let's conclude." His grip on Whisper tightened.
"Skyglass: Mirage Coalescence."
He didn't vanish.
He blurred.
One Lucien became two, then three, then five – afterimages that didn't fade, but seemed to solidify into perfect, shimmering duplicates. They weaved around Borak in a complex, dizzying dance, each moving independently, each holding a perfect replica of Whisper. Borak snarled, disoriented, lashing out at the nearest image. His fist passed through it like mist, but the next image to his left didn't dissipate. It lunged.
Shink!
Whisper, real and deadly, traced a line of fire across Borak's bloodstone-clad bicep. Not deep, but shocking.
Borak whirled, swinging at that Lucien. His fist met only air as the image dissolved, but another duplicate behind him solidified and struck.
Shink!
A cut opened on his thigh, mirroring the earlier wound but deeper, blood welling dark against the stone.
"ILLUSIONS! COWARD'S TRICKS!" Borak roared, spinning wildly, trying to track the flitting, solidifying mirages. He swung at one, hit nothing. Another solidified to his right, jabbing Whisper's point into the seam at his knee. "ARGH!" Borak staggered.
The dance intensified. Mirages coalesced and dissolved, feinting high, striking low.
Shink!
A cut on his left forearm.
Shink!
A slice across his ribs, drawing a pained grunt.
Borak was a mountain being carved apart by a vengeful wind. He tried to grab one, but his stone fingers closed on shimmering nothingness.
Another solidified instantly behind him.
Shink!
Whisper severed the tendons at the back of Borak's right knee.
The giant crashed forward onto that knee with a ground-shaking THUD and a bellow of agony.
Before he could recover, two mirages solidified simultaneously. One feinted high. Borak flinched, raising his shield arm. The other Lucien, the real one, dropped low. Whisper flashed once, twice, in a silver cross.
THUNK. THUD.
Borak's massive, bloodstone-encased right arm, shield and all, fell to the scorched earth. A fraction later, his left leg, severed cleanly above the knee, followed. Borak screamed, a raw, animal sound of shock and agony, collapsing onto his side, held up only by his remaining leg and arm. Blood, dark and thick, pulsed from the stumps, steaming on the hot ground.
Lucien's mirages dissolved. Only the real one remained, standing calmly over the ruined giant. He stepped forward, a booted foot landing squarely, deliberately, on Borak's heaving, bloodstone-covered chest. The pressure was firm, unyielding, pinning the knight like a butterfly.
Lucien looked down at Borak's pain-wracked, furious face.
He pressed down slightly, eliciting a choked gasp. "Your Great One's favor seems… easily revoked."
Borak's crimson eyes, filled with hate and agony, locked onto Lucien's. His mouth opened, blood bubbling on his lips.
"Vathyls... will... consume... you..." he rasped, each word a struggle. "The Crimson Watch... will hunt—"
With a flick of his wrist almost too fast to see, Whisper lashed out.
Shhk.
A clean, deep cut opened across Borak's throat, silencing the threats in a wet gurgle. Borak's eyes bulged, a final surge of impotent rage, then glazed over, fixed on the crimson palace in the distance.
Lucien watched the life fade, his expression unchanging. He flicked Whisper, sending a crimson arc splattering onto the dark loam.
"Normally," he murmured, almost to himself, "I'd consider interrogation. But we both know you'd choke on your misplaced loyalty before uttering anything useful." He shifted his weight, his boot still planted on the cooling chest.
"A waste of breath. Mine and yours."
He raised Whisper again, the blade catching the dim, filtered light. No flourish. No wasted motion. A single, precise downward stroke.
Thunk.
The sound was final, heavy. Borak's head, still encased in its horned bloodstone helm, rolled free, coming to rest facing the palace it had sworn to defend.
Lucien stepped off the headless corpse. He didn't look back at the carnage – the smoldering remains of Krakun, the dismembered giant, the scorched and cratered clearing. He flicked Whisper clean one last time, sheathed it with a soft *snick*, and turned his gaze fully towards the distant, blood-red palace. The oppressive energy of the hollow woods pulsed around him, unchanged. The only sound now was the drip of blood onto thirsty earth, and the low, constant hum of the crimson stones in the distance. He began to walk, his steps steady and silent, towards the heart of the darkness.
Lucien stepped off the headless corpse. He didn't look back at the carnage. He flicked Whisper clean, sheathed it and turned towards the blood-red palace humming in the distance.
He took three deliberate steps forward, boots sinking slightly into the ash-strewn earth.
Then he stopped.
His head tilted, just a fraction, listening to the oppressive silence. His gaze, cold and unwavering, fixed on a gnarled, ancient oak to his left, its branches thick with shadow despite the ambient gloom.
"You there."
His voice cut through the stillness, flat and devoid of inflection, like a stone dropped into stagnant water.
"The show is over. The audience should depart. Or... come take a bow." He didn't gesture. Didn't shift his stance. He simply stood, a statue of shadow and steel, his focus a physical weight on the dense canopy above. "I do advise you to show yourself."
Silence answered him.
Then, movement. A rustle, soft as a sigh, high in the oak's twisted branches. Not a bird. Not an animal.
A figure detached itself from the deep shadows where a massive limb met the trunk. She descended not with a jump, but with a languid, deliberate grace that seemed to defy gravity. One long, bare leg extended, finding purchase on a lower branch. Then the other. She moved sideways along the thick bough, sinuous as a serpent, her body flowing with an innate, predatory elegance.
She dropped the final few feet, landing on the balls of her feet without a sound, like a cat settling onto cushions. She straightened slowly, unfolding herself to her full, impressive height.
She was breathtakingly beautiful, a stark, vibrant shock against the grim backdrop of charred earth and blood. Her skin was the colour of rich honey, smooth and flawless. She wore little more than scraps of dark, iridescent silk that seemed woven from shadow itself. A halter top, barely wider than two fingers, clung precariously to full, high breasts, leaving her midriff entirely bare down to the sharp cut of her hips. Below, a skirt – if it could be called that – consisted of layered, diaphanous panels that started scandalously low on her hips and ended high on her powerful thighs, revealing long, sculpted legs. Intricate, swirling tattoos in dark ink curled around her left shoulder, snaked down her arm, and vanished beneath the silk on her hip. Her face was a masterpiece of sharp angles and full curves: high cheekbones, a straight nose, lips the colour of crushed berries, currently curved in a knowing, amused smirk. Her eyes, large and tilted upwards at the corners, were a startling, luminous violet, holding an intelligence as sharp as Lucien's blade. Long, raven-black hair, streaked with a single vibrant purple lock, cascaded over one shoulder in artful disarray.
She took a single step forward, hips swaying with hypnotic rhythm, the movement making the shadow-silk whisper against her skin. Her violet eyes raked over Lucien, lingering on his blood-spattered armour, the cooling corpse behind him, then back to his impassive face. Her grin widened, revealing perfect, white teeth.
Lucien watched her descent and approach with the same detached scrutiny he might give a curious insect. No flicker of surprise. No widening of eyes. No hitch in his breath. His expression remained carved from ice, utterly unfazed by her dramatic entrance or her near-naked splendor. He simply waited, silent and still, as if her presence was a minor inconvenience.
Her low, husky laugh was like velvet dragged over stone. She stopped just outside arm's reach, tilting her head, that predatory smile never leaving her lips.
"Oh my..." she purred, the sound vibrating in the heavy air. Her violet eyes gleamed with undisguised fascination and dark amusement as they locked onto Lucien's cold gaze. "...what do we have here?"