Draven tilted his head—CRACK.
The sound echoed through the clearing as he rolled his neck slow, shoulders squaring with a loose, deliberate motion.
The dagger slid from his fingers into his mouth—held steady between his teeth. The blade caught a shard of light, glinting like a grin that didn't reach his eyes.
He tore the tattered sleeve from his shoulder, where the hand had been severed minutes ago. Muscles beneath the skin still twitched—he flexed them hard, stretching the newly healed fingers like testing the bite of a fresh weapon.
Still staring at her.
Kaela.
She stood motionless on the far bank, a shadow sculpted in obsidian, unreadable behind that calm, sharp gaze.
Draven's lips pulled back red eyes—sharp and Glowing, like a wolf tasting blood.
Then, through clenched teeth and steel, he said—
> "You first."
He spat the blade back into his hand, catching it clean.
Spinning The Dagger Changed His Grip.
> "Try me, b*tch."
> "I'll start by ripping that smug look off your damn face."
He didn't shout it.
He didn't have to.
The words dropped like iron—flat, final.
The Black Wing knights tensed around the clearing. Half drew breath. The other half didn't dare.
Kaela blinked once.
Still. Calm.
She shifted her stance slightly—just enough that every knight around the perimeter tensed in reflex. But she didn't draw.
Didn't speak.
A gap opened in the ring.
Someone pushed through—big enough to move the air around him. Broad shoulders, armor struck flat with old blows, a slab of a sword strapped to his back like a monument.
Saren Korr, a 7-Star Mana Knight and the Vice Commander of the Black Wing—known more widely by his nickname: the Old Wolf of the Black Wing.
He stopped three paces from Draven and looked past him toward Kaela.
"Commander," he said, voice low and steady, "you can continue onwards. Leave this one to me. I'll handle him."
Kaela's gaze didn't flick to the man at first. She watched Draven—measured, unreadable—then spoke a single name, crisp and clear.
"Saren."
He inclined his head once.
"Don't let your guard down," Kaela added—flat.
She turned, already moving, without hesitation. Her hand was a small, precise motion.
"Half of you—move with me."
Her tone was cold, efficient. sharp, slicing the tension like a blade.
Kaela's gaze swept across the remaining knights.
"Rest, hold position. Kill on sight.
Without waiting, Kaela disappeared into the forest with her contingent, like smoke slipping through the trees.
Behind her, nearly fifty knights melted into the shadows, moving with silent precision.
The clearing was left to Saren and the rest—knights circling Draven like predators closing in.
The knights stepped forward with that same controlled precision; no cheering, no theatrics. They moved like cogs in a machine. The clearing hummed with the close-thought of blades being shifted, ropes readied, a net uncoiling—workmanlike and efficient.
Draven watched them, dagger tighten at his side, muscles coiled. He didn't smirk. He only listened.
Saren set the massive blade across his shoulder and took a single, heavy step forward. Mana surging as The rest tightened their circle, but the tone in the clearing had changed—businesslike, clinical. Kaela's orders landed and stayed where she placed them.
Saren shifts his massive blade from his back — smooth, practiced — and plants it in the ground between them with a heavy thud.
Just says, low:
> "I'll be your opponent."
---
No Match, Only War
Draven tilts his head again, but slower this time.
No neck crack. Just pressure. Grinding tension.
Then the laugh comes — short. Ugly. Dry.
> "Opponent?"
He steps forward.
One foot.
Then another.
Not fast. Not slow. Just inevitable.
> "You think this is a match? You think this is a game of f***ing turns?"
> "I'm not here to test your stance, dumbass. I'm gonna rip the spine out of every last one of you goddamn bastards that dear step his foot into my Castle ."
He stared at saren eyes cold and sharp.
> "You? You're just in the f***ing way."
---
Saren doesn't blink.
> "All the more reason to stop you here."
He grips the sword. Not raised. Not threatening. Just ready.
Draven's lip twitches — not a smile. A warning.
He drew a breath—slow and deliberate—the kind that hangs in the chest like a grenade's pin.
> "Then don't waste my time," he snarled, voice flat as a blade.
"I'll send you to hell first—then that smug b*tch along side you."
The word for Kaela hit the dirt like a dropped sword. Around them, the clearing inhaled—armor shifted, a hundred hands tightening on hilts.
Saren didn't flinch. The Old Wolf's face stayed calm, unreadable. But his eyes?
Colder now. Sharper.
> "You'll have to get through me," he said.
Quiet. Steady.