Ivan's mouth opened in a ragged gasp, horror finally catching up—
but Elliana did not give him the luxury of sound.
She moved.
A blur. A shadow. A decisive execution.
One moment she stood at the edge of the crater.
The next—
SHK-THMM—!
Her knee drove into his gut, pinning him deeper into the fractured stone.
His ribs collapsed under the impact, crumpling around his organs like twisted metal.
A strangled, wet cough escaped him, crimson mist spraying across his chin.
Elliana didn't blink.
Her hand shot out, seizing his throat and lifting him from the wall with a single arm.
His feet dangled, dead weight, body twitching as his regeneration struggled to keep pace with the destruction.
Her voice was quiet.
Quiet in the way a blade unsheathing whispers through the air.
> "Stop crawling."
She slammed his skull into the floor.
KRRM—!
Stone shattered. Dust erupted.
Ivan's vision exploded into white, then black, then red.
Before he could recover, her heel slammed down on his chest.
Once.
Twice.
A third time—
CRK—CRUNCH—CRRRK—
Every stomp caved in more bone until his chest became a ravaged cavity, desperately trying to knit itself together.
Elliana's face did not change.
> "You chase me with wishes for me to die."
Her foot pressed deeper into the ruins of his sternum.
> "But now, you are the one breaking."
Ivan's eyes fluttered, unfocused.
And then—something shifted.
His pupils constricted.
A ripple crawled beneath his skin.
The blood around him—spilled across the floor, walls, and air—shivered.
Elliana saw it.
Too late.
Ivan's expression twisted—not in desperation.
In fury.
A raw, primal, animal fury.
His regeneration didn't just resume—
it surged.
Vein-light erupted beneath his skin—
dark-red lightning crawling through his ruined torso into his limbs.
His broken chest ballooned outward, bone knitting at impossible speed.
His throat reshaped against her grip.
Severed arms twitched on the floor—
—and pulled themselves back toward him.
Elliana's eyes narrowed.
Ivan inhaled a shaking, furious breath.
His voice—hoarse, jagged—tore out:
> "—Get. OFF. ME."
The castle floor beneath them exploded.
BWHOOM—!!
A shockwave of blood-magic erupted—
not a pulse,
not a blast,
but a detonation of crimson force.
Stone corridors split like eggshells.
Walls sheared apart.
The ceiling disintegrated into powder.
Every pillar in a hundred-foot radius snapped.
Elliana shot backward, thrown through four collapsing walls in a violent blur—
trails of shadow ripping free from her form.
Ivan surged upward at the storm's center—
Arms regrown.
Chest restored.
Neck healed.
Dripping.
Steaming.
Seething.
His blood-magic vortex spun around him like a hurricane of razors, now larger than the corridor itself.
> "You think you can break me?" he snarled, voice raw and thunderous.
The castle could no longer contain his power.
Cracks spiderwebbed across every wall.
Support beams groaned.
The floor buckled.
Ivan spread his arms wide.
The blood around him whirled outward—
—and the entire section of the castle detonated like a volcanic eruption.
A tidal wave of crimson force blasted through stone, brick, and iron—
carving a tunnel straight through the castle's exterior.
Elliana was hurled first—
a streak of shadow tearing through the shattered opening.
Ivan followed, propelled by the roaring storm of blood he commanded.
Together, they were flung from the ruins—
Through collapsing walls—
Into open air—
Out toward the dark, sprawling forest beyond.
The night split around them.
Trees bent. The ground trembled. The forest shuddered as if bracing for impact.
They were still mid-air—
shadow and blood, predator and monster—
when Ivan roared, voice echoing across the treeline:
> "THIS—
ISN'T—
OVER!"
Elliana twisted mid-flight, shadows rising around her like wings.
> "No," she murmured.
Her voice cut sharper than any blade.
> "It's finally beginning."
Night swallowed the ruined castle behind them.
Rain poured from the black sky in cold, relentless sheets.
Each drop hissed against the forest canopy below, a whisper that seemed to welcome Elliana home.
They crashed through the treeline—
WHUMPH—
SHRAKK—
THMM—
—splintering trunks, sliding across wet earth in a storm of shadow and blood.
Ivan carved a trench through the mud, skidding until he slammed into a massive dead oak. Bark fractured. The trunk quivered. His blood vortex sputtered, scattering like dying embers.
Elliana did not skid.
She appeared, stepping from the shadow of a bent pine as if the forest itself had given birth to her silhouette.
Rain drummed softly against her skin, evaporating into thin curls of black mist.
Her silver eyes glowed brighter in the darkness.
This was her element.
Her territory.
Her hour.
Ivan felt it.
Even through the haze of impact and fury, he felt the world shift around her.
Elliana's voice drifted through the rain, impossibly calm.
> "Night is not your battlefield."
Shadows peeled off her form.
Then another.
And another.
The forest dimmed as silhouettes emerged from every tree, every broken trunk, every patch of moonless dark.
Shadow Ellianas—
hundreds—
silent, perfect reflections, each with silver eyes burning like predatory lanterns.
Ivan staggered to his feet, blood dripping down his jaw, eyes wide.
> "You think tricks—"
They vanished.
Every single one.
Rain paused in the air—
then shivered.
Ivan's crimson pupils shrank.
Dozens of Ellianas materialized around him in a circling spiral, mid-strike before even becoming fully solid.
His blood-magic struggled to keep up.
A blade of pure shadow materialized in the real Elliana's hand—thin, curved, vibrating with impossible sharpness.
The forest held its breath as she spoke:
> "I do not need tricks."
Her shadow clones echoed her in a whisper that rippled through the clearing.
> "We are real in the dark."
Then they moved.
All at once.
SLHNK—
SLHNK—
SLHNK—
SHHH—
The shadows shredded the air, cutting off every escape.
Ivan raised his arms—blood-magic erupting in a roar—
But Elliana was already behind him.
A single step from shadow to shadow…
Her blade touched the side of his neck.
The cut was invisible at first.
Then—
KRRRSH—
His blood-magic roared, clawing to hold flesh to bone—threads of crimson energy desperate to keep his head attached.
But the shadow blade ignored his regeneration.
It did not cut flesh.
It cut concept.
Light flickered.
Rain froze mid-fall.
Ivan's breath hitched—
> "—pest—"
Too late.
The strike completed.
SHHHH-THMM—
His head separated cleanly from his body, spinning once through the rain before falling into Elliana's waiting shadow like a stone into water.
His body remained standing for a heartbeat—blood-magic swirling, confused, faltering.
Elliana stood in the shadows before it, blade dissolving into mist.
Her eyes lifted to the headless form—utterly calm.
> "You resist even this," she murmured, sensing the blood-magic struggle to repair him.
A soft, cold breath escaped her lips.
> "Then I will simply do it again."
Lightning flashed above, illuminating the forest—
—and the shadows around her multiplied once more.