Snow spiraled between them, the cold wind howling like a predator. Five hunter of the Black Sigil stood in a loose crescent, their faces obscured by layered masks, each etched with a different glyph. Behind Leon, Kaelis drew his curved blade, the steel whispering as it slid free.
Leon lowered into a stance, one foot behind the other, sword raised beside his face. "Last chance to walk away."
Oroth stepped forward. His voice was filtered through his mask, but there was a dry amusement in it. "You came back from the dead just to die again. How poetic."
"Wrong," Leon replied, eyes narrowing. "I came back to finish what I started."
The snow exploded.
The first hunter surged forward, glaive spinning in a wide arc toward Leon's head. Leon ducked low, parrying the blow with the flat of his blade and shifting his body with sharp footwork. Another hunter was already behind him, blade stabbing for his ribs, but Kaelis intercepted with a spinning slash that sent sparks flying.
"Kaelis, flank left!" Leon barked.
"Already on it."
Kaelis vanished in a blur, moving faster than expected, using momentum chaining, a new tactic he had refined since their last battle. He pivoted off strikes, redirecting enemy attacks and chaining them into his own, never staying still for more than a heartbeat.
Leon's sword danced between strikes. One hunter kept distance, casting pale-blue binding sigils into the snow. Runes crawled along the ground like veins, snaring Leon's legs with ice.
He stabbed his blade into the ground. "Shadow Rupture."
The runes shattered as tendrils of darkness erupted from beneath, knocking the caster back. He raised his hand, and Kel emerged from the void beside him, spearing forward with a jagged ice-blade that knocked the agent off balance.
A guttural roar cracked the sky, the frost wyrm coiled into existence above them, its wings casting a shadow like death over the battlefield. The wind froze mid-motion as the creature opened its maw, frost magic gathering like a storm inside it.
"Wyrm, suppress the ranged one!" Leon shouted.
The wyrm dove, scattering two hunter into the snow with its chilling breath. One tried to retaliate, but the wyrm's scales deflected the attack with a resounding clang. Below, Leon parried two strikes in rapid succession before launching a pulse of shadowfire from his off-hand.
The third hunter rolled beneath it and lashed upward, only to meet Kaelis, who intercepted the blow mid-air.
But Kaelis didn't just parry, he twisted the opponent's blade with a sudden reversal using his elbow and hip, wrenching it free and slamming a dagger into the hunter's side. It was a new tactic, close-quarters redirection, using enemy force against them in tight rhythm.
"Nicely done," Leon muttered as he deflected a spinning disc of shadow coming his way. The caster had recovered.
"We practiced for a reason," Kaelis replied, breath steady.
Then came a crack. One of the hunters released a whip of sigils that struck Kel across the chest, dispersing frost magic in a blast.
Kel stumbled but didn't fall.
Leon rushed forward, trading blows with the whip wielder. Steel rang out, magic flared, each step burning deeper into the snow as their footwork scarred the earth. Leon ducked, slashed, then opened his palm and cast a surge of ice lances, forcing the agent to dodge backward.
But as the smoke cleared, Leon felt it, a blade brushing past his cheek.
The fifth had circled behind him unnoticed. Fast. Silent. Precise.
Leon barely raised his blade in time to block the killing strike. The two locked eyes.
"You've improved," The hunter hissed.
"You're still predictable."
Leon let his sword slide down the attacker's edge, shifted his body, and headbutted the mask, shattering the upper half with a crack. Blood spilled. The hunter staggered.
Then Leon spun, drove his foot into the enemy's chest, and cast Shadow Bind, dark chains erupting from his arms to pin the fighter in place.
"Wyrm!" he called.
The beast roared, releasing a beam of glacial magic that collided with the pinned agent in a crescendo of cold and silence. When the frost cleared, nothing remained but fragments of shattered stone and snow.
One hunter down.
The remaining agents regrouped, panting, weapons raised, eyes darting.
"You shouldn't have come here, Leon," the lead agent said through a bloodied mouth.
Leon's breath fumed through the air, his blade humming with layered frost and shadow energy. "Tell your masters," he said, voice low, deadly, "that this is what happens when you send lambs to kill a wolf."
The sky pulsed.
Kaelis stepped beside him, flipping his sword in hand, blood streaking his left arm but his stance steady. "They'll be back."
Leon nodded. "Let them come."
He took a step forward, and so did the enemy.
No retreat. No surrender.
The second clash erupted like a thunderclap in the frozen ruins.