The wind screamed.
Ash became a living thing — swirling, twisting, clawing at Wong's robes like desperate fingers.
The pale fire in the cracks spread outward, tracing jagged veins across the arena floor.
Above, the vortex thickened until it blotted out the sun.
Inside it, flickers of ghostly faces appeared and vanished — not illusions, but echoes of the dead.
---
Malrik's voice carried over the howl of the storm.
"Do you feel it, necromancer? This is what your kind brings into the world.
The Veil of Purity doesn't need to lie — they just need to show people this."
Wong tried to move, but the air was heavier now, each breath a struggle.
The Soul Link strained, his Blood Hound circling him like a shadow given fangs.
Even it seemed unsettled, growling low at the faces in the fire.
---
"Where is my sister?" Wong demanded, forcing the words through gritted teeth.
Malrik didn't answer. Instead, he extended his glaive toward the ground — and the fire surged upward into a wall, cutting the arena in half.
Wong's instincts screamed.
This wasn't just to separate them.
Malrik was shaping the battlefield into a cage.
---
Wong's mind raced.
Standard summons wouldn't hold against the white fire.
Necrotic blasts would burn away before reaching him.
That left only one option — the kind of magic Shiv had told him never to use outside of controlled ritual grounds.
He planted his staff in the cracked stone and whispered an invocation older than the academy itself.
The air grew colder — not the cold of winter, but the absence of all warmth, all life.
---
The ash froze midair.
The ghostly faces in the fire turned toward him, their mouths opening in soundless screams.
From the fissures in the stone, skeletal hands began to rise — dozens, then hundreds, each clawing upward to pull themselves free.
Malrik's eyes narrowed.
"So… you will answer the prophecy."
---
The Blood Hound leapt first, tearing through the white fire like it was smoke.
The skeletal tide followed, rushing the commander from all sides.
Malrik's glaive blazed brighter, every swing cutting down dozens — but the dead only reformed, climbing over each other to reach him.
This was no longer a fight between two combatants.
It was an old truth in motion — white fire against black bone, purity against the grave.
And somewhere inside that storm, Wong swore he heard a girl's voice call his name.
---