The eastern wall trembled under the advance of the Awakened.
Down below, the Drakkoul were torn apart like rotten wood giving way to an axe — limbs ripped off, torsos split open, dark blood splattering across the hardened earth.
Above, the White Viper remained standing, posture flawless, gaze far too calm for what she witnessed.
The wind lifted her hair like strands of pale silk, drawing white serpents that never stopped observing.
She followed each death with a serenity that insulted the chaos beneath her.
And then she smiled — slow, restrained, sharp.
"Specter," she murmured, without even turning her head. "What are you doing here? I believe I made it clear to the leader that the fragments would not be necessary."
The stone gave no sound.
No shift in the wind betrayed a presence.
Only a flicker in the shadow to her right — far too discreet for anyone else to notice.
He was there: a contained presence, sharp, meticulous… and two heterochromatic eyes shining—one ancient amber, the other deep blue — an impossibility as stark as his own name.
"I don't follow his orders," he replied, voice cold, immaculate. "I only tolerated his hierarchy because you claimed it would be the shortest path to finding Éreon."
He turned his body toward her, gaze hard as a blade.
"So spare me riddles, Viper. Where is he?"
The White Viper tilted her head, as if savoring the bluntness — or as if she had already foreseen every word that would follow.
"What an intriguing impatience."
Her voice was soft, almost affectionate, just enough to unsettle.
"So the Reaper's little artifact deemed it proper to speak."
Her smile widened a fraction, venom poured in a thin line:
"Wasn't that exactly why he freed you?"
The air seemed to pull back around the Specter — as if even the atmosphere preferred distance.
His voice came firm, broken only by the cold:
"I should have realized much earlier. Eight months ago, when I saw you offer innocents to the altar of your predictions… then, I already knew your promises were hollow."
His eyes shimmered, cutting.
"The resemblance between you and… her… is nauseating."
For a moment, the Viper said nothing.
Then her smile narrowed — becoming sharper, crueler.
"Sacrificing pawns to claim the king… is the primal law of any board worth playing."
Pressure thickened around them — an invisible, ancient weight, as if the air were braided with ancestral serpents.
Her voice came low, dark, soaked in silent satisfaction:
"But to move a piece against me now… would be unwise, Specter."
She turned her gaze back to the carnage below, as if she only contemplated a familiar detail in an old painting.
"The one you seek already marches toward the Northern Realm. If you wish to reach him, don't waste time here."
And then, in one last strike wrapped in silk, she offered the poison:
"However… if you wish to nurture that fragile delusion of power of yours… I can accompany you."
The silence between them stretched—not empty, but dense, pulsing, as if something waited for permission to exist.
The White Viper raised her hand with ritualistic elegance.
The air around her fingers twisted, and a thin white mist, milky like diluted venom, slithered outward.
The haze gathered in a slow spiral… and then condensed.
With a soft snap, a black card appeared, floating above her palm.
The symbol on its back was simple and terrible: the Empty Throne.
She observed the object with silent reverence — almost devotion.
When she spoke, her voice was cutting silk:
"The Empty Throne…" she murmured. "That is what I saw over you, Specter. Power not yet claimed. Inevitable ascension. A calling that echoes beyond any board."
She let the card rotate slightly in the air, as though revealing something only he — and no one else— could understand.
"With this… our agreement is complete."
The Specter did not answer.
He merely extended one finger — a dry, precise gesture.
A thin beam of light, gold like shattered metal, shot toward the card.
The black paper ignited without fire — burned in absolute silence, dissolving into silver ash that vanished before touching the ground.
When the last spark faded, he vanished as wel l— erased from reality as if he had never been there.
The Viper kept her gaze fixed ahead, unmoving.
And then, slowly… she smiled.
A smile that did not announce victory — but inevitability.
"All pieces are set," she murmured. "Now, Brianna… we have a matter of mother and daughter to resolve."
As the tension dissipated atop the wall, below it the carnage continued — raw, relentless, deafening.
The sound was a brutal symphony: bones snapping, claws shredding flesh, metal sinking where resistance should have been.
Brianna moved among the Drakkoul like a disciplined storm — each sharp turn, each precise step, each strike the inevitable conclusion of someone who had already won before even beginning.
A Drakkoul collapsed at her feet, gargling thick, hot black blood.
Another lunged from behind — Brianna spun, raising her hand with near-ritual precision, fingers drawing a firm arc in the air, like someone pulling an invisible string.
The wind answered.
The air thickened around her palm, tightening, compressing until it vibrated like glass about to crack.
Then she made one final motion — small, elegant, fatal.
The blade of condensed wind formed that very instant, sharp as newly broken ice, tearing the air with a short snap.
The creature's skull split cleanly into two halves, opening like a ripe fruit under a sharpened blade.
In that instant, the shadow took shape behind her.
A strange silence settled — like the world had held its breath before impact.
Brianna only smiled at the corner of her mouth, cold, controlled.
"Looks like we finally meet again…"
She turned slowly — slow enough to feel inevitable.
As if she already knew who she would find… and deep down, she did.
He was there.
Long, dark, tangled hair, like strands scorched by some ancient fire.
Pale skin traced with scars time itself refused to erase.
And his eyes — heterochromatic, inhuman—one deep red, like a living ember suffocated by wind; the other absolute black, an abyss without echo or bottom.
His predatory expression didn't waver at the sight of her standing, alive… and smiling.
Brianna lifted her chin, voice low as a sheathed blade:
"The last time I saw you… you were burning."
He tilted his head, and the corner of his mouth lifted — not in amusement, but in veiled threat.
"And the last time I saw you…" his voice scraped the air, rough and cutting, "I remember driving your own dagger into you."
The wind circled them, carrying the dense scent of blood and torn earth.
Brianna stepped left.
He mirrored right.
The circle formed — the old ritual of two predators who never forgot each other's taste.
"Don't expect a repeat of what happened before, Whirok."
His eyes narrowed, attentive, reading every shadow on her face—like someone tracking weakness, like someone smelling change.
"There is something else in your gaze," he murmured, almost in curious disdain. "Something that wasn't there before."
Brianna held his gaze like one holds a sharpened wire:
"The truth transforms. Especially when that truth concerns a killer who spent years hunting the Crimson Ladies."
For an instant — brief but real — his smile died.
"So… you remembered."
"I was not permitted to forget," she replied.
The air around Brianna vibrated, as if an ancient presence stirred beneath her skin.
The shadows beneath both their feet shuddered — a warning of something that should never have returned.
Whirok took another step forward, posture low, breath steady, eyes full of ancient hunger.
"Very well…" he murmured, voice almost a restrained snarl. "Then this time—
don't let me find you running."
The shadows behind Whirok stretched even before he moved a muscle.
Brianna noticed — and struck first.
She raised two fingers, gesture firm, swift.
"Ventus Secare."
Green filaments lit along her arm, twisting like living roots.
The wind blade formed with a dry crack, ripping through the air toward Whirok.
He stepped back — but not to flee.
The shadow behind him rose like a dark wall, absorbing the strike as it burst into a rain of cutting particles.
Whirok smiled with his teeth.
"Sharp… as always."
His shadow slid across the ground, slithering like spilled ink — then rose behind Brianna, shaping itself into long spikes aimed at piercing her spine.
She spun.
"Terra Respondere."
The ground surged upward in a wall of living stone, rising like a fist raised by the earth itself.
The spikes crashed into the rock, shattering into black fragments.
Brianna leapt over her own wall, body light and precise, landing behind him with a spinning kick.
Whirok dodged by tilting only his neck, predatory, almost dancing.
Her hand opened — and three swords from fallen soldiers rose from the ground, wrapped in green filaments.
"Ferrum Vocare."
She hurled all blades at once.
Whirok snapped his fingers.
The shadow at his feet became liquid and seized the daggers midair, twisting the metal into dust.
"Still using borrowed toys?"
Brianna rushed forward.
The first strike was physical — her elbow aiming for his chin.
Whirok blocked with his forearm, shadow thickening over his skin.
The second strike was magic — she murmured:
"Ignis Spirare."
Fire erupted in a narrow circle beneath his feet, rising like a hungry ring.
Whirok jumped back, but one flame caught his left arm, burning the shadow wrapped around it.
He growled low — more beast than man.
Four nearby Drakkoul convulsed, as if someone tugged their inner nerves.
Whirok raised his hand.
Shadows connected to the monsters like black strings, and they launched at Brianna—coordinated, fast, ferocious.
She did not retreat.
The first Drakkoul came from above.
She raised her palm.
"Radix Vincire."
Green filaments extended like serpent roots, grabbing the creature's legs and hurling it into its own ally.
The second came crawling — and she slashed the air.
The wind blade split its skull cleanly in two.
The third tried to grab her from behind — Brianna dropped to the ground, sliding beneath it, her hand touching the soil:
"Terra Flectere."
The earth rose in a spear of rock, impaling the monster's chest.
The fourth was pushed into her by Whirok's shadows.
She whispered:
"Ignis."
Flame burst from her fingertips, burning the creature's face until it disintegrated.
Ash fell around her.
Whirok emerged from behind the smoke, his shadow gathering around his arm like a black, curved, living blade, drawn into a diagonal strike.
Brianna blocked with a wall of wind — not a blade, but a thick shield that cracked like scraped glass.
The impact pushed them both in opposite directions.
Whirok landed with a slow smile, almost satisfied.
"So you didn't lose everything, Brianna."
She wiped the blood at the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand, the gesture firm, precise, unhurried — like brushing away a minor inconvenience before continuing.
Her gaze was cold.
Not empty — cold like a blade that knows exactly where to cut.
"No. And you…" she lifted her chin, the wind spiraling around her as if recognizing its owner, "haven't seen anything yet."
The air between them trembled, as if nature itself prepared to witness something that should not exist.