The screams weren't new.
They had already ruled the field for minutes — torn, desperate, tangled with the metallic sound of weapons finding flesh.
Among them, two brutal roars echoed above everything, so deep and feral that even the veterans felt the weight vibrate in their bones.
Brianna and Whirok stood face to face, unmoving, as if the chaos around them didn't dare touch them.
Whirok smiled.
A skewed, provoking smile — the smile of someone who always sees a weakness waiting to be used.
"For all your denials…" he said, voice low, dragging, as sharp as the gleam in his eyes, "…there is much of her in you."
Brianna didn't blink.
Not for a single moment.
"In all my life, I have never betrayed my people." Her voice came steady, contained, like steel held right at the breaking point. "And I have never spilled innocent blood to satisfy the vanity of monsters hiding behind a name."
Whirok laughed.
Not an ordinary laugh — but a light, mocking laugh, almost delighted by his own cruelty.
"Ahahahahah…" He brought a hand to his chest, theatrical, as if he'd just heard something irresistibly amusing. "Listen to yourself. So firm… so pure… so convinced of your own righteousness."
He stepped forward — just enough for the warped light of the battlefield to highlight the ironic shine in his eyes.
"Look closely around you." His voice fell soft and venomous. "Your 'purity' is scattered entirely across this place… screaming. Bodies that were once human… now twisted, broken, begging for something they no longer understand."
He leaned in, tilting his head as if studying an ancient lie.
"You claim never to have spilled innocent blood… but what name do you give to what you're doing now?" He gestured toward the creatures advancing — each a distorted echo of what they'd once been. "Liberation? Duty? Mercy?"
Brianna smiled.
Not a gentle smile.
But the smile of someone who has finally decided where to place the edge of the blade.
"Once touched by profane magic… nothing remains." Every word fell heavy, measured. "There is no return, no regret, no cure. Releasing them from this torment is mercy — and also obligation."
His smile opened in a slow arc — beautiful and absolutely wrong.
"If this is mercy…" he whispered, with a light, almost enchanted contempt, "…I don't want to imagine what cruelty would look like for you."
He lifted his chin.
"And at the end of all this… will you still dare proclaim yourself 'just'? Guardian? Savior of souls? When your feet sink into the same burnings you claim to fight?"
The laugh returned, soft and sharp.
"Hypocrisy has a very specific scent, Brianna… and today, it's saturating even the air you breathe."
Brianna remained motionless.
But for a moment — a single, tiny instant — something passed through her eyes.
An echo of a memory still burning: the human face she recognized too late.
She inhaled slowly.
Controlled.
Impenetrable.
When she spoke, her voice had returned to steel.
"Do not confuse weight with guilt." She lifted her chin slightly. "I carry what I do. You… hide behind what you pretend to be."
Whirok raised a brow, as if that were a particularly flavorful insult.
"Pretend…?" he asked, wearing that crooked smile that always preceded something venomous. "And what, exactly, do you think I pretend to be?"
Brianna met his gaze without flinching.
"You pretend to be strong." Her eyes hardened. "When you're not. Your courage only shows up when you're not the one who bleeds."
The silence between them lasted less than a second.
Whirok's thin smile returned.
"So you think I'm weak…" he murmured, his voice deeper now, as if two others spoke with him. "Very well. Let me show you my weakness."
Whirok's shadow — once just a compliant blur at his feet — began to expand. Slow at first, then fast, hungry, like spilled ink finding cracks and rushing into them.
The ground darkened.
The rocks lost their color.
Even the spilled blood seemed to be swallowed by that anomalous shade.
Brianna felt the wind change.
A shiver — not of fear, but anticipation.
The shadows climbed up his body.
Not like fury — but like a mark.
A pattern formed on his left arm — dark, irregular, almost organic — lines crawling up over his shoulder, spreading across his chest like burned roots.
Not a tattoo.
Not a rune.
Alive.
And when it pulsed, the air around him shook.
Then he vanished.
Not like someone using shadows.
But like someone breaking the air.
The speed was absurd.
A black flash, a tear in reality — and Brianna already felt the impact coming.
She raised her hand.
The wind answered instantly, forming a translucent barrier that rippled around her like a living wall.
Whirok's fist struck it.
The sound was dry.
It didn't echo — it reverberated.
The barrier shattered like invisible glass.
The shock slammed through the air and hit Brianna in the chest, ripping the breath from her lungs and hurling her back, her body rolling over the ground before stopping on cracked earth.
She didn't scream.
She didn't lose focus.
But the blow split her lips — and the taste of blood rose hot in her mouth.
Brianna lifted her head.
Whirok was no longer where he'd attacked from.
Pure instinct made her twist her torso to defend her back — but too late.
His hand closed in her hair, yanking her head back, exposing her throat.
His breath brushed her ear — low, satisfied, cruel.
"See?" he whispered. "I don't hide what I am. I just choose who gets to see."
"Come on, Brianna…" His voice dropped like a cold blade. "Repeat it."
The grip on the roots of her hair forced an involuntary gasp.
"Say again what you think I pretend to be."
Brianna didn't turn her face.
He still held her hair when her smile opened — slow, controlled, dangerous.
A smile that didn't belong to someone cornered.
But to someone who had finally decided to answer.
She lifted her hand slowly, touching the wrist that held her hair.
Her fingers closed around his skin.
Firm.
Cold.
And with a whisper, she said:
"First rule…"
Her eyes flared like white embers igniting in the dark.
"…never make direct contact with a witch."
The atmosphere broke.
Not changed.
Broke.
The air — once only hot and heavy with blood — plummeted in temperature as if someone had extinguished the sun.
A dry crack thundered across the field.
The clouds shut.
The rain fell.
Not ordinary rain — heavy drops, thick, unstable, as if each carried raw magic pouring from the sky.
The wind roared around them.
Whirok narrowed his eyes — not in fear, but instinct.
Something enormous was about to happen.
Brianna drew a deep breath, the glow in her eyes growing until it consumed them entirely.
She lifted her arm, still gripping his wrist.
And then, with a voice that sounded like it tore open the sky itself, she murmured:
"Fulmen, ad me."
The world turned white.
Lightning fell straight from the sky onto Brianna.
Direct.
Exact.
Perfect.
The impact was deafening — a metallic roar that seemed to split the air in half.
Electric energy exploded around her in blue arcs, dancing across her skin, rising through her hair, rushing down her fingers, turning every strand, every pore, every breath into living storm.
Whirok, however…
was no longer there.
The instant before the lightning struck, he vanished — not stepping back, not running, but tearing through distance like a dark scar in reality.
The speed was absurd even for him.
A blur.
A silence.
A trail of shadow fading where he had been.
The attack didn't hit him.
But the entire field felt it.
The rain kept falling, now mixed with static that made every drop vibrate.
Nearby soldiers stumbled, feeling the air pull at their lungs.
The Drakkoul recoiled with shrieks, unstable beneath the weight of the magic.
And Brianna… She rose at the center of it all, wreathed in thunder, breath steady, eyes locked on the empty space where Whirok had stood a second earlier.
The wind spun around her like blades.
The ground beneath her feet cracked.
The storm was hers.
And Whirok — reappearing dozens of meters behind her — wiped a drop of rain from his face.
He smiled.
Slow. Twisted.
The smile of someone who has just seen something that shouldn't exist.
"So that's it…" he murmured, his voice vibrating with sick excitement.
The rain fell like needles.
Brianna raised both hands toward the sky — fingers open, breath steady, electric energy dancing through her veins like luminous serpents searching for release.
The lightning obeyed.
The entire sky seemed to lean toward her.
A white flash split the clouds —
then another —
and another —
until continuous lines of electricity began falling, no longer isolated, but forming patterns, as if they were wires connected directly to her wrists.
Whirok moved.
Not running.
Not jumping.
Disappearing.
His speed left dark trails that unraveled in the air — fast, violent curves as he launched toward Brianna from impossible angles.
The lightning chased him.
Tracked him.
Followed.
Bent after him like predators that had scented his blood.
The living shadow marked on his arm pulsed — a sick, black glow, beating with his quickened breath.
He closed in behind her — too fast for ordinary eyes.
His arm stretched to grab her neck.
The smile returned — sharp, confident, cruel.
"Got yo—"
"FWOOM."
The wind barrier erupted instantly.
Not a simple shield.
But a ring of pressure — invisible and solid — exploding around Brianna like the concentric layers of defense. Only charged with residual electricity.
Whirok ricocheted off it as if crushed by a wall of steel.
The impact spat sparks.
He hit the ground in a slide, recovering posture in an animal half-spin, head low, his smile irritated and excited at once.
Brianna didn't even turn.
The storm flickered around her.
"Running won't help," she said, calm, steady, unshakable. "I've already marked you."
Whirok froze for half a heartbeat.
The living shadow on his arm pulsed harder — as if reacting to her words — and the dark mark spread across his chest, like black veins trying to claw out of his skin.
He lifted his face.
The smile didn't vanish.
It simply… shifted.
Smaller.
Slower.
More dangerous.
"So…" he murmured, stepping forward. "Ancient art… a hunter's mark. Didn't think you knew how to use it."
Thunder fell behind her, illuminating the witch's silhouette surrounded by wind, rain, and electricity.
"I learned from those who came before," Brianna answered, eyes unwavering. "And I learned to destroy monsters like you."
The rain poured heavy, sliding over the black mark glowing irregularly across him.
The sky thundered as if waiting for the next move.