The rain came down.
The wind bent.
The earth took a deep breath, as if it knew what was about to happen.
Green filaments began to bloom around Brianna.
First a few — then dozens — snaking over her skin like tiny forest spirits waking.
They connected to the falling water, to the cold air, to the grains of soil and metal in the ground.
It was like watching someone stitch their own magic with the invisible hands of the world.
Whirok watched.
Too calm.
The usual crooked smile appeared, slow, almost curious.
His head tilted a little to the side, as if enjoying the way she bent nature around herself.
And then the darkness began to climb up his ankles.
Not in bursts — in layers.
Like ink spilled in water.
A subtle movement.
A relaxed body.
Eyes burning with straight, honest hunger.
"Hm…" he smiled with teeth. "Now we're talking."
Brianna lifted her chin a single centimeter.
Whirok did the same.
The wind between them wavered like a rope about to snap.
And then — Brianna moved.
Not fast.
Precise.
Three calculated steps, each leaving a trail of green filaments on the ground.
The fourth step became a launch — and she slid across the mud as if the terrain were glass.
Whirok vanished.
Not in light.
Not with absurd speed.
He simply wasn't there anymore.
Brianna turned her fist.
Green filaments twisted, shaping into a wind-blade.
Whirok reappeared behind her.
Her blade was already swinging back.
He blocked with his forearm — the impact burst a circle of wind outward — and she spun to create distance.
Two steps back from her.
One step forward from him.
The movement was perfect.
Not grand.
Not theatrical.
Technical.
He half-smiled.
She raised her left hand slowly.
The green filaments separated like petals opening.
Each filament took a distinct form — blade, shard, needle, wind-arrow, dense droplet of compressed water.
And then she stepped.
One single step.
All the magic fired at once.
Not a "multi-attack."
A single decision split in countless directions.
Whirok pushed through them.
Not dodging by running — dodging in the pauses.
In the millimeters.
In the intervals between each expression of magic.
Like an animal that sees everything before it happens.
Even so, two wind-blades tore his skin.
He glanced at the cuts, curious.
"Hm… interesting."
The shadow beneath his feet stretched.
Slowly.
As if thinking.
It rose from the earth and became a second Whirok, made of liquid pitch.
It didn't scream.
It didn't vibrate.
It just crouched there, hunched, ready to spring.
Brianna and the shadow stared at each other.
And then:
The shadow attacked from the ground.
Whirok from the air.
Brianna took two steps back.
She didn't stumble.
She didn't run.
She assessed — lifted her palm — and trapped the shadow in an arc of rigid water, like translucent glass.
Whirok arrived right after.
Brianna raised her arm.
The filaments fused into a wind-shield.
His punch crushed the shield.
The impact sounded deep, clean.
She slid three meters.
He landed with a wolf's grace.
Brianna flicked her wrist.
Silver filaments appeared.
One.
Then another.
Then five.
Like threads of light drawing runes in the air.
Whirok widened his smile, eyes half-lidded.
"Oh… now I like this."
He took a deep breath — and the shadow around him thickened.
His body didn't change.
But his presence did.
As if something behind him were opening its eyes for the first time.
Brianna struck first.
She advanced in silence — right foot sinking into mud — silver filaments stretching — a lance of light tearing through the rain.
Whirok leaned his body like he was dancing, letting the lance pass less than a centimeter away.
His hand rose to grab her wrist.
She pulled back before he touched her.
Both turned.
Both struck.
Both blocked.
Their movements were so clean, so direct, so free of wasted effort it didn't look like a magic battle — it looked like an assassin duel.
Every strike had intention.
Every defense had purpose.
Every step had history.
Brianna breathed deep.
Golden filaments appeared around her like drifting light drawn to her skin.
Neither advanced.
They only measured each other for that instant.
Two predators.
Two heirs of ancient power.
Two who never should have met — but now had no way to stop.
The rain trembled around them.
It didn't fall — it trembled.
It was as if the entire air held its breath at once.
Brianna's golden filaments glowed like embers in the mist.
She raised her arm a centimeter, index finger extended, ready to summon another spell.
Whirok took a step.
One.
And the whole world seemed to shrink.
The shadow behind him closed.
Then opened — but now as a giant, silent jaw, with teeth curving inward, shaped to devour light.
Darkness climbed his body in slow spirals, like living ink searching natural paths through his veins.
His skin darkened, not like coal — but like polished black metal, without losing human texture.
His veins turned emerald, glowing like divine poison.
His eyes… folded into four overlapping pupils, all staring at Brianna at once.
His back split into two shadowy projections, not quite wings — more like fluid extensions of a larger entity, moving independently, swaying as if breathing.
They didn't flap.
They expanded and contracted, like the lungs of an ancient beast using Whirok as its vessel.
When he spoke, his voice carried two layers:
"Primeval Form of Shadow… Noctivorous Reaper."
It was subtle.
It was horrible.
It was beautiful.
And then he disappeared.
The Hunt Mark burned like hot iron beneath her skin.
Not pain — direction.
She knew where he was before he struck, but only for a breath of a second.
She pivoted left.
Whirok appeared there — a black blur — hand slicing horizontally, aiming to split her head in two.
Brianna lifted her forearm.
Silver filaments wrapped her skin.
The impact hurled her three meters.
She hadn't blocked perfectly.
She had simply not died.
Whirok smiled as he advanced.
He struck again.
A low kick.
The Hunt Mark warned her a fraction before.
Brianna raised her knee and dodged by a thread.
The shadows behind him attacked too — two curved claws descending from above.
She opened her hand, and three golden filaments cut through air, forming a barrier thin as glass.
The claws ricocheted.
Whirok surged forward in the same instant.
A straight punch to her sternum.
Brianna pulled the air and turned green filaments into densified earth-plates, projecting them in front of her body.
The plate cracked.
Then split.
Then turned to dust.
But she didn't fly this time.
She moved her hand in a short spiral.
Silver filaments split around her like refracted mirrors.
Three Briannas appeared.
Not illusions.
Extensions of intent.
Each attacked a different point:
The first with a wind-blade.
The second with a dense water arrow.
The third with a golden shard aimed at Whirok's knee.
He read all three.
And answered all three.
He slid past the blade.
Caught the arrow with his hand and crushed it.
Jumped over the shard.
But the real Brianna was behind his flank.
A silver filament snapping like lightning.
She hit his shoulder.
Whirok staggered half a step.
And laughed.
He vanished for an instant.
When he appeared, he was five centimeters from her face.
Hand shaped like a claw.
Brianna only had time to cross her forearms.
The blow pushed her across the mud, carving deep grooves until she managed to anchor her feet.
A micro-instant.
Whirok was already behind her.
She turned.
Too slow.
The kick hit her hip.
She spun through the air like a rag doll.
But before hitting the ground, she conjured solid wind under her feet and steadied herself.
Whirok came again.
This time with both shadow projections attacking too, like split serpents.
Brianna opened her fist.
Five silver filaments shot out like whips of light.
Each strike she made met a strike he made.
No excess.
No waste.
No mistakes.
It was a violent, silent dance.
Whirok accelerated.
Impossible speed.
Movements that didn't match a physical body.
Attacks from angles that didn't exist before he created them.
The Hunt Mark burned hotter.
Brianna knew where he was every fraction of a second.
But only that.
Knowing wasn't reacting.
She defended on instinct, technique and refined desperation.
A strike to the face — blocked with a silver forearm.
A kick to the ribs — a wall of wind.
A shadow claw from above — a green filament turned into a stone spike.
A punch that would crack her sternum — a millimetric dodge, feeling the wind shear her hair.
Whirok laughed between each blow — a broken, vibrating laugh from the depths of something corrupted.
"This…"
He twisted his fist, the air trembling.
"THIS…"
His heel cut the rainwater like a blade.
"LIKE THAT, FIGHTER!"
Brianna dodged at the last instant, air scraping her throat as his elbow passed two fingers away from ripping it out.
Her gaze stayed cold.
"I'm not…"
She slipped sideways, body low, posture precise.
A kick from him passed where her ribs should've been.
"… done yet."
Then it happened.
The green filaments rose, stealthy.
The silver ones spun, like sharp blades orbiting.
The golden ones pulsed, rhythmic.
Nothing exploded.
Everything aligned.
The air around Brianna tightened.
And then, as if all three filaments traced the same pattern at once, a full shield formed around her — thin, translucent, almost fragile at first sight.
A magic dome of green-silver-gold threads, smaller, more precise, more surgical.
And then the world darkened.
Not like absence of light.
But as if the wind itself had gained density, weight, intention.
The wind darkened.
It wasn't air spinning.
It was something spinning too fast to comprehend.
Whirok became an axis.
A core.
The shadow-mantle expanded with him, snaking through the space, creating a black hurricane with Brianna trapped in the center — untouched, but pressured, surrounded, crushed by the sheer ferocity of that movement.
From the walls of the vortex, small black blades tore loose — sharp, fast, like the wind spitting death in rapid succession.
The first black blades hit the shield.
The sound was strange — not metal, not magic — something in between.
A muffled crack, followed by a dry rebound, like glass fracturing and mending in the same instant.
The dome vibrated.
Tiny fractures spread across the surface…
… and vanished before they finished forming.
The second and third blades hit a moment later.
The impact dented the dome a few centimeters, like an elastic bubble pushed inward from outside.
Green lines flickered.
Silver ones outlined the cracks.
Golden ones sealed them.
All in the blink of an eye.
The shield returned to perfect form.
The fourth blade came diagonally — too fast for any human to see — and hit the dome just above Brianna's shoulder.
The shield cracked entirely.
For a second, it seemed about to collapse like shattered glass.
But before any fragment could exist, it rebuilt itself, pulling the filaments inward like living stitches, each thread snapping back to its exact place.
The rhythm stayed the same:
Impact.
Break.
Instant regeneration.
A constant cycle.
Impeccable.
Precise.
Like a shield that didn't just protect — it learned.
Whirok saw it.
And smiled inside the vortex, his voice echoing distorted through the spin:
"So your little toy holds… Let's see how much."
The hurricane spun faster.
The ground shook.
And the shadows began to change shape.