The rain covered the field like a cold, terrifying shroud.
Every drop fell heavy, dragged by the cutting wind, turning the ground into dark mud.
On the horizon, the Drakkoul advanced like a living wave — a mass of twisted flesh, contorted bone, and overwhelming force.
Their roars tangled with the thunder.
The sound hit, cracking the air.
And in the middle of that chaos — Neriah moved forward.
She didn't run.
She didn't shout.
She didn't tremble.
She slid.
As if she were dancing in the rain.
Light body, low stance, eyes fixed.
The water around her seemed to obey every gesture, gathering into blades, whips, and shards as she moved her arms in fluid, clean trajectories.
The first Drakkoul leapt at her — claws open, black saliva dripping.
Neriah spun, sliding her foot through the mud with precision.
The water rose in a smooth, cutting curve.
The creature's neck opened like soaked fabric.
She didn't look at the corpse.
Another came from the left, snarling.
Neriah raised her hand; water gathered at her fingertips — a perfect arc.
She pulled.
The liquid blade solidified for a single second.
A descending strike.
The Drakkoul's torso split into two pieces that hit the mud with a dull thud.
Neriah took two more steps.
Rain on her shoulders.
Controlled breathing.
Hair plastered to her face.
Three Drakkoul tried to surround her.
She spun again — one continuous motion, elegant, almost beautiful, if it weren't lethal.
The water spun with her, like a bluish ribbon.
— a horizontal cut— a shard straight to the throat— an ascending blade that split the jaw
They fell nearly at the same time, one after the other, like misaligned pieces dropping in sequence.
A deeper roar echoed behind her.
A massive Drakkoul, its bones jutting out like spears, charged through the rain.
Neriah extended her hand toward the gathered water — it rose like a thick, serpentine whip.
She pulled her arm back.
The water lashed the monster.
First the left arm.
Then the leg.
Then the neck.
The final strike was clean — fast enough to feel like part of the dance.
The head fell without resistance.
The rain kept falling.
Neriah didn't stop.
Didn't hesitate.
Didn't celebrate.
She simply moved forward, every motion fluid, lethal, silent.
As if she were sweeping the field — drop by drop, body by body, until nothing remained between her and the wall ahead.
While Neriah advanced like someone dancing in the rain,
Lys moved like a shadow of death.
She didn't draw attention.
Left no trace.
The field seemed to swallow her presence.
A Drakkoul burst from the right, sprinting toward one of the soldiers.
Before he even noticed, Lys was already behind him.
Her fingers slipped along the metal dart strapped to her wrist — the "guide needle."
A short push.
Dry.
The mono-metallic wire unraveled in the air like an invisible stroke.
The creature's neck opened from one side to the other without resistance.
The body collapsed without understanding it had died.
Lys was already gone.
Another Drakkoul dropped onto her from above — massive, deformed, claws ready.
She didn't retreat.
A minimal side-step.
Her shoulder passed centimeters from the claw.
She lifted her left hand, releasing two wires.
The wires crossed through the air.
One sliced the knee tendon.
The other cut the triceps.
The Drakkoul crashed down, screaming with a broken, cracking voice.
Lys finished with a movement almost without amplitude —
a wire passing through the jugular and snapping back into the reel as if nothing had happened.
She inhaled for half a second — the numbness rising up her forearm.
Then she moved again.
Three smaller Drakkoul charged at her.
They were fast, synchronized, snarling.
Lys analyzed them in silence.
One line.
Then another.
And another.
She slid her fingers, releasing three wires that opened into an invisible triangle.
A minimal twist of the hip — just enough to change the origin point.
All three Drakkoul were pierced at once:
— one through the diaphragm— one through the shoulder's tension point— one at the base of the spine
They fell like puppets whose strings had been cut.
Nausea rose — brief, calculated.
She ignored it.
Two more monsters rushed from the left at full speed.
Lys lowered her body, touched the mud with the tips of her fingers.
Felt their vibration.
Their direction.
Their rhythm.
She threw a guide needle behind her without looking.
Another forward, aiming at nothing.
The wire formed an arc that closed at the exact instant the two Drakkoul passed.
The ethereal blade cut both at the waist — a sound of tearing flesh mingled with thunder.
Lys pulled the wires back into the reel.
Not a drop of blood on her.
Not a word.
Not a hesitation.
Death, in those hands, felt like an equation.
And she moved forward to solve it again and again.
On the other side of the field, while Neriah flowed like water and Lys cut like silence, Iaso advanced like a living pulse between shadows.
She was small.
Light.
Unthreatening.
But nothing on that field was more dangerous than her touch.
A Drakkoul jumped at her first — fast, jaw open.
Iaso stepped into the attack, pressing her forearm against the creature's chest.
Minimal touch.
Absolute precision.
Microcellular telekinesis activated in a single pulse.
The Drakkoul's heart collapsed from within, crushed as if something had twisted its internal structure.
The body dropped instantly.
Another came from the right, arm raised to strike.
Iaso didn't back away.
She entered his space.
Deflected the blow with her palm, lowered her center of gravity, and touched with two fingers the point between the clavicle and the neck.
The blood vessels there collapsed simultaneously.
The creature gagged silently and fell to its knees, unable to understand why its arms no longer obeyed.
Iaso was already moving to the next.
Two Drakkoul charged together — heavy, aggressive.
She studied them for less than a second.
Short approach in a straight line.
Forearm block on the first.
Hip shift on the second.
Simple touches:
— one finger on the ribcage— the palm on the lower back
The first had his lungs compressed from the inside as if crushed inward.
The second had his legs shut down abruptly — neuromuscular links severed.
A Drakkoul larger than all the previous ones charged, roaring, thick-skinned, bone-protruding.
But she didn't hesitate.
Iaso inhaled deeply.
Entered him — without fear, without pause.
She touched the monster's chin with her fingertips, traced up along the side of his face, slid her palm across the temple.
An internal crack — silent yet devastating — tore through the Drakkoul's skull.
His synapses disintegrated in a single telekinetic pulse.
The giant collapsed as if someone had shut off everything inside.
Iaso kept walking.
Short steps.
Steady breathing.
Clinical eyes.
She didn't look like she was fighting.
She looked like she was examining.
And every touch was diagnosis and sentence at the same time.
The rain kept falling.
Zeph advanced like the wind itself, cutting between bodies and blurs of motion — but then he stopped.
The air tore across his face.
"What… is that?" Zeph whispered, his voice nearly swallowed by the wind now faltering.
The vibrations danced across his palms, climbing his arms like a living current.
His eyes swept the field.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
A second — a single second — in which the battlefield seemed to hold its breath.
As if the storm itself hesitated.
Neriah froze the water mid-spin by instinct.
Lys pulled back the last wire with a trembling hand.
Iaso raised her face, as if she had heard something no mortal ear could catch.
And then it came.
A pressure.
Heavy.
Ancient.
Almost alive.
It descended over the field as if the sky had dropped several meters — crushing the air, the sound, the instinct.
The Drakkoul recoiled.
Literally recoiled.
Two fell to their knees.
One howled backward, afraid to look forward.
Another turned his face to the darkness, trembling like an animal before the real predator.
The soldiers felt it first.
Their chests tightening.
Their eyes watering without reason.
Their hands losing strength, as if their bones weighed twice as much.
And then —
Karna stopped.
Mid-motion.
Mid-step.
As if something had grabbed his soul from the inside.
Ryden, a few meters behind, froze the same way.
His muscles locked.
His fingers halted mid-gesture.
They didn't hear a voice.
Didn't feel a touch.
But received a silent order.
As if something far above them had just opened its eyes — and the entire world had been forced to stay quiet.
Karna felt something climb up his spine.
A dry shiver.
Precise.
Ancient beyond comprehension.
His skin bristled as if every instinct — every fiber, every buried memory of danger — screamed the same thing:
Run.
He didn't run.
He only let out a brief smile… disbelieving.
Almost bitter.
"I've felt this before," he murmured, voice low, tense. "Didn't manage to… thank you for the last time you dragged me out of the cave and tied me to a tree."
A laugh echoed.
Low.
Sweet.
Venomous.
The kind of sound that seemed to slide through your bones.
The rain shifted direction.
The wind turned.
And then the smoke appeared — an impossible mix of pale white and liquid black, coiling as if it had a will of its own.
It took shape slowly.
As if the world needed to accept its presence before it stepped into it.
The outline of a body.
A veil moving without wind.
A face carved from quiet itself.
And then — she was there.
The White Viper.
Eyes completely white, without pupils, without warmth, yet with a consciousness so dense it seemed to weigh on the air.
She lifted her face toward him.
And the voice came.
Calm.
Soft.
Lethal.
"How long has it been, boy…"
Her voice didn't echo across the field.
It simply happened in the air — as if it had always been there.
Time around them seemed to slow.
Her presence pushed the rain aside.
Karna didn't move.
He only raised his head, light-brown eyes meeting the absolute white of hers.
"Brianna told me a bit about your past," he said, voice low, steady despite the crushing pressure. "She said you two were alike… but up close, I don't see all the resemblance she hates so much."
The White Viper smiled.
Slowly.
The kind of smile that held no joy — only certainty.
"I can't tell if that's courage…" she murmured, stepping forward as if the storm parted around her feet. "Or just foolishness."
The air grew heavier.
"But it doesn't matter," she continued, her voice dropping an octave, almost a venomous caress. "Because your part ends here."
Karna slid his hand toward the arrow.
Fingers steady.
Eyes shining with defiance — even though his heart felt clenched, as if something held it from within.
The Viper laughed.
A low laugh.
Sweet.
Cruel.
"Now I'm completely sure," she whispered, her smile opening like a blade. "It's pure foolishness."
The rain fell slower.
"Raise the arrow, boy…" she murmured, with the sweetness of someone offering a choice that does not exist. "It's the least I can allow someone Brianna dared to love."
Karna closed his hand around the arrow.
And for an instant — just one — he felt the same thing he'd felt the last time:
Not an enemy.
Not a monster.
But something that should not exist.
The air tightened.
Karna breathed deeply, trying to hold the smile — but his heart already knew:
Nothing good ever came after that voice.