The arrow was already aimed before Karna even noticed his own breathing.
The rain fell heavy, but around them… the world felt far too quiet.
Karna drew the string to its limit, shoulder locked, jaw clenched.
"Not one step," he snarled.
The White Viper didn't move.
She didn't need to.
He released.
The arrow split the air like a crack.
But before it got close, a white smoke burst subtly, rising through her body like a cold sigh—
—and she vanished.
Reappeared behind him, the same smoke falling like a veil.
"Always so fast…"
Her head tilted, as if studying a wounded animal.
"Strike first so you don't feel after. That's not courage, dear. It's fear."
He spun immediately—another arrow nocked, released in the same motion.
"Don't talk like you know me," he murmured, voice rough, not hiding the weight in his chest. "You don't know anything about me."
The smoke twisted.
"Oh… but I feel it." Her tone was almost maternal, almost an inverted comfort.
"A broken life always carries the same echo."
Her head tilted slightly.
"Loneliness… abandonment… the intimate certainty that no one stays."
A nearly sad smile.
"All of that screams from you, even when you try to hide."
Her body dissolved into the air.
Karna's jaw locked.
When his humor returned, it was as dry as cold iron.
"Funny…" he breathed deep, almost a laugh without strength. "I thought I was getting good at pretending."
She appeared on his left, walking without hurry.
"So predictable in your desperation…"
A soft sigh.
"But it's not your fault. It's all you ever learned."
Karna growled low, bow pulled to the limit.
He fired.
The arrow passed clean through her throat—and she turned to mist, re-forming behind his shoulder as if the rain were stitching her back together.
"I know what the silence screams inside you."
Her voice was almost a crooked affection.
"Loneliness is a sound… and yours is deafening."
Another arrow.
Another tear of smoke.
Another reappearance—now so close that his breath brushed hers.
"A boy with no place… no name… no one who stayed."
She smiled like someone mourning something inevitable.
"A cracked vessel pretending it doesn't shatter every time it's touched."
Karna adjusted the bow, steady, even with his hand trembling slightly.
"Go on," he murmured, humorless. "I've heard worse… from myself."
She vanished—reappeared above him, floating like a white specter.
"But never spoken with truth, dear."
Her voice fell like heavy snow.
"And the truth is simple: you belong nowhere… and that's why you always end up alone."
Karna drew two arrows at once.
Released both.
The smoke opened in a spiral—too elegant to be evasive, too cruel to be coincidence.
She rose behind him.
Right behind.
Whispering in his ear like a sweet venom sliding into the blood:
"And that… is why you tremble now."
Karna's hand crushed the bow.
And for the first time, he had no answer.
Only the old fear rising in his throat.
Karna lowered the bow—slowly, like someone finally accepting that no arrow reaches a shadow that chooses not to be touched.
The rain ran down his face, mingling with the tremor he tried to hide.
"What do you gain from this?" His voice came out rough, deeper than usual. "Why… why do all this?"
The answer came before he could lift the bow again.
A whisper.
A cold perfume.
And then she was in front of him—so close the air itself seemed to freeze.
The smile was small.
Beautiful.
Cruel.
"This isn't about you."
White smoke slid around her feet, rising like curious serpents.
"It never was," she said with a calm that scraped from inside. "It's about Brianna. It was always about her."
Karna swallowed hard, stepping back—instinct fighting fear.
The bow's veins pulsed under his fingers.
She tilted her head, studying him like an object daring to question its purpose.
"You…" her voice dropped even lower, "are just a piece that appeared on this board. By chance you showed some use… but nothing beyond that."
She stepped forward, and the world seemed to narrow around him.
"And now," she murmured, almost sweet, "it's time to remove you."
Karna smiled—a dark smile, weak, almost a broken reflex.
"If you think this will… affect Brianna," he murmured, trying to keep his voice steady, "you really don't know her."
The White Viper smiled back, appreciating the attempt.
"Oh, boy…" she sighed, almost laughing. "You don't understand what's happening."
Her smile didn't widen, but it sharpened.
"And that… almost entertains me. Because Brianna… she isn't like the others."
"And you, dear… have no idea what she's capable of feeling."
Smoke curled over her shoulders, pulling the rain aside, as if the weather obeyed her breath.
"Ancient witches… real witches… don't walk alone." Her tone gained a faint, almost didactic lightness. "They form bonds. Links. We call it the Whisper Bond."
She raised her hand, drawing in the air as if reliving a memory.
"When a witch seals this bond, the souls touch. Not fully… but enough to feel when the other bleeds. When they fear. When they die."
Her gaze landed on Karna—with an almost-sorrow that felt like an insult.
"And Brianna formed a bond. One that should never have been formed."
Karna gripped the bow until his knuckles went white.
"What… are you talking about?"
The rain seemed heavier.
"When a witch's pair dies, the bond breaks…" she continued, gentle like a mother telling a story no child should hear, "what remains is a void. A hole that doesn't close. A pain that doesn't respect time. You can imagine her suffering, boy… but whatever you imagine will be far too kind compared to what awaits her."
He felt—without knowing why—a pressure in his chest.
As if something inside him were being reminded…
…and not by him.
The rain felt suspended.
Frozen.
As if only the two of them existed in that instant.
The White Viper tilted her head, voice sliding like frozen silk:
"Love…" she murmured, almost pitying, "is always the first weakness. The sweetest. The most destructive."
Her eyes glowed with an ancient, cruel patience.
"And Brianna, my dear, still hasn't learned that lesson."
Karna narrowed his eyes, bow firm, breath unsteady.
She continued, approaching like a silent storm:
"So this time, I'll teach it myself. The proper way. The definitive way."
Her voice had no haste.
No weight.
It didn't need any.
Karna raised his face—and something in him was broken, something decided.
"You're… doing this because of her?" he murmured.
The White Viper's smile was thin, almost absent, as if carved onto her face ages ago.
"Because of her…?"
A brief sigh, something between humor and grief.
"No, dear. It's for her. There's a difference."
She stepped forward—and the rain recoiled from the touch of the smoke.
"Brianna doesn't need to understand now."
Her tone was that of someone observing a stubborn child.
"But one day… when she sees what she always refused to see… she will thank me."
Karna laughed—a rough, broken, desperate sound, and yet still brave.
"She will never do that."
The White Viper wasn't offended.
She didn't even seem to hear a denial—only an inevitable truth, like the movement of tides.
"Oh, she will."
Her gaze landed on him with a softness that hurt.
"Because before understanding comes pain. And today… she must feel."
Smoke spiraled up her arms, obedient creatures.
"She must take your pain, make it hers. Shape it."
A whisper.
"That's how true witches are born."
Karna drew a breath.
One single breath.
Before he could exhale—
A blade pierced through his chest.
From behind.
Deep.
Cold.
Precise.
Karna's body arched violently, air leaving his lungs like a forced, stolen sigh.
Blood rose hot in his throat and spilled from his mouth, mixing with the rain as if the sky itself had begun to bleed.
The White Viper watched him with stillness.
Serene.
Certain.
As if seeing a piece fall exactly where it was meant to.
"Goodbye, child."
Her tone was far too gentle for the cruelty of the fate she dealt.
"May your pain fulfill the purpose your choices never would."
And then—
time returned.
The rain fell all at once, violent, as if the world had held its breath and finally released it.
Drakkoul screams tore the air—feral, grotesque, hungry.
Soldiers shouted desperate orders.
A thunderclap split the sky like a wound.
And in the middle of that restored chaos—
Karna finally understood.
The weight behind him.
The smell of iron.
The predatory silence.
"Cough… cof…" he tried to laugh, drowning in blood. "Wish it were… one of the creatures… not you… Ryden…"
The blade pushed deeper as it was pulled back out.
The wet sound seemed to split the world in two.
Karna staggered.
His vision filled with rain, blood, and flickering lights in the distance.
Rain fell between them.
Heavy.
Cold.
He smiled—a weak smile… like someone accepting the inevitable.
But…
In the middle of all that—
he still had one arrow.
With fingers barely responding, he lifted the bow one last time.
His arm failing.
His life failing.
Even so…
he drew.
And whispered:
"Brahmastra…"
The arrow flew.
It wasn't just wood.
It wasn't just magic.
It was everything he had.
It passed by the White Viper—who didn't even blink—and cut through the air too fast, too deep, too strong.
Heading straight toward the wall.
A warning.
A call.
His last scream to the world.
Karna turned his head.
And his eyes met Ryden's.
The silence between them weighed like centuries.
No fear.
No hatred.
No anger.
Just acceptance.
And a broken voice:
"It's okay…"
Ryden didn't answer.
But a single tear slid down his face.
His sword lowered.
Blood and rain mixing over the blade, dripping to the ground in heavy drops.
Karna smiled one last time—weak, crooked, sad… And then he whispered:
"BOOM!…"
The arrow exploded as if it had ripped the air itself in half.
The earth rose entirely, in a brutal flare, and dust surged in a thick, violent veil, swallowing the whole field—the soldier lines, the Drakkoul, the stones, the shapes, everything vanishing inside that furious cloud sweeping the world like a wave.
The sound reverberated across the plains, shattering every second, every breath, every thought.
The ground shook.
The horizon vanished.
And Karna fell forward.
But he didn't hit the ground.
A dark flash—quick, precise, silent—cut through the space like lightning.
Éon appeared there.
As if he had moved between one breath and the next.
His arms caught Karna before the blood touched the earth.
Karna hit Éon's chest, too weak to hold himself up.
"Éon…" his voice failed, "good thing… you came. Thought… I'd die alone."
Éon only looked at him.
Rain running down his face, silence heavier than any word.
"I'm sorry," he murmured.
Karna let out a weak laugh, almost a sigh.
"No… cough… no need. Just… I'm not alone. That's enough."
His eyes drifted, searching for one last focus.
"Take care of Brianna… and Telvaris… for me…"
And for a few long moments… there was no battle.
Only dust.
Only impact.
Only Karna's echo.
He breathed one last time.
And went out.