The rain poured fully into the courtyard.
Cold.
Heavy.
The drops ricocheted off the wet stone, yet avoided—for an almost imperceptible instant—the irregular opening above Éon—the shattered stained glass, the broken arch, the open wound in the ancient structure.
He remained on his knees.
Katana still firm in his hand, even with fingers far too tense for it.
His breath came short, tearing his chest from the inside with every pull of air.
The taste of still-warm iron ran down the corner of his mouth.
Éon lifted his face slowly.
The darkness inside the hall did not dissolve with the breach in the wall.
On the contrary—it seemed denser, compressed, as if something within had adjusted itself to the new geometry of space.
Heavy.
Stable.
The air around Éon began to behave incorrectly.
The rain stopped falling in continuous lines.
The drops bent subtly, pushed away from an invisible volume forming around him.
The wind lost direction, spinning in short, muffled circles.
Then the air gave way.
There was no explosion.
There was weight.
Scarlet-red eyes opened in the darkness of the hall above, glowing like open wounds through rain and broken glass.
The presence did not announce itself—it did not need to.
The world seemed to step back half a pace.
The silhouette took one step out of the dense shadow.
The rain touched her body for the first time—and ran off, as if unwilling to remain for too long.
White hair emerged in wild tufts, a disordered mane framing an angular face.
The skin was pale, almost lifeless, interrupted by abyssal bone-metal plates embedded in the body as if they had not been added, but born there.
The body was sharply defined.
Not muscular in the human sense—the fibers looked too tense, compacted like metallic cables ready to snap.
Every line of the torso suggested contained strength, not displayed.
The scarlet-red eyes did not blink.
They did not observe like someone curious.
They measured.
The expression was motionless.
Contained predator.
No fury. No pleasure.
The presence crushed the space below, pressing the courtyard as if the air itself had gained weight.
A dry crack echoed from above.
A neck being adjusted.
The smell came after—iron, wet stone, something too ancient to be named.
The voice descended into the courtyard low, compressed, without echo:
"…resists more than it looks."
Nothing else.
The red gaze assessed.
Posture.
Broken breathing.
The tension in muscles that still refused to yield.
Then Éon moved.
The body made a wrong sound—deep, internal cracks, like plates being forced back into place.
He rose slowly, first planting a foot, then straightening his spine with visible effort.
The shadow beneath him contracted.
It did not spread.
It did not grow.
Behind Éon, the wet ground cracked as something was violently expelled from the darkness.
A body rolled across the stone.
A Drakkoul.
Black fur plastered to the body by rain and blood.
The red eyes still open, empty, frozen in a moment of terror that never had time to become a scream.
The chest was caved in, as if something had been torn out from within.
Éon's shadow withdrew slowly.
The wounds on his body closed with dry sounds. Flesh and bone plates rearranging by force.
It was not fast.
It was not clean.
It was necessary.
From above, the scarlet-red gaze followed everything without changing intensity.
One step.
Not a leap.
The body simply left the point where it stood.
The impact came before the sound.
Éon raised the katana by reflex, blade crossing his body's axis at the exact instant.
The collision was brutal.
Not a cut.
An encounter.
The strike went through the guard as pure weight—compact, too concentrated to be absorbed.
The blade groaned.
Éon's arms gave a centimeter—enough.
The next impact tore him from the ground.
There was no spin.
No roll.
The body was expelled backward as if the air had been crushed between them.
Éon crossed the courtyard in a straight line, tearing through the rain, until he slammed into the opposite wall.
Stone cracked.
Did not collapse.
The body slid a handspan before finding the ground.
Standing.
Forced.
Breath shattered.
The rain returned to falling normally.
Then the voice, again low, definitive:
"I wonder…"
A long pause.
The water seemed to hesitate in the air.
"…how many you still have."
Éon's shadows moved first.
They reorganized.
Not in circles.
In vectors.
From the wet ground, the broken walls, the fissures between stones, shapes detached—black, compact—gaining contour in the air.
Ravens.
Not made of feathers, but of dense shadow, with unstable edges, like smoke bound to an invisible skeleton.
They circled the courtyard in irregular orbits, slicing through the rain, breaking depth perception, fragmenting the space between the two.
The sound of wings was not loud.
It was wrong.
The ravens broke from orbit and dove.
Not like birds—like projectiles.
Bodies of compact shadow smashed into stones, cracked walls, broken columns.
Each impact left a black mark, an irregular signature carved into the environment.
Others surged straight toward the leader.
They did not reach him.
The pressure around his body tore the air.
The shadows unraveled less than a meter away, disintegrating like smoke crushed by an invisible force.
The impact was not physical—it was spatial. The space around him simply refused permanence.
Éon advanced in the same instant.
Not in explosion.
In control.
Éon's first step was short, measured to maintain the blade's exact reach. The second closed the angle, shifting his body's axis off the direct line of advance.
The katana traced a low arc, skimming the rain, blade leveled at knee height, sweeping the space ahead.
The predator advanced at the same instant.
Low.
Fast.
Entering through the point where the cut had not yet fully closed.
The blade rose.
Not in strength—in timing.
The steel passed a handspan from the leg, forcing the body to twist midair to avoid a direct cut.
The landing came crooked, sole slipping half a step on the wet stone.
Éon pressed that mistake.
He did not run.
He kept the rhythm.
A lateral cut aimed at the ribs.
Immediate reverse, sealing the escape route.
A short thrust, designed to occupy the space the body would need to counterattack.
The predator read it.
Dropped his center of gravity, rotating his torso out of the thrust, claws scraping the air where the blade passed.
The foot locked to the ground at the last instant, regaining base.
Tried to enter from the left.
The katana was already there, descending in a tight arc.
Shifted to the right.
Another cut crossed the space, forcing immediate adjustment.
Tried to dive underneath, using the rain to mask the advance.
The tip of the katana dropped in a straight line.
It did not hit.
But it closed the passage.
The body was forced to retreat half a handspan.
Only half.
In that minimal adjustment, the flank was exposed.
The steel went in shallow.
Dark blood leapt and mixed with the water on the ground before the body completed the movement.
The predator did not break rhythm.
Advanced again.
Faster.
Changing pattern.
Not trying to invade in a line—breaking angle, using his own body to test the blade's reach.
Éon stepped back once.
Short.
Calculated.
The katana fell diagonally, seeking the clavicle.
The opposing body projected backward at the last instant.
The cut did not go deep, but tore flesh and left the shoulder marked.
The predator's foot slipped for an instant.
Recovered.
Stopped.
Not from pressure.
From reading.
The two stood a few meters apart.
The rain fell heavy between them, erasing footprints, spreading diluted blood across the stone.
The sword remained in low guard, tip slightly displaced off the center line.
The scarlet-red eyes dropped from the blade to the wet ground.
One lateral step.
Another, short.
The claws touched the stone for an instant, feeling traction, distance, the timing of water slipping through the fissures.
The gaze returned to the katana.
Not to the edge—to where it stopped.
"I understand the reach now."
Brief silence.
"Now let's see what's left when the space closes."
The predator adjusted his base, ready to advance in any direction.
Neither had yielded.
Neither had imposed the end.
But the space between them was now a field defined by steel, time, and decision.
And the next mistake would not be small.
Far from there, beyond the territory torn apart by the confrontation, the rain no longer fell violently.
The sky remained closed, heavy, but there the wind moved differently—too high, too cold, as if crossing layers that did not belong to the common world.
Figures occupied the rocky rise.
Some had form.
Others only intention.
Presences that did not cast a correct shadow, that bent the air around them without touching the ground.
At the center, a woman stood motionless.
The skin was too pale.
Too smooth.
There was no visible pulse.
No rigidity of a corpse either.
The eyes, black and deep, did not reflect the distant light—they absorbed it, like bottomless wells.
Long, dark hair fell heavy over her shoulders, unmoving despite the wind, as if night itself had decided to rest there.
She observed the eastern territory.
She did not assess.
She already knew.
Behind her, the space contracted.
There was no movement.
There was no arrival.
The presence simply began to exist there, vast beyond the point it occupied.
The voice emerged without a defined direction, deep, irregular, carrying echoes that did not belong to the present time:
"The time stretches…" — the pause was long, uncomfortable, — "…and patience is not infinite."
"How long does he intend to keep the game suspended?"
The woman did not turn.
The faint smile that appeared on her lips expressed no humor.
It was possession.
"Between father and daughter…" she said, her voice too gentle, perfectly placed, "…decisions are not discussed out loud."
"Some choices demand silence. And distance."
The air behind her compressed.
Something ancient reacted.
"We have no luxury for bonds," the entity replied, contained irritation vibrating like pressure beneath rock. "You know that." And you know he is not the only factor in this delay.
The woman's smile remained.
But her eyes narrowed just enough to acknowledge the point.
"I know," she said.
A brief pause.
"And that is precisely why I rush nothing."
She inclined her head slightly, almost in consideration.
"Some pieces…" she continued, "…were not foreseen."
"Others have grown beyond what was expected."
For the first time, her gaze moved.
Not backward.
But toward something far more distant than the eastern territory.
"I believe you feel them too."
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was calculation.
The presence behind her contracted, like something ancient reconsidering a path drawn ages ago.
The distant rain resumed its normal rhythm.