The alliance was forged in the quiet of the white palace, but its first test came in the screaming chaos of the Weeping forest. Three days after their audience with the Queen, the first wave of Anastasia's corruption struck.
It began not with a roar, but with a silence. The constant, gentle hum of the forest—the chirping of crystal-winged insects, the distant songs of light-drunk birds—vanished, replaced by an oppressive, watchful hush. Rael and Zuzu stood with Kaelen and a contingent of a dozen elven rangers at the edge of a clearing known as the Glimmerfall, where waterfalls of liquid moonlight usually cascaded into phosphorescent pools. Now, the water ran sluggish and dark.
"He probes our defenses," Kaelen murmured, his silver hair seeming to absorb the diminished light. His bow was in his hand, an arrow already nocked. "He seeks a weakness in the Queen's barrier. These are his feelers."
As if summoned by his words, the shadows at the far tree line began to writhe. From the gloom emerged Anastasia's vanguard. They were not Cursed Dolls, but something arguably worse: corrupted forest wardens. Once-majestic stags with antlers of twisted, purple-veined crystal; wolves whose fur had sloughed away to reveal muscle tissue pulsing with unstable mana; great owls with eyes that wept a viscous, black substance. They were creatures of Serenar, their forms defiled and their spirits broken, turned into puppets of hatred.
"Hold the line!" Kaelen commanded, his voice cutting through the dread. "Aim for the corruption nodes! The shoulder, the base of the skull! Do not let their pain stay your hand—they are already lost!"
A symphony of bowstrings answered him. Silver-tipped arrows sliced through the air, striking with surgical precision. A crystal-antlered stag faltered as an arrow shattered a glowing purple growth on its haunch. But for every one that fell, two more shambled from the woods, their tortured cries now filling the silence.
Zuzu hefted her glaive, the newly named "Luminous Finality" feeling both familiar and alien in her grip. The elven enchanters had worked their craft, sealing the hairline crack with a vein of starlight metal that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. It was no longer just a weapon; it was a part of her will.
A pack of the corrupted wolves broke through the arrow volley, charging directly for the elven line. Zuzu didn't wait for them to arrive. She met their charge, her glaive a silver blur. She did not fight with the brute, overhead chops of a novice. She used the weapon's full length and leverage, sweeping legs out from under a leaping wolf, using the momentum to spin and slam the haft into the ribs of another. She was a whirlwind of controlled, precise violence, creating a sphere of safety that the wolves could not penetrate. She was controlling the space, just as Rael had said.
"Watch the flanks!" Rael's voice was calm, almost bored, from behind her. He hadn't even drawn his sword. He stood with his arms crossed, observing the battle as if it were a mildly interesting play. A corrupted warden, a massive bear-like creature with patches of glowing fungus erupting from its back, lunged at him.
Rael didn't move. He simply tilted his head. The beast's claws passed through the space his neck had occupied a moment before. As the creature stumbled past, off-balance, Rael's hand shot out. It wasn't a punch, but a precise, almost gentle tap on a specific node of purple fungus between the beast's shoulder blades.
There was a sound like shattering glass. The fungal growth imploded, and the bear-creature collapsed, the violent purple light in its eyes snuffing out. It lay still, its body reverting to its natural, un-corrupted state, finally at peace.
He was using pressure points on the corruption itself.
"Show-off," Zuzu grunted, parrying a swipe from a wolf's crystalline claw.
"Efficiency," Rael corrected, his eyes already scanning for the next target. "Why use a sword when a finger will do?"
But the true threat revealed itself moments later. The air grew cold, and the shadows in the center of the clearing coalesced, swirling into a humanoid form. It was a Cursed Doll, but unlike the shambling horrors they had faced before. This one moved with a predatory grace, its form semi-solid, woven from condensed shadow and captured screams. In its hand, it held a blade of pure despair that seemed to drink the light from the very air.
"An assassin," Kaelen hissed, his composure finally cracking. "He sends a soul-eater to break our command!"
The Doll ignored the rangers, its hollow gaze fixed on Kaelen. It floated towards him, its passage leaving a trail of frost on the moss.
Zuzu moved without hesitation. She planted the butt of her glaive and used it as a pivot, launching herself over the heads of the front line to land directly between the Doll and Kaelen.
"Your fight is with me," she stated, her voice ringing with a authority that was entirely her own.
The Doll responded with a psychic shriek that hammered into her mind, conjuring images of failure, of her brother's scorn, of her glaive shattering forever. The old doubts, the feelings of being a fraud, surged up like a tide.
But this time, she did not let them drown her. She remembered the weight of her reforged weapon, the feel of the starlight metal under her palm. She remembered her victory over Yugi. She was a Sword Saint. This was her path.
She channeled her will into Luminous Finality. The vein of starlight metal blazed, and the blade of the glaive erupted not with fire, but with a pure, silver radiance—the manifested light of her resolve.
The Doll flinched back, its shadowy form hissing as the light touched it. It lunged, its despair-blade meeting her radiant glaive. Where their weapons met, there was no clang of metal, but a violent discharge of opposing energies—silver light against consuming void.
Zuzu fought not to destroy, but to purify. Each sweep of her glaive pushed back the darkness, each precise strike chipped away at the Doll's form. It was a battle of attrition, of her will against the captured agony of countless souls.
With a final, guttural cry, she feinted high and swept low, severing the Doll's shadowy legs. As it fell, she drove the point of her glaive directly into its core. There was a silent, expanding pulse of silver energy. The Cursed Doll did not explode; it unraveled, its form dissolving into motes of light that drifted upwards like ethereal fireflies, the trapped souls within finally released.
The silver light faded, and Zuzu stood panting, the last of the corrupted creatures having been mopped up by the elven rangers. The forest was quiet again, but this time, it was a peaceful silence.
Kaelen approached her, his frosty demeanor replaced by a look of deep respect. He placed a fist over his heart in an elven salute. "The Weeping Woods owe you a debt, Saint Zuzu. You fight with the heart of the forest itself."
Rael finally ambled over, a faint smirk on his lips as he looked at the fading motes of light. "See?" he said, his voice low enough for only her to hear. "Not a stick. A key."
Zuzu looked down at Luminous Finality, then at the cleansed clearing. For the first time, the title of Sword Saint didn't feel like a burden or a lie. It felt like a promise she was finally learning to keep. They had won the first battle, but as she looked towards the dark, corrupted heart of the woods, she knew the war for Serenar had only just begun.