The smoke cleared slowly, revealing the wreckage of the forest around them. Trees were flattened in wide arcs, the earth cracked and torn like paper. In the center stood Kael Vernier, sword in hand, blood trickling down from a cut on his temple and another deep gash along his arm. His red eyes glinted under messy white bangs, the bleeding giving him an aura so chilling that he looked like the grim reaper himself.
Opposite him stood Elira Morvayne, also battered but not as bad her once-clean training uniform now torn, and blood dripped from a small wound on her arm but her stance was solid, her breath steady. Her rapier hovered just inches above the ground, and her crimson eyes never left Kael.
Then.
Boom.
A sudden gust of cold wind swept the battlefield as Matthew Glacern appeared beside her, blue frost lining the soles of his boots. He smirked smugly, frost forming around his knuckles as he tapped his sword once on the ground.
Kael's eyes widened in disbelief.
"What the f-" he muttered. "Cynthia lost… to this half-assed guy?"
Matthew let out a low chuckle. "Half-assed, huh?" he said, cracking his neck. "Not so half-assed now, am I?"
Kael narrowed his eyes. This wasn't good. Not even close.
Elira, with her ever-emotionless smile, stepped slightly forward. "I would love to go all out against you, Kael," she said calmly, brushing dust from her shoulder, "but I need to conserve my energy. I still have to face Jin."
Kael's jaw clenched at the mention of the name.
"So," Elira continued, now beside Matthew, "for now, both of us… will fight you."
Kael's body relaxed. He dropped out of his battle stance and… smiled.
A slow, confident, maddening smile.
"Well," he said quietly, "I guess I'll have to use this earlier than I expected."
Matthew raised an eyebrow. "What, you gonna monologue us into submission?"
But Elira, watching from a distance while trying to catch her breath, stiffened. Her eyes narrowed.
He dropped his guard... Why?
Then it hit her.
No. He didn't drop it. He's letting something out.
Suddenly, the ground trembled slightly. Mana began to pour out of Kael's body in invisible waves. The temperature dropped. The wind stopped. Even the birds far in the forest went silent.
Matthew stopped smiling.
Elira's eyes widened just slightly more than anyone had seen from her so far.
From Kael's shadow, tendrils began to slither and rise thick, dark, almost liquid in appearance, swirling around his body like snakes forming a throne. His blood shimmered unnaturally as if syncing with the darkness around him.
Kael looked up, and his voice was low, controlled, and cold.
"Shadow Lord."
A sudden pulse erupted from him a blast of shadow energy that pushed debris outward in a violent radius. His figure became a silhouette with dark long hakr, and the air grew dense and suffocating. A thick ring of shadows surrounded him like a crown, and each step he took cracked the ground beneath him.
Elira instinctively took half a step back.
Matthew's confident expression was gone.
Kael tilted his head slightly, still smiling.
"You still think you've won?"