Tessai and his handpicked warriors would be the first blood spilled in the tournament's cruel theater.
Seven against one.
But it was no simple beast they faced.
It was a Fallen—one of the tar-born horrors that had lost all semblance of flesh or spirit. A creature of living sludge and corrupted hunger. Blades would find no purchase against it. Arrows would pass through it like mist. Fire might anger it, but would not kill it.
That was why he had chosen it.
Sunless wanted a message sent. Tessai would be the one to send it.
Because Tessai's blood ran cold.
His Aspect was ice, and his will was iron. He could harden his body into a fortress of stone and frost, slow the blood in an enemy's veins until even monsters moved like broken marionettes.
And against a creature of liquid rot, he would bring absolute stillness.
But Tessai wanted more than victory.
He wanted slaughter.
He wanted to fell the beast as a mere Sleeper—to drive it into the dirt without mercy or ceremony, and make the watchers above remember the name of his people.
He had chosen only his finest for this task. Warriors tested in battle, sharpened on the grindstone of hardship. Men and women who bore the marks of their oaths in the scars on their skin. Each clad in Ascended steel, each bearing weapons that had tasted the blood of monsters.
And Tessai himself?
He bore Crude Bite and Bein-Axe—twin Viking axes, brutal and inelegant, their edges already rimed with hoarfrost, their hafts groaning with the cold that leaked from his grip.
At the sound of the cage doors shrieking open, Tessai lifted his head and roared.
It was no war cry.
It was a promise.
The sound rattled through the arena, a bellow of fury and honor, the kind of scream the old gods might have answered in a better age.
The tar-born monstrosity stirred.
It did not shriek in return. It did not roar. It jumped.
A blur of blackened limbs launching into the air, its knife-point legs descending toward Tessai like twin guillotines.
Tessai moved without thought.
He rolled aside, feeling the force of the impact shudder through the frozen sand as the creature struck where he had stood an instant before. Splinters of ice and dust sprayed outward.
The young general came up swinging.
Crude Bite hissed through the air, catching the beast across its side. Frost exploded outward from the impact, the tarry substance flash-freezing on contact, hardening into brittle crystal.
Before the monster could recover, one of Tessai's warriors acted.
A crack of sound split the air—an Aspect ability unleashed. Thunderous Shout—an eruption of raw kinetic force slammed into the beast, driving it back with a deafening boom that rattled the iron bones of the arena.
The Fallen staggered, its form warping and cracking under the combined assault of frost and sound.
Tessai did not hesitate.
He surged forward, axes flashing.
One hacked low, shattering a frozen limb into splinters. The other cleaved into the monster's torso, sending shards of brittle tar skittering across the frostbitten ground.
His warriors closed in with him, formation tight, blows precise. They fought like wolves around a wounded elk—coordinated, merciless, relentless.
This was no duel of honor.
It was an execution.
But even so, Tessai honored the fight in the only way that mattered.
He fought without fear.
Without hesitation.
Without mercy.
The old ways taught that the worth of a man was measured not by his victories, but by the way he fought, the spirit he carried into battle. Tessai carved into the beast with the fury of a winter storm, but beneath it was a grim reverence—a warrior's respect for the kill.
The Fallen reeled again, leaking slow streams of frozen ichor from a dozen wounds.
Its split-face mouth yawned open wider, the gaping blackness inside it seething.
It was not dead yet.
But Tessai's smile was a baring of teeth, the glint of a wolf before the kill.
He shifted his stance, axes dripping cold fire, and beckoned the beast forward with a jerk of his chin.
"Come, then," he growled, voice like stone cracking.
The tournament's first match would not end in simple victory.
It would end in domination.
'*'
The Fallen Beast lurched forward again, black sludge boiling across its shattered flanks.
Tessai met it head-on.
Their collision was a thunderous clash of flesh, frost, and steel. His axe bit deep into the creature's shoulder, carving a ragged trench of frozen tar. The impact rocked both of them backward.
But Tessai didn't retreat.
He pressed closer.
Daring it.
Challenging it.
Around him, his surviving warriors moved with brutal, lethal efficiency.
The crimson-braided woman—Ylsa—slid in low, slashing at the creature's legs with her hooked blade, hamstringing it. She darted back before the beast's needle-legs could impale her, leaving a gouged mess of freezing sludge in her wake.
Jorek, the thunder-aspect, loosed another crackling shout—this time directed at the ground beneath the creature. The blast ripped a shallow crater into the frost, sending shards of frozen sand whipping up like knives. The beast staggered, balance faltering for just a heartbeat.
That was enough.
Tessai surged.
With a roar that rattled the stands, he drove his shoulder into the beast's chest, ramming it back. Frost exploded from his body in a shockwave, freezing the black sludge deeper, slower, stiffer.
The monster struggled to move, its joints locking, its fluidic body cracking along the lines of impact.
Ylsa was already moving—slashing through one of its legs.
Another warrior—Krev, the spearman—plunged his weapon deep into the creature's flank, twisting, anchoring it in place.
They worked as a pack. Not frantic. Not desperate. Professional.
This was how they had fought across a dozen nightmare battles—against the waking world's horrors and the Dream's twisted spawn alike.
Tessai snarled and ripped his axe free from the beast's shoulder, black ice spraying. The monster reeled.
Still dangerous. Still alive. But bleeding strength with every breath.
The Fallen tried to lunge, its tar-like flesh roiling—but this time, Tessai was faster.
He drove his knee up into its gut, cracking frozen sludge inward, then followed with an overhead axe blow that sheared deep into the monster's chest. Frost exploded outward.
A terrible groan tore from the creature's split face—the first sound it had made beyond the rattling moans—and a cascade of black ichor spilled onto the sand.
The crowd above the pit stirred.
Whispers. Shock. A crackle of approval.
This was no clean, polite execution. This was a storm.
This was life.
And Tessai would not disappoint.
He shouted again—an old battle-cry from the northern coast where he had been born, one that spoke of tides of blood and the honoring of the fallen—and his warriors answered him, weapons raised.
They pressed the attack as one.
Ylsa severed another leg. Krev wrenched his spear free and stabbed again. Jorek's thunder cracked once more, frying the mist that curled around the beast's broken body.
The Fallen staggered, crippled.
Still dangerous—but now wounded, driven back, pinned like a broken beast before the storm.
It would not die easily.
Tessai wouldn't allow it.
Victory had to be undeniable.
Victory had to be seared into the soul itself.
He bared his teeth, breath misting like a wolf's, and raised Crude Bite high.
No quarter. No retreat. No mercy.
The end was coming.
Not yet.
But soon.
The Fallen Beast spasmed.
Its frozen limbs twisted. Cracks spiderwebbed across its hunched, glistening frame—and then, with a wet, snappingsound, it shed them.
Tar and black frost split away from its body like shattered armor. What rose up from the ruin of its outer shell was something leaner, faster—and far more dangerous.
The crowd gasped.
Gone was the sluggish, drowning marionette. What remained was a sinewed horror, glistening like fresh oil, its limbs now sleek and sharpened like scythes. Its split face widened, revealing rows of needle-thin teeth where there had been only a gaping void.
It hissed—not with lungs, but with the wet grinding of muscles forcing air through torn memories.
And then it moved.
A blur.
Faster than before.
Straight at Krev—the spearman, the line-holder.
Tessai shouted, a single barked word, and Krev pivoted, planting his spear into the sand and vaulting sideways. The beast slammed into the haft—not Krev—its momentum stealing its balance for a crucial moment.
Jorek was already moving.
Thunder cracked from his Aspect again—not a full-throated blast this time, but a focused arc, slamming into the beast's exposed side. It twitched violently, one clawed leg gouging the sand, and Ylsa was there in a flash.
A downward cleave from her sword split into the creature's newly-formed spine, slowing it, anchoring it back into the pit.
No panic. No chaos. Only violence.
The beast twisted, a lashing counterattack—jagged, vicious. It caught Krev across the shoulder, armor screeching as the memory-threaded steel held—barely. Krev grunted, pain blooming across his features, but he didn't fall.
He didn't even take a step back.
Instead, he grinned, blood running down his arm.
"You'll have to do better than that, you ugly bastard," he snarled.
Tessai was already there.
A blur of frost and iron.
He drove Crude Bite into the beast's ribs with both hands, shattering frozen tar and splintering black sinew. The creature screeched—more steam than sound—jerking violently.
It tried to retreat. Tried to regain distance.
Tessai didn't let it.
He wrenched the axe free, swinging wide with the second one—Bein, the thinner axe—and tore a spray of black ichor from its flank.
Ylsa was at his side, moving in tandem like a shadow.
Her blade sang, severing one of the creature's arms at the elbow—if it could be called an elbow. The severed limb convulsed on the sand, dissolving into a puddle of quivering tar.
Jorek and Krev circled, harrying it with strikes and shouts, forcing it to stay locked in their killzone.
There was no escape.
Not anymore.
The beast thrashed desperately now—its new form already failing, too damaged, too exposed. The last strength it had was bleeding away in gouts of black mist, freezing before it even hit the ground.
Tessai's breath came harsh through his teeth.
Blood trickled from a gash across his brow—he hadn't even noticed when it happened. Ylsa's knuckles were bruised raw. Krev's armor was scored and cracked. Jorek's boots were smoking where tar had tried to fuse to them.
They were wounded.
But they were not broken.
They fought like demons. Like wolves. Relentless. Vicious. Controlled.
Tessai leveled Crude Bite at the creature, stepping forward through the frozen sand.
"Enough."
His voice cut through the dying roars of the pit.
The beast staggered forward—barely conscious, spasming.
Tessai planted his feet.
The frost from his Aspect deepened, veins of ice racing across the arena floor, snaring the beast's limbs, freezing the very air around it.
The Fallen's movement slowed… then stopped entirely, trapped in mid-motion, encased in thick crystal-clear ice.
Tessai walked forward, casual now.
He could have ended it with a single strike.
But instead he stopped before the frozen creature, and leaned in close, until his breath frosted across its blind, shriveled face.
"This is the cost," he said quietly. "This is the price of stepping before the sons of the storm."
And with a casual, brutal swing, Tessai shattered the creature's frozen head into a thousand glistening shards.
The arena fell into stunned silence.
The body of the Fallen slumped, tar spilling sluggishly, twitching as the last stolen memories bled out into the sand.
Tessai stood over it, axes bloody, breath steaming in the frozen air.
He did not lift his arms in triumph.
There was no need.
Victory spoke for itself.
And so did the spell:
**[You have slain an Fallen Beast : Black runt]**
**[You have received a Memory: stalwart embrace]**
"*"
Sunless watched the beast pacing in the blood-stained sands of the arena. It shifted heavily from foot to clawed foot, molten light seeping from the seams of its plated hide like the breath of a forge.
A dragon.
Or at least, the closest thing they could conjure.
The crowd, still drunk on the aftermath of Tessai's savage victory, roared with a feverish hunger. Tessai and his warriors had shown them a glimpse of the Host's strength—brutal, unbreakable, magnificent. And now, that appetite had only grown sharper.
This was the third match of the day.
And it would be their fight—his, Nephis', and Kai's. Arguably the most important of the tournament.
The one that would etch Nephis' name into the public consciousness. Not just as another Sleeper clawing for relevance, but as a weapon — a storm — a silver flame burning too bright to ignore.
For that, they needed a monster. An enemy that looked like a nightmare carved from legend. A creature whose death would mean something.
And so: the dragon.
Or what passed for one.
It had once been an Awakened devil—roughly eight feet tall when it had first been enthralled by Prince to bolster their ranks. At the time, Sunless had thought it little more than a beast, a living siege weapon without mind or purpose.
He had been wrong.
When it fought, it grew.
Not just in ferocity, but physically—its body swelling with violent, unstoppable metamorphosis. Its plated metal hide thickened; its molten flesh burned hotter; the jagged fangs in its X-shaped maw sharpened to points that could gouge through plate and bone alike.
It had, at first, plateaued around eleven feet in height—already monstrous by any reasonable standard. But Prince's ability —[Nurturing]—had changed that.
[Nurturing]: Through it, its tools bloom, mutate, transform. When need arises.
Through [Nurturing], the beast had swelled again—its form reshaped, strengthened, and made more terrible by the living hunger of the Prince's will.
Now, it stood fifteen feet tall.
A mountain of burning steel and iron muscle. A living furnace encased in metal scales that oozed molten light with every grinding breath.
It still had no wings—an aberration, a flaw it could not overcome—but that was precisely why it had been selected.
It would not fly. It would not escape.
It would die here, in the arena.
A living nightmare brought to heel and publicly destroyed, so that the world would remember Nephis not just as a talented fighter, but as a conqueror of monsters.
Sunless watched the dragon pace, slow and lethal, like an executioner's axe waiting to fall. His gloved hand rested lightly against the pommel of his sword.
The plan was already in motion.
The beast was powerful, yes. It was ferocious. But it was predictable.
It had grown resistant to the soul and heart manipulations of the Prince's enthrallment—but it was still just an animal, at its core. One that could be broken. One that would be broken.
Another weapon sacrificed to the larger design.
Another stepping stone in Nephis' story.
Sunless allowed himself a slow, steadying breath.
The crowd screamed for blood. The dragon roared, molten spittle sizzling across the sand.
And high above it all, Sunless smiled, cold and sure.
The real hunt was about to begin.
'*'
Ascended Rank Memories were the kind of treasures that made headlines when they changed hands—auctioned for millions, even billions of credits. They weren't just powerful relics; they were heirlooms, guarded for generations by the Legacy Clans, tucked away in vaults, passed from bloodline to bloodline like sacred fire.
They were never the kind of thing you simply handed to someone else. And certainly not to a Sleeper. And especially not to a Sleeper without a combat-oriented Aspect.
So when Kai had first went over the runes of the arrows that Sunless had given him—when the realization had truly hit him—he had been left completely speechless.
Two Ascended Rank arrows.
Two.
Each one worth more than the lifetime earnings of an entire mundane bloodlines—and they had been gifted to him, not bought, not loaned, but gifted—as a simple thank you for what Kai had considered basic decency. For saving twenty-five lives during the mimic attack in the slums.
To Kai, every single life was beyond price. He would have done it again a thousand times without thinking.
But this?
This was too much.
And then—just when he thought Sunless had been generous beyond measure—he had given Kai something else.
A bow.
[Lost Farewell] — a jade-crafted work of art, with veins of gold whispering through its polished frame like captured sunlight. Kai had once paused in front of its listing in the Memory Market, admiring it with the kind of distant yearning he rarely allowed himself to feel. It had been beautiful. Dream-like.
And Sunless... He had seen him looking.
And without a word, without ceremony or expectation, he had bought it for him.
Just... placed it in his hands, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Kai had promised himself that day that he would stand by Sunless, no matter what storms were coming.
So when Sunless asked him to fight at his side during the tournament, Kai hadn't hesitated for a second. He would have said yes even without a reward.
But once again, Sunless proved that his actions spoke louder than anyone's promises.
He gifted Kai an armor Memory—Ascended grade—an exquisite thing that could absorb and soften the impact of enemy blows, dispersing lethal force before it could shatter his body.
By the time he realized the full weight of what he had been given, Kai had been so overwhelmed that he nearly cried right there in the preparation halls. Not from fear. Not from the looming fight. But from the kind of gratitude so raw and deep it left you breathless.
From the simple, staggering truth:
His antisocial, reserved friend trusted him enough to arm him like family.
And now, staring across the arena sands at the monstrosity they were meant to fight, Kai had to bite down hard on his fear, on the lump rising in his throat.
Because the dragon-demon thing they faced was nothing short of terrifying.
A towering beast, its body a seething mass of molten metal and burning muscle, claws digging trenches into the ground with every step. No wings, but no less deadly for it—the ground shook with every ponderous shift of its weight, and the X-shaped maw in its face leaked steam and coppery blood like a living forge.
'Well…' Kai thought wryly, lifting his bow. 'No one said it was going to be easy.'
The instant the starting signal rang out, Kai launched himself skyward, the force of the movement lifting him high above the sands.
That was his job: to fly, to distract, to harass the dragon from above so that Sunless and Nephis could strike at its vulnerable points.
He pulled a Memory arrow from his quiver—the carved runes flickering with subtle light—and loosed it.
The arrow sang through the air, bending subtly in flight, homing in on the monstrous dragon without Kai needing to even aim directly.
Higher he rose, the heat of the battlefield pressing against him like the breath of some ancient furnace.
From above, he could see everything.
He saw Sunless—cloaked in black, the feathered pauldrons at his shoulders shivering with every fluid, dancer-like movement—as he streaked toward the dragon's left flank, twin yatagans gleaming in his hands.
A blur of deadly grace.
And from the other side, Lady Changing Star—Nephis—surged forward, a burning arc of silver flame riding the length of her longsword. Her movements were swift, poised, merciless.
The dragon snapped its long, serpent-like neck toward her, the X-shaped maw opening wide enough to shear a man in half.
But Nephis twisted elegantly out of the way—silver hair trailing like a comet's tail—and in the same breath, she lashed out. Her blade bit deep into the creature's cheek, cutting through the gleaming armor to draw a rush of liquid copper blood.
The crowd erupted in screams and shouts, a tidal wave of sound surging over the arena.
Kai knocked another arrow, heart pounding.
Sunless, Nephis, and himself.
Three against a nightmare.
But somehow, standing there in the heat and roar of the battlefield, Kai felt steady.
He wasn't alone.
And this time... they would carve their legend into the world, one strike, one breath at a time.
'*'
Kai loosed another arrow, fingers quick and sure despite the searing heat rising from the arena floor. This one wasn't one of his precious Ascended memories—just a mundane shaft, but no less deadly in his hands.
It struck true, embedding itself high in the dragon's serpentine neck with a sharp, satisfying thock.
A heartbeat later, the impact bloomed into a brilliant splash of vibrant, toxic green—liquid jade erupting outward like a living flame.
The enchantment of his bow, [Lost Farewell], made sure of that: every arrow he fired detonated into lethal bursts of jade that would have melted an Awakened beast's flesh from its bones.
But this enemy… This was no mere beast.
This was a devil.
And against it, even the potent magic of his Memory only sizzled harmlessly against the armored hide, leaving a smoldering scar but little more.
Still, it was enough.
Kai saw the moment Nephis seized the opening—the liquid light still sizzling along the dragon's neck—and withdrew with swift, disciplined footwork. But not before landing another vicious strike: a shallow but decisive cut across the beast's shoulder joint, sending another gout of molten blood hissing into the air.
In a single fluid movement, she disengaged, spinning away from the creature's snapping jaws with almost contemptuous ease.
For a moment, the dragon reeled, its massive frame lurching unsteadily.
That was when Sunless moved.
He struck low and fast, blades flashing in a blur of silvered death, carving deep into the dragon's exposed left flank. Not deep enough to cripple—but enough to bleed.
Enough to wound.
And somehow, impossibly, he did not stop there.
With the effortless, precise grace of a spider climbing its web, Sunless flowed upward along the dragon's side, scaling the writhing monster as if an invisible tether drew him forward.
Blades stabbed and hooked into crevices of armor, feet finding impossible footholds between overlapping scales. He clung to the base of the dragon's malformed wings—a jagged, bone-like structure where true wings might have grown.
From his high vantage, Sunless poised like a shadow about to strike.
Kai's breath caught. It was insane. It was brilliant.
The dragon roared, a sound like a furnace backfiring, its body thrashing with raw fury. The ground beneath it cracked and splintered from the force of its rage.
Yet Nephis was already moving again—unstoppable, relentless, silver fire wreathing her blade like a living thing. While Sunless disrupted from above and Kai peppered from the air, she was the blade that carved the path forward.
Nephis darted in once more, sidestepping a wild swing of the dragon's claws with a dancer's poise.
Her sword snapped up— —flashed— —fell—
—carving a searing, molten line across the dragon's belly.
This time, the cut was deeper, and even the devil's reinforced hide couldn't shrug it off. A roar of pain shook the air, shards of molten metal spraying out from the gash.
Kai, circling higher overhead, didn't waste the chance.
Another arrow—another explosion of toxic jade against the dragon's already wounded shoulder—threw its balance off for a critical heartbeat.
Enough time for Sunless to act.
Still clinging to the dragon's bony spine, Sunless drove both yatagans downward, burying the blades deep into the root of the malformed wings.
The creature convulsed violently, bucking like a maddened beast.
Sunless was thrown, but he twisted midair, landing in a controlled slide across the broken arena floor, skidding to his feet in a crouch.
Nephis was already there, charging forward with that terrifying, luminous focus only she could summon.
She struck again and again, slashes precise, relentless, beautiful in their brutal efficiency.
Each cut stole more blood, more momentum, more strength from the towering demon.
The dragon tried to counterattack—a lunge, a snap of its jaws—but Nephis was simply faster.
Where the beast moved like a falling mountain, she moved like lightning unleashed.
And overhead, Kai continued his barrage—each arrow a whisper of jade death, each shot buying precious seconds, keeping the dragon's focus fractured between sky and ground.
Their teamwork, imperfect but instinctive, whittled the monstrous opponent down one brutal heartbeat at a time.
But it was clear even now: the dragon was still far from beaten.
It was wounded, yes. Bleeding. Angry.
But it had not yet unleashed its true rage.
And as molten steam bled from the widening cracks in its armored hide, the arena itself seemed to grow hotter, the very air trembling with the rising heat.
Kai nocked another arrow, his fingers steady despite the sweat running down his brow.
Below, Nephis lifted her sword again, silver flames rising to meet the dragon's roar.
This wasn't over.
Not even close.
'*'
They had found a rhythm.
An imperfect, deadly rhythm where instinct and desperation sang louder than thought—one baited, the other struck.
Sometimes it was Sunless, slipping into a break in the dragon's movements like smoke through a shattered window, his twin yatagans flashing out to carve a strip of molten metal from the beast's flank.
Other times it was Changing Star, her blade an elegant arc of silver fire, the flames wreathing her figure until she seemed half a spirit herself, each stroke burning new pain into the dragon's armor.
The air around them shimmered, warped by the suffocating heat radiating off the beast's molten scales. Every breath tasted of copper and ash.
Kai kept doing his part too. Up above, circling like a hawk, he loosed arrow after arrow—some mundane, some Awakened-grade—but all painted the battlefield with vivid trails of liquid jade, detonating against the dragon's hide.
Yet he could feel it creeping into his chest, that gnawing little doubt.
The fight had only been going for five minutes. Five minutes that felt like five hours.
The dragon charged, slashed, bit, thundered against them with crushing force—but only once had it struck Nephis, and even then it had been a glancing blow. Her speed, her instincts... it was beyond anything Kai had ever thought a Sleeper could achieve. She moved like something born for war.
And Sunless—Sunless was something else entirely.
It was like he could see the future.
He wove between strikes with inhuman fluidity, every dodge just a breath away from disaster, every counterattack perfectly timed. His blades moved like rivers breaking against stone—unstoppable, shifting, finding every weakness.
It was beautiful.
If things kept going like this, Kai thought, the victory would be theirs. Not easily—but it would be theirs.
And then— —the rhythm broke.
Kai had just begun to reposition, angling for a better shot, when he felt it first—before he heard it. A shift in the air. A wrongness.
A heartbeat later, a thunderous boom shattered the arena—so loud it rattled his teeth.
The dragon, impossibly fast, had snapped its whipcord tail around and struck Nephis. It wasn't a clean hit—thank the heavens—but even the shockwave of impact was enough.
He saw her thrown like a comet across the broken stone floor, crashing down hard.
The dragon, finally freed from its relentless tormentor, wasted no time.
It coiled like a spring—and jumped.
Its serpentine neck snapped forward, X-shaped jaws gaping wide, lunging straight at Kai.
Panic stabbed through him.
He moved—pure instinct—veering out of range as the dragon's snapping teeth missed him by inches.
The monster stared at him then, a terrible intelligence simmering in its molten eyes. Then its body convulsed, trembling violently.
"Kai! MOVE!" Sunless's voice ripped through the chaos, raw and ragged.
Kai didn't question. He trusted.
He flew hard to the side—and then the world erupted.
A geyser of searing white light exploded where he'd been. The heat was so intense it scorched his exposed skin even from a distance. It wasn't fire—it was liquid metal, superheated and spewing from the dragon's maw like a volcanic eruption.
If he'd hesitated even a second longer, he would have been incinerated.
His heart thundered painfully against his ribs. What... what was he doing here?
He was Kai. An idol. A singer who'd gotten this far because of his voice, his looks—because people loved the dream he represented.
Not a warrior. Not a fighter.
He wasn't like them.
The doubt clawed at him, gnawed at the edge of his mind, even as he struggled to stay aloft, breath coming in sharp gasps.
Why had he thought he could stand on the same battlefield as Sunless and Nephis? Why had he thought he was enough?
But even through the rising panic, his eyes caught sight of them: Changing Star, forcing herself up, silver flames guttering and flaring defiantly. Sunless, already moving—already climbing the dragon's back again despite the creature's molten skin, despite the impossible heat.
Kai saw him latch onto one of the malformed, horn-like spurs that jutted where wings might have been—and without hesitation, drive both yatagans deep into the beast's back.
The dragon howled, thrashing, trying to shake him off—lashing out with clawed hands, snapping with those nightmare jaws—but Sunless was too fast, too nimble. He flowed across the creature's spine, a black phantom refusing to be caught.
And then Nephis moved, her body igniting once more.
The silver flames around her grew brighter—hotter—twisting into blue at the edges as her mantle responded, as if her very soul were catching fire.
She flew across the battlefield, her sword a comet in her hands.
With a single, devastating stroke, she severed the dragon's left hand at the wrist— —and then, before it could react, plunged her blade into the beast's belly with brutal force.
The dragon shuddered, a wet, metallic howl bursting from its mangled mouth.
But it wasn't finished. In a burst of vicious strength, it lashed out—kicking her away with a brutal swipe of its hind leg.
Kai's heart seized as he saw Nephis fly backward again, too fast, too hard.
She wasn't going to recover in time.
And the dragon knew it.
It lunged, mouth gaping wide—fangs bared, ready to end her.
Kai moved.
He threw himself downward, angling his flight between Nephis and the onrushing dragon.
He drew an arrow from his quiver—no time to think— —and not just any arrow.
It was a slender shaft, pale as bone, black-feathered and unassuming: An Ascended Memory.
The [Swift Messenger].
Time slowed.
He could see every detail—the scars on the dragon's fangs, the molten light leaking from its throat, the ragged edges of broken scale.
He drew back [Lost Farewell] and loosed the arrow.
It flew like a promise—silent, steady, inevitable.
The bone-white shaft streaked straight into the dragon's gaping maw, plunging through the back of its throat— —through the back of its skull— —and then detonated.
The explosion was blinding—a nova of liquid jade erupting from within the beast's head.
The dragon staggered, mid-lunge, its body convulsing violently.
Kai hovered in the air, chest heaving, fingers numb around his bow.
He didn't feel triumphant.
He felt scared. Exposed. Small.
But when he looked down and saw Nephis still breathing, still alive— When he saw Sunless clinging stubbornly to the dragon's back, his blades poised for another strike—
He knew:
It didn't matter if he was scared.
He was here.
He collapsed when he heard the soothing voice of the spell.
**[You have slain an Awakened Devil: Malformed bastard of Iron-heart ]**
**[You have received a Memory:bloody Heart of passion ]**