Previously~
"You've come to reclaim what's mine, Lord Marshal," Thomas's voice was low and chilling, his words dripping with an eerie calmness. "But this... this is where your journey ends."
Christian's sword arm trembled, but his resolve remained. "We will not be so easily defeated, Count. Your shadows can't save you."
Thomas chuckled, the sound echoing off the cold walls. "We shall see, Marshal. We shall see."
And with that, the darkness closed in, the figure of Thomas Duskrane towering over them, his presence a harbinger of doom.
**********************************************************
The stone chamber stood still, ancient and breathless.
Wind howled through the shattered stained glass above, casting broken rainbows across the floor—fragments of forgotten saints. The air between them hummed, not with heat or light, but with conviction honed into violence.
Christian stepped forward, greatsword drawn, the weight of the Church in his grip. Runes carved into his armor shimmered, flickering like candles in a storm. His eyes never left the man ahead.
Thomas Duskrane waited, calm as snowfall, cloak drawn tight around him like a funeral shroud. His saber hung in one hand—casual, loose, as though it hadn't already tasted blood that night. The curve of the blade caught the waning light, hungry.
"You are far from your altar, Marshal," Thomas said, voice low and velvet-smooth. "Here, your gods cannot hear you."
Christian answered with steel, stepping into a two-handed swing that howled like judgment. The blade crashed downward—meant to split a man from soul to stone—but met only a whisper. Thomas was already gone.
A sidestep. A hiss. The saber sang across Christian's gauntlet, drawing a line of blood and fire.
The duel began.
Christian fought like a holy tempest—every strike a sermon, every step a psalm of fury. He did not duel. He declared. Sweeps that could crush armor. Lunges to split heresy from flesh.
But Thomas was silence given form.
He moved like a shadow dressed in nobility. His strikes were not loud—they were surgical. A flick at the shoulder. A twist beneath the arm. Every cut was measured, delivered with the precision of a man who had fought not for faith, but survival.
"You think me broken," he murmured, circling, "but I have seen the rot beneath your altar. You are not righteous—you are blind."
Christian bled. The ground bore the proof. Yet he did not falter.
He charged again—blade arcing overhead—and this time it grazed Thomas's ribs, slicing through fabric and flesh. A red ribbon unfurled across his side, and the nobleman stumbled. A gasp escaped his lips—but no cry. He straightened.
They stood a breath apart.
Two relics of opposing truths.
One burned with holy wrath.
The other bled with sovereign defiance.
Christian raised his blade, runes flaring bright.
Thomas lifted his own, now slick with crimson.
"The church will never cleanse this place," Thomas said, almost mournfully. "You'll die screaming in the dark, as your gods forget your name."
"Then I'll die knowing I stood before evil," Christian answered, "and did not kneel."
They clashed one final time.
Not as a priest and heretic.
Not as noble and soldier.
But as men—burdened by legacies too heavy to bear, locked in a moment that would echo through the ruins long after flesh turned to dust.
The clash was thunder and ruin.
Christian's blade came down like divine judgment, the floor beneath him cracking from the force. But Thomas met it—not with equal might, but with perfect precision. The saber curved inward, gliding along the broad blade's edge, redirecting the blow to the side with a deft twist of the wrist. Steel screamed. Sparks danced.
Then he struck.
A sharp thrust. Low. Controlled.
Straight into the Marshal's thigh.
Christian staggered. Gasped. The weight of his own blade dragged him sideways as his knee buckled.
And then—he knelt.
One knee cracked the stone floor. His blade hit next, clattering against the flagstone like a fallen icon. He tried to rise—but Thomas was already there, pressing the edge of his saber to Christian's exposed throat.
No grand flourish. No cruelty.
Only silence.
Christian's breath was ragged. His hands shook, still trying to reach for his weapon. But it was too far now. The light in his runes dimmed, flickering like a dying prayer.
Thomas's voice was quiet. Almost kind.
"Tell me, Marshal. When you prayed for strength… did you imagine this ending?"
Christian didn't answer. His mouth moved—perhaps to curse, perhaps to plead—but no sound emerged.
"Your gods are far away," Thomas continued. "But I am here. And I am the truth they feared."
He pressed the saber just enough to draw a line of blood—not a killing blow. A mark.
"Go back to your temple. Crawl, if you must. Let them see what kneeling costs a man of faith."
He stepped back, allowing the Marshal to fall forward, gasping into his gauntlets, humiliated but alive.
And then Thomas turned his back.
Because the duel was over. Not by death.
But by dominance.
Thomas turned.
The duel's echo still lingered in the chamber like incense in an old chapel. Christian remained on his knees, trembling—not from pain, but from what he now understood. His blade lay beside him like a discarded oath.
And Thomas smiled.
It was not cruel. Not gloating.
It was the smile of a man who had already won long before steel had ever kissed stone.
He raised one hand. A subtle motion.
The shadows stirred.
From the corners of the chamber, from cracks in the walls, from beneath the blackened sigil—they emerged. Figures cloaked in midnight, faces masked by bone and silence. Not soldiers. Not men. Servants of the dark oath. Duskrane's true blades.
"Kill the rest," Thomas said, voice low, almost reverent. "Every last templar, wherever they hide."
A heartbeat passed.
Christian gasped.
"No—no! Please…"
He lifted his face, eyes bloodshot with desperation.
"You've made your point. Take me. Use me. Humiliate me. But don't—don't slaughter them. They're just following orders. They don't know. They're not me."
Thomas looked down at him, calm as dusk.
The chamber fell silent.
Christian knelt before Thomas, still clutching his side where the wound burned and throbbed, blood staining his armor. He didn't raise his eyes, the weight of his defeat too heavy for pride to bear. The greatsword lay discarded beside him, a symbol of the oath broken, a promise unfulfilled.
Thomas stood above him, the smile still playing at the corners of his lips—calm, almost serene, as though he were the victor of some grand, destined contest. In truth, he had won without ever needing to raise his voice. His presence alone had been enough.
"You ask for mercy," Thomas said softly, the words almost tender, like a father consoling a wayward child. "You offer yourself for them. How noble. But nobility... is a fleeting thing, Christian."
Christian's breath was ragged, but he didn't protest. He had no strength left to challenge the man who had bested him so utterly, his body and his faith shattered in equal measure. His hands trembled as he reached for his sword, but the effort was futile—his fingers found only cold stone.
"You would offer yourself," Thomas mused, his eyes gleaming with something far darker than mere victory. "How quaint. How human. But I have no use for martyrdom. Not tonight."
He paused, looking down at Christian as the shadows in the room shifted, waiting for his command. They had already begun to move—those dark figures, his true army. But Thomas, with a single word, stayed them.
"Call them off," Thomas ordered, his voice as calm as the sea before a storm. "Let them flee. Let them scatter. The Church will have its messenger, after all."
Christian's eyes flickered with confusion, pain mixing with disbelief. He had heard the whispers of the darkness—he had felt their presence at his back. He expected the end to come quickly, to be swallowed whole by the shadows, as all enemies of the Duskrane line had been before him.
But Thomas shook his head, his smile widening with the eerie satisfaction of a man playing a long game.
"You'll carry my message, Marshal," Thomas said, his voice cold, like ice cracking underfoot. "Tell your Church of what they've created. Tell them the price of their meddling. I'll leave you alive for now, Christian, but they—" He gestured to the shadows, "—they will find the others. Let them scatter, let them return with fear in their hearts, and then... they'll know what it means to provoke the Duskranes."
Christian's voice, when it came, was hoarse, strained, but still defiant.
"You'll regret this," he rasped. "You'll find there's no power that can hold back the wrath of the Church."
Thomas leaned in, close enough that Christian could feel the chill of his breath.
"The wrath of the Church?" Thomas chuckled, a sound full of dark amusement. "The Church has already fallen. You simply haven't seen it yet."
The Marshal, still kneeling, felt his heart pound painfully in his chest. He had lost everything. His faith, his honor, and now—his freedom. Thomas stepped back, and without another word, turned his back on the defeated soldier.
"Take him. Keep him alive," Thomas said to the shadows, the command cold and final. "We'll use him later. His soul... and his body."
Far to the north, among the frost-kissed teeth of the Wyrdclaw Range...
The wind howled. Snow twisted in restless spirals as five robed figures stood in a circle etched into the ice. The sigils they carved glowed a deep crimson, pulsing in time with a low, impossible sound—the breathing of the mountain itself.
Templar mages. An elite ritual squadron sent ahead to awaken the old wards. They had one task:
Contain Duskrane.
Lead mage Alrik raised both hands, his breath visible in the frigid air, his voice steady as he chanted in High Aurenic—the tongue of seals and flame. The others followed, their voices weaving into a single tone.
"By light and law. By ash and oath. Awaken the chains beneath the earth."
The circle flared. A heartbeat later, the ground trembled.
The mountains answered.
From deep within Wyrdclaw, something stirred. Not a presence—but many. Dozens. Hundreds.
Eyes opened in the dark. Claws scraped ancient stone. Horns splintered through permafrost.
Then came the roar—not of one beast, but of a horde.
And the mountain vomited forth its rage.
Monsters surged down the slopes like an avalanche of nightmares—eyes glowing, limbs twisted, bound by no law but hunger. Fog followed them. Screams echoed before they reached any walls.
They were not summoned. They were awakened.
And they were coming home.
Duskrane County - Outskirts
The earth trembled as the horde of monstrous shapes crashed down from the Wyrdclaw Range. With every step, the creatures pounded the earth, their roars shaking the air, and the ground beneath their feet splitting apart. But the battle had already been prepared for. The outskirts had been evacuated in advance, the villagers hidden away, and the knights stationed for whatever assault would come.
Sophie and Amelia, now standing at the front of the defenses, glanced across the battlefield. Their focus was unwavering—this was the moment they had been dreading, the moment where they would face the full force of the monsters.
"We don't have much time," Sophie said, her voice calm despite the chaos unfolding around them. Her hand moved toward the small sack hanging at her waist.
Amelia nodded without a word, already drawing power from the air. The magic in the atmosphere was thick, charged with the anticipation of a fight, but they would need something far more than basic spells to stand a chance.
Sophie's eyes narrowed as she unclipped the sack from her belt. Thousands of tiny seeds filled the pouch, each one crackling with latent power. With a swift motion, she hurled the sack into the air. It tumbled upward, the small seeds scattering across the sky like raindrops.
As they reached their apex, Sophie raised her hands, and with a single, commanding gesture, she began to chant. A massive magic circle unfolded beneath her feet, the edges of the circle gleaming with an eerie, ethereal light. The concentric rings swirled, each one inscribed with a complex web of random glyphs and symbols of ancient calculus, the power of nature and mathematics merging into a single unified spell.
The ground below seemed to surge with energy as Sophie's magic took form. Vines exploded from the earth like whips, shooting toward the horde of monsters with terrifying speed. The vines lashed at the creatures, ensnaring their limbs, constricting and pulling them to the ground. The magic was alive, each vine moving with purpose, its reach endless as it tore through the battlefield, wreaking havoc on the advancing beasts.
"Now," Sophie murmured, her voice filled with focused determination.
Amelia, standing beside her, raised both hands high. A large magic triangle materialized in the air above them, glowing with an ancient, iridescent light. The symbols within the triangle shifted and reformed, as if alive, twisting and turning like a mathematical puzzle.
In a flash, the triangle shattered, breaking into hundreds of smaller triangles, each one crackling with energy. Bullets of ice rained down upon the battlefield, piercing through the chaos. They struck the beasts, freezing them on impact, turning their twisted forms into statues of ice. The hail of shards continued, each one hitting with the force of a spear, slowing the creatures, freezing them in place, or shattering their limbs entirely.
The battlefield became a storm of frozen spikes and whips of nature's wrath, the air filled with the sounds of twisting wood, the screams of the monsters, and the sharp crack of ice as it splintered.
Sophie's eyes narrowed as she focused on the ongoing storm of magic. The vines lashed out with precise strikes, wrapping around the monsters and pulling them to the ground, binding them in place. The ice storm Amelia had unleashed slowed the creatures' advance, but they were still relentless.
The ground below shook as another monstrous creature—a massive, horned behemoth—charged toward them. It had escaped the ice storm, its body rippling with unnatural strength. But as it neared the defense line, Sophie's magic surged once more. Vines exploded from the earth, wrapping around its limbs and binding it, just as Amelia unleashed another barrage of ice spikes that tore through the creature's thick hide.
Amelia stood firm, her focus unbroken as she continued to conjure the ice storm, freezing every beast that dared approach the line of defense.
"This isn't enough!" Sophie called out, her voice rising above the battlefield's noise. "They'll overwhelm us unless we do more."
Amelia's eyes flickered to the monsters still advancing—more were coming, their numbers seemingly endless. The vines had stopped some, but not enough. And while the ice storm had taken its toll, they needed more.
Sophie's eyes hardened. They needed to break the tide, to slow them enough to gain control.
"We need a final strike," Sophie said, her voice steely with determination. She clenched her fist, her heart pounding as she prepared to unleash her most powerful spell. If they could break the momentum now, they might have a chance.
Amelia's lips curled slightly into a smile, as she readied herself to unleash the full force of their combined magic. The air around them seemed to hum with energy—an electric, near-deafening hum.
"Then let's finish this," Amelia said, her voice a whisper of ice.
The next moment, the ground beneath them shook violently as Sophie and Amelia poured everything they had into the spell. Vines erupted with even greater force, and the sky itself darkened with the weight of the magic. It was a final effort—one that would either break the horde or break them.
And as the beasts continued their relentless charge, the battle raged on.