Chapter 159: Died in the dark
The forest air burned with the acrid stench of volatile chemicals and scorched pine.
Smoke drifted between the trees in thick, twisting ribbons, turning the once-peaceful forest into something that resembled a battlefield ripped from a nightmare. Broken branches littered the ground. Several trees had been stripped of their bark, while others smoldered from earlier attacks. The earth itself had been torn apart in countless places, leaving shallow craters and trenches scattered across the clearing.
The battle had gone on long enough that there was hardly any untouched ground left.
Empowered by the forbidden seal on her tongue, Kira moved like a wild, ravenous phantom. Her eyes were completely bloodshot, dark veins bulging along her jawline as her unstable mana shattered Lyrielle’s wind barriers with a point-blank chemical detonation.
The forbidden seal pulsed violently every time Kira breathed.
Whatever power it was giving her came at an obvious cost. Her movements were becoming increasingly erratic, yet somehow that made her more dangerous. There was no hesitation anymore. No calculation. No concern for her own safety.
She fought as though death itself had ceased to matter.
Lyrielle barely managed to reinforce the barrier before the unstable mana collided with it.
The translucent wall of compressed wind trembled.
Cracks spread across its surface.
Then—
BOOM!
The concussive force blew Lyrielle backward. The high-elf tumbled through the dirt, her robes singed, her breath caught in her throat as her vision blurred.
Her fingers dug into the soil as she desperately tried to regain her bearings.
For a brief moment, everything sounded distant.
The ringing in her ears drowned out the crackling flames and the distant sounds of battle. Her lungs struggled to draw in enough air, while her body screamed at her to stay down.
But Lyrielle knew better.
Staying down meant dying.
She forced one trembling hand against the ground.
Her staff was several feet away.
She reached toward it.
Kira didn’t miss the opening. Shadow-stepping through the rising smoke in a jagged blur, she materialized directly in Lyrielle’s blind spot. Her dual shadow-daggers dripped with corrosive purple aura as she brought them down, aimed straight for Lyrielle’s exposed throat.
"Die!" Kira shrieked.
Lyrielle’s pupils contracted.
She couldn’t move in time.
The daggers descended.
Inches from impact, the canopy above exploded into a blinding flash of golden light.
The sudden radiance illuminated the entire clearing.
For a fraction of a second, even Kira’s crazed expression changed.
Surprise.
Then came the roar.
[Blast Breath]
A roaring beam of superheated dragonfire tore through the branches, slamming into the earth directly between Kira and Lyrielle. The raw kinetic impact and searing heat forced Kira to abort her kill-strike, vaulting backward as the ground detonated into a shower of molten rock and dirt.
The force of the attack ripped through the clearing.
Leaves became ash.
Branches snapped.
The surrounding grass flattened beneath the pressure.
Kira landed several meters away, skidding across the dirt before digging one dagger into the ground to stop herself.
Her head slowly lifted.
Through the clearing smoke, Vetra landed heavily on her feet, golden dragon scales gleaming along her arms and neck, her eyes burning with fierce, unyielding aura.
Heat radiated from her body.
For several seconds, neither woman moved.
Vetra stood between Kira and Lyrielle.
It wasn’t merely a defensive stance.
It was a declaration.
Anyone who wanted to reach Lyrielle would have to go through her first.
"Get away from her," Vetra growled.
The words were quiet.
Yet the threat behind them was unmistakable.
Kira tilted her head.
A twisted grin slowly spread across her face.
Lyrielle pushed herself up, catching her breath as she planted her staff firmly into the soil beside Vetra. "I am fine... together now!"
Vetra glanced sideways at her.
"You sure?"
Lyrielle wiped the dirt from the corner of her mouth.
"Absolutely."
The high-elf tightened her grip around her staff.
The two women exchanged a single look.
That was all they needed.
Without a second of hesitation, the two coordinated seamlessly. Lyrielle struck the butt of her staff into the earth, channeling every ounce of her remaining mana into a localized cyclone.
The air screamed.
Dust, leaves, pebbles, and fragments of broken branches were sucked into the rapidly forming vortex.
Kira’s expression hardened.
She immediately recognized the danger.
A shadow-step required space.
More importantly, it required control over the surrounding spatial shadows.
Lyrielle was taking that away.
[Atmospheric Compression: Vacuum Vortex]
High-pressure wind currents slammed together around Kira, creating a swirling wall of dense air that sealed off her spatial movements and prevented her from shadow-stepping. Trapped inside the funnel, Kira snarled, raising her daggers to cut through the gale.
Her blades sliced through the air.
The pressure simply regenerated.
She tried stepping backward.
The vortex dragged her toward its center.
She tried to force her shadow beneath her feet.
The compressed atmosphere distorted the shadow before she could properly enter it.
Kira’s eyes widened.
For the first time since activating the forbidden seal, frustration appeared on her face.
"Get off me!"
She swung both daggers outward.
Purple corrosive energy erupted from their edges, eating through the surrounding wind.
But Lyrielle gritted her teeth and poured even more mana into the spell.
Blood trickled from one corner of her nose.
She ignored it.
Vetra surged forward through the center of the vortex. Coated in shimmering crimson scales, Vetra bypassed the violent air currents effortlessly, driving her scaled fist straight through Kira’s raised guard.
THUMMM-CRACK!
The brutal impact caught Kira flush in the sternum. The sheer physical force shattered her momentum, instantly disrupting the dark mana flowing from her tongue-sigil. Kira’s eyes rolled back, and she collapsed limp into the dirt, completely unconscious.
Her daggers fell beside her.
One bounced once.
Then silence returned.
For several seconds, Lyrielle simply stared.
Vetra remained in her fighting stance, staring down at Kira.
"She’s down," Lyrielle finally said.
Vetra slowly lowered her fist.
"Then let’s hope she stays down."
Lyrielle exhaled shakily.
Her legs nearly gave out.
Vetra caught her by the shoulder.
"Easy."
"I’m fine."
"You keep saying that."
"And I’m still standing."
Vetra snorted.
"Technically."
Neither of them noticed the distant figure watching through the smoke.
Fifty paces away, Vesper watched the last of his squad fall.
His eyes remained fixed on Kira’s motionless body.
For a moment, he couldn’t process what he was seeing.
Kira had been the final one.
The last shadow beside him.
The final blade of the Death Crows.
He dragged himself up against the shattered trunk of an oak, blood leaking from his mouth, his dark shortsword trembling in his grip. Brian. Gideon. Sara. And now Kira.
One by one.
Every name.
Every face.
Every mission.
Every night spent believing that the Death Crows could survive anything.
Gone.
A hollow, agonizing silence settled over him. The wild, berserk frenzy in his mind dissolved into something far worse: a profound, crushing despair. The Death Crows were gone.
Vesper lowered his head.
His shoulders trembled.
He could hear the crackling of burning branches.
The distant roar of dragonfire.
The ragged breathing of survivors.
Yet none of it seemed real anymore.
The forest had become strangely quiet.
His squad was dead.
His purpose was gone.
And the man responsible was standing only a short distance away.
"Vince..." Vesper whispered, his voice stripped of all composure, leaving behind only the raw, fanatic desperation of a man who had lost everything.
His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword.
There was no strategy left.
No escape route.
No backup.
No future.
Only one final objective.
Kill Vince.
Even if it killed him.
He didn’t care about survival anymore. Burning every remaining drop of his soul-mana, Vesper merged his physical body with spatial distortion, turning himself into a streak of jagged, black lightning.
The transformation was violent.
Space warped around his body.
The air compressed.
For a brief instant, his physical form seemed to disappear entirely.
Then—
He lunged at Vince in a high-speed, lethal dance.
SWISH!
Vince’s head turned.
Too late.
Vesper executed a frame-perfect ghost-blade strike. The spatial edge barely grazed Vince’s cheek, drawing a thin crimson line across his dragon scales—the very first blood drawn in the entire fight.
A single drop rolled down Vince’s cheek.
He touched it with his fingers.
His eyes narrowed.
So that was the level Vesper had been hiding.
Vince didn’t flinch. He countered instantly with an explosive [Dragon Scale Elbow], but Vesper shadow-stepped mid-swing, leaving behind a solid shadow decoy. Vince’s strike pulverized the decoy, but it shattered into a spray of spatial shrapnel that sliced through Vince’s shoulder guard.
Vince twisted away from the fragments.
Several pieces struck his scales.
None penetrated deeply.
But Vesper was already gone.
They traded high-speed blows across the clearing. Vince slammed forward with crushing dragon-powered punches and kinetic shockwave pulses, while Vesper ducked and weaved with terrifying, high-risk precision, his spatial cuts leaving razor-thin scars along Vince’s scaled arms.
Every exchange sent another shockwave through the forest.
A tree exploded as Vince’s fist missed its target.
Vesper appeared above him.
Vince raised an arm.
A spatial blade scraped across his scales.
Vince retaliated with a spinning kick.
Vesper vanished.
He appeared behind Vince.
Another strike.
Vince turned.
Another miss.
The assassin’s movements were almost impossible to follow with ordinary vision.
But Vince wasn’t relying on ordinary vision anymore.
It was a brilliant, tragic display of an assassin master fighting at his absolute peak.
Every movement had purpose.
Every feint concealed another attack.
Every retreat was designed to create another angle.
Vesper wasn’t stronger than Vince.
He knew that.
He wasn’t tougher either.
He knew that too.
His advantage was precision.
Experience.
And the ability to make space itself into a weapon.
But Vince was already reading the rhythm.
The longer the fight continued, the more predictable Vesper became.
Not because Vesper was slowing down.
Because Vince was learning.
One step.
One feint.
One spatial distortion.
One attack.
Again.
And again.
Vesper lunged.
Vince shifted.
Vesper vanished.
Vince turned.
The assassin’s attacks were becoming a sequence rather than chaos.
A pattern.
And Vince finally saw it.
As Vesper lunged for a final, heart-piercing thrust, Vince’s eyes flared with a deep, golden light—activating [Dragon’s Eye]. He tracked the spatial distortion in real time.
The world seemed to slow.
Vesper’s body remained blurred.
But the distortion around him didn’t.
Vince could see the ripple.
The direction.
The point where space was being bent.
The attacker’s destination.
There.
Instead of dodging, Vince reached out with his scale-armored palm, clamping his hand directly onto the blade of Vesper’s sword.
CLANG!
Vesper’s expression shattered.
For the first time, genuine fear appeared in his eyes.
He tried to pull the sword away.
It didn’t move.
Vince’s grip tightened.
Before Vesper could disengage, Vince counter-pivoted, grabbing Vesper by the collar and driving his knee brutally into Vesper’s chest as he violently slammed him spine-first into the dirt.
BOOM!
The earth shattered beneath Vesper’s back. Vince pinned him down with absolute, crushing weight, his knee locked onto Vesper’s chest, pressing the breath from his lungs. Vesper’s shadow-blade slipped from his numb fingers, dissolving into harmless smoke.
The assassin tried to move.
Nothing.
His arms trembled beneath him.
His spatial mana flickered.
Vince stared down at him.
For the first time, there was no uncertainty in his expression.
The fight was over.
Pinned and helpless, Vesper lay hyperventilating in the dirt. Blood leaked from his lips, but his bloodshot eyes stared up at Vince with a wild, fanatic sneer.
"You think... you’ve won?" Vesper spat, a bloody laugh bubbling in his throat. "You haven’t... won anything..."
Vince frowned.
"What are you talking about?"
Vesper’s grin widened.
The expression wasn’t one of a defeated man.
It was the expression of someone who had been waiting.
Waiting for this exact moment.
His fingers slowly curled against the dirt.
"You should have killed me faster."
Vince’s instincts screamed.
Something was wrong.
Suddenly, the charred, ash-gray bat tattoo on Vesper’s forearm ignited.
The symbol burned across his skin like a living brand.
It didn’t just glow—it erupted with a blinding, violent wave of blood-crimson and pitch-black light, overriding its burned state as Vesper poured his entire remaining life-force into the seal.
The temperature around them dropped.
Then rose.
Then seemed to fluctuate wildly as unstable mana flooded the ground.
Vince’s eyes narrowed, sensing the sudden surge of lethal mana. But Vesper wasn’t targeting himself.
The assassin’s grin became almost peaceful.
"Died in the dark... all of us..." Vesper cackled maniacally.
Vince immediately tried to move.
But Vesper had already completed the first stage.
Instead of a self-detonation, Vesper channeled the entire volatile payload directly into the earth beneath them, converting the soil right under Vince’s feet into a dense, compressed spatial landmine.
The ground beneath Vince began to pulse.
Once.
Twice.
Like a gigantic heartbeat.
Vince realized the trap a microsecond too late.
His muscles tensed.
His body reacted before his thoughts could fully catch up.
He tried to leap.
Too late.
THROB—
The sound was strangely quiet.
Almost insignificant.
Then everything disappeared beneath a wall of light.
Before Vince could leap clear or form a dragon-scale barrier, the ground underneath them exploded into a cataclysmic, blinding shockwave of black spatial fire and roaring kinetic force.
BOOOOOOM!
The explosion ripped outward in every direction.
Trees snapped.
The forest floor buckled.
Chunks of earth were thrown high into the air as the shockwave tore through the clearing.
Lyrielle’s eyes widened.
"VINCE!"
Vetra immediately turned toward the explosion.
Her expression changed.
The golden light from her scales reflected against the enormous black cloud now swallowing the battlefield.
The blast continued expanding.
The trees nearest to the epicenter were flattened.
A wall of dust and debris rushed toward them.
Vetra planted both feet into the earth and spread her arms.
"Behind me!"
Lyrielle barely had time to react.
A violent wave of pressure slammed into them.
Vetra’s scales flared as she resisted the force, shielding Lyrielle from the worst of it.
The two women stared helplessly into the enormous cloud.
Neither could see Vince.
Neither could see Vesper.
Only the burning forest remained visible through the darkness.
Then, slowly, the shockwave began to fade.
Silence descended.
Not the peaceful silence of a forest.
A dead silence.
A silence that felt like the world itself was holding its breath.
Vetra’s fists clenched.
"Vince..."
Lyrielle stared into the smoke, her heart pounding.
"He couldn’t have..."
She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Neither woman moved.
Deep within the crater, something shifted.
A faint metallic scraping sound echoed through the darkness.
Then another.
Something was moving.
Something was still alive.
The smoke churned.
A shadow appeared within it.
Tall.
Motionless.
And completely obscured.
Vetra’s eyes narrowed.
Lyrielle raised her staff.
The figure took one slow step forward.
The forest waited.
And then—
A pair of purple eyes opened inside the smoke.