On the west side, chaos took a sharper edge.
Sofie, Harry, and Slacovich stood their ground against the two deadliest opponents yet, Vaelis and Nereziel, a pair who didn't need words to kill. Their movements were synchronized, a harmony of destruction. When Vaelis struck, Nereziel was already behind her, blade raised. When Nereziel advanced, Vaelis had already forced the guard down.
Slacovich tried, fiercely, but each time he moved to block, he was thrown aside like dust against the wind.
Sofie called forth the six Shadow Guards, but even they couldn't pin the pair. Every strike was answered, every step anticipated. It was a dance the couple had perfected long before this war began.
Harry remained on the rear, analyzing, calculating. But Vaelis kept darting toward him, a blur of lethal grace, a predator aiming for the weakest link. Only, he wasn't. And that was her mistake.
"Separate them!" Harry shouted, finally spotting the fault in the pattern. "They're strong together. Break them."
Without hesitation, Slacovich gave the signal.
Three Shadow Guards lunged for Vaelis, forcing her back with blade and body, driving her away from the battlefield. Sofie and Harry followed, flanking her, keeping the distance.
Slacovich remained behind, Nereziel waiting for him, eyes narrowed in quiet fury.
Three Shadow Guards stood beside their commander.
And the moment they were apart--
Everything changed.
---
Nereziel faltered.
Not in skill. Not in speed. But in rhythm. The harmony was gone, the link severed. Slacovich noticed instantly.
They clashed, blades ringing like bells in a funeral storm.
Nereziel's blows were heavy, brutal. Slacovich met each with gritted teeth, the impact rattling his bones, but he did not fall.
---
Farther west, the battlefield pulsed with chaos, but in the middle of it all, Harry was still, eyes locked on his targets, hands ready for what came next.
And then it came.
Vaelis shot through the air like lightning loosed from the heavens, silent, fast, lethal.
She landed on Harry's shoulders in a blur of motion, hands already twisting to snap his neck with the finesse of a predator ending prey.
But the moment her grip tightened---
The Shadow Guards were there.
Three figures clad in smoke and steel lunged at her with brutal precision, blades drawn. She sensed them a breath too late. With a hiss, she launched off Harry's shoulders, flipping mid-air, landing a few paces back. Her glare burned with fury, lips curled in distaste.
She'd missed the kill.
Her eyes shifted from Harry to Sofie, the annoyance in her expression hardening into something colder. Crueler.
Then she moved.
She lunged at Sofie in a blur of silver. Their blades met with a clash that shook the earth beneath them.
Steel rang against steel.
Sparks flew like tiny comets around them.
Vaelis fought with brute strength and rage, each swing was heavy, punishing, meant to break bones and crush defenses. And they did. Sofie grunted with every impact, arms straining to block, ribs cracking under the pressure.
She staggered once.
Twice.
But she didn't fall.
Even as blood traced a path down her side, even as her arms trembled under the force of Vaelis' onslaught, Sofie held.
Until she didn't.
Until something inside her snapped.
Fangs erupted from her lips, her eyes flared with otherworldly fire, and her body surged forward with power awakened.
With a hiss of breath, Sofie transformed.
And beside her, so did Harry.
He stood taller. Stronger. Veins lit with energy, his presence no longer the quiet intellect of a scientist, but the coiled danger of a predator ready to strike.
They didn't wait.
Together, they rushed in.
Vaelis snarled as the tide shifted. She met them mid-air, but the balance of power had tilted. They were faster now. Stronger. More precise.
She wouldn't be overpowered, not by a monarch and a lab rat.
With a furious cry, she ascended, rising high above the battlefield, silver rippling across her body like liquid armor.
Then her final form ignited.
Wings of silver exploded outward, no longer soft or feathered, but jagged, bladed, cruel.
Each feather was a dagger.
Each beat of her wings stirred a maelstrom.
She spun midair, gathering momentum. The blades detached, circling her like a hurricane of metal, forming a swirling vortex of death and sound. The air screamed as the storm launched downward, razor-sharp feathers coming down like a thousand guillotine blades.
It was death in all directions.
But Sofie and Harry didn't run.
They didn't even brace.
Because they had already taken the serum.
It surged through their bloodstreams, turning their pain into power, their vulnerability into fire.
Sofie's sword danced in her grip, deflecting the blades with grace honed by war. Each one she struck melted on impact, silver dissolving before it could draw blood.
Harry moved like wind between blades, spinning, ducking, parrying with terrifying calm. The storm could not touch him.
Vaelis screamed in frustration and unleashed more. Faster. Sharper. Deadlier. The sky darkened with her wrath.
But Sofie didn't falter.
She stepped through the storm, unyielding, lifting her blade as the whirlwind howled.
"So this is all you are without him?" her voice rang out over the chaos. "Silver and fear."
It hit like a slap.
Vaelis snarled. Her focus faltered. She let anger guide her next wave, sharper, but sloppier.
And that was her mistake.
In her desperation to drown Sofie in blades, she left a blind spot.
She never saw Harry vanish into the shadow of her storm.
Never felt him at her back.
Until it was too late.
He lunged in a blink.
One syringe stabbed into her left eye. She screamed.
Another jammed into her right. She shrieked louder.
Before she could retaliate, Harry forced two vials into her mouth.
Sofie appeared before her in the same instant and slammed her fist into Vaelis' gut, making her swallow them in one choking gasp.
The scream that tore from Vaelis' throat shook the clouds.
Silver spilled from her eyes like tears. Her skin cracked with glowing fractures, and her wings twitched violently. The bladed feathers dropped like broken glass.
Her body convulsed midair.
Then fell.
Sofie followed her down, landing softly beside the twitching heap of silver and blood.
She didn't hesitate.
Her blade drove clean through Vaelis' chest.
The silver screamed.
Then purged.
Her body crumbled.
Ash swept away in the wind.
And across the battlefield, from the east, Nereziel felt it.
Felt the absence where she once stood. Felt the link break. Felt the silence where her heartbeat had always echoed next to his.
His eyes burned.
His control shattered.
And in that breath of grief, he stopped being composed.
He became wrath.
---
Nereziel roared.
It wasn't just fury, it was grief. A soul-drenched scream that cracked the air, raw and primal, laced with the anguish of watching Vaelis collapse into dust. He had been composed, elegant, unshakable, until now. Now, rage eclipsed reason.
Silver detonated from his skin like a bomb.
Blades, shards, spikes, an eruption of cursed metal lashed out in every direction, warping the air with its heat and velocity. The earth cratered beneath him from the sheer pressure of it.
And then he charged.
A blur of silver and hate.
But Slacovich didn't flinch.
He met the oncoming storm head-on, shifting mid-breath into his full vampire form. His body elongated, sharpened, wings spread wide with a rustle like unsheathing a thousand swords. Muscles surged under darkened flesh. His eyes glowed not with malice, but cold, calculated fire.
The moment of collision thundered across the battlefield.
Silver met flesh.
And for a heartbeat, it looked like Slacovich might be torn apart.
Spikes rammed through his abdomen, shoulder, thigh. One burst through his chest, nearly grazing his heart. He staggered, only slightly. Blood should have pooled. Organs should have failed.
But they didn't.
Because the serum was already coursing through his veins.
The silver hissed and bubbled on contact. Every spike that pierced his body began to melt, sizzling down to harmless sludge. His wounds closed as quickly as they opened, veins knitting together, skin sealing with supernatural precision.
Still, he held on.
His arms wrapped around Nereziel like a vice, locking him in place. Muscles trembling with force. Every fiber of his being resisting the instinct to recoil. He didn't yield an inch. He gritted his teeth against the pain, drawing from a well deeper than just strength.
He wasn't just fighting for survival.
He was holding the last perfect Reaper in place.
It became a war of attrition.
For every spike Nereziel summoned, Slacovich's body took the blow, then rejected it. Melted it. Rebuilt itself. Over and over.
But even a leader forged in fire had limits.
His grip began to falter.
His arms bled, then healed, then bled again. A cycle that could not go on forever. Bones creaked. Eyes flickered. Heartbeat stuttered under the strain of unrelenting regeneration.
Would the silver run dry first, or would Slacovich's endurance?
Sofie didn't wait for the answer.
She launched forward like a comet, her silhouette cutting through the ash still falling from Vaelis' remains. Her sword glinted, but she didn't strike, not yet. Instead, she landed beside the locked figures and drove a dagger into Nereziel's gut, deep enough to break concentration. He choked on a scream.
"Now!" she barked.
With merciless precision, she yanked his head back, jammed the first vial into his mouth, then the second. Nereziel struggled. Screamed. Tried to bite. But Slacovich held fast.
The third vial. Then the fourth.
Sofie didn't hesitate. She rammed the hilt of her blade into his stomach to force the serums down his throat.
Nereziel's body convulsed.
Silver poured from his pores like mercury in agony, streaking his skin in glistening rivers. His shrieks turned inhuman, echoed with pain that no being should endure. Eyes rolled. Hands twitched. His wings shattered mid-flare into shards of useless silver.
Slacovich finally let go.
Nereziel collapsed to his knees, smoking, hollow, broken.
His breath came in ragged gasps, every one weaker than the last.
Slacovich didn't speak.
He just stepped forward, raised his blade, and brought it down with terrifying finality.
Nereziel's head hit the scorched ground with a dull, final thud.
And then his body, once regal and formidable, dissolved into ash.
The silver was gone.
The battlefield quieted, for a breath.
But the message was clear.
Two perfect Reapers had fallen.
And somewhere in the distance, Zevien was still fighting.
But this---
This was Slacovich's answer to Volton's chaos.
No gods. No monsters.
Just fire-forged resolve.