Veralie moved with the speed of a sunbeam, her blade trailing ribbons of searing light that smelled of ozone as she sought a decisive strike against the man who had corrupted Adah. Sheut did not bother to dodge or block. He simply caught the blow with his bare hands.
Dust and sand exploded outward as if a sandstorm had been sucked into a tornado. Observers threw up arms and cloaks, shielding their eyes from the blast.
Stunned that the fiend would dare catch her strike with his hand, Veralie braced to cut him in half. Shock carved itself across her face when not only did he hold the blade, but he instantly forged a copy of it from shadow. She tried to wrench her saber free, but it did not budge.
"What monstrous strength. Did I misjudge his rank?" was her last coherent thought before his boot crashed into her chest.
Air fled her lungs. Another storm of dust trailed her hurtling body until she slammed into her squad, knocking several knights sprawling.
Sheut remained where the clash had begun, studying the saber of shadow in his grip. Watching Veralie struggle back to her feet, he smiled.
"Tsk, tsk, Commander," Sheut mocked, his voice a low rumble that rolled through the sudden silence. "I warned you about pussyfooting around. If you are going to swing that toothpick, you had better mean it."
Veralie crouched, catching her breath, her brow furrowing in a flicker of genuine anger. She raised her shield. A blinding flash of light charged and erupted from the lion-shaped crest at its center, a focused blast to erase the fiend before her.
Sheut laughed, a sharp, barking sound. Instead of recoiling, he reached into the blaze and grabbed it. His fingers trailed shadows like ink in water as he squeezed, crushing the radiance into nothingness.
"Wow, that attack actually packed a punch," he said, unfazed, "but you will need more than that to take me down." His grin only widened as he readied for the next exchange.
Noticing the way her light had actually scorched him, Veralie doubled down. She channeled radiance into her saber, imbuing it with a sharper, purer light aspect. Sheathing her shield, she advanced for close combat.
This time, she did not rush. She circled instead, closing in with the predatory patience of a hawk. Her movements were no longer a frantic blur but a series of calculated, rhythmic steps. The light in her saber did not just glow; it vibrated. Concentrated radiance hummed along the blade, pushing back the very air around her.
She was a veteran of the Order, and at last she was treating the "Shadow of the Queen" as the threat he truly was, not a mere nuisance.
Veralie lunged, not in a wild charge, but with a flurry of precise, blinding stabs. Each thrust left a trailing afterimage of light.
Sheut met her with the shadow-copy of her blade. No metallic ring followed. Each impact landed with a low boom, as if thunder muffled by a heavy velvet curtain. With every strike, sparks of white-hot light shaved away slivers of Sheut's shadow-saber. The highly polished sheen of his armor flickered where the light hit, darkness struggling to reform under the pure solar attribute.
"Good, good, very good," Sheut murmured, his voice a low, commanding growl that cut through the clash of elements. He stepped back, the sand at his feet bleeding outward in dark streaks as he repositioned. "But you are fighting to protect a status quo that is already dead. Adah is not your 'sister' anymore, Commander. She is the light that the shadows have chosen to follow."
Veralie drew in a slow breath and straightened, letting her stance settle. Her expression hardened.
"Mock me all you want," she spat, "but I will not fall for the same trick twice."
She adjusted her grip on the saber, signaling her readiness with controlled precision, intent on turning the tide. Brow furrowing in renewed focus, she planted her feet and swept the blade in a wide horizontal arc.
A crescent wave of pure, solid light erupted from the edge and howled toward Sheut with enough force to cleave an iron boulder in two. The impact hit like a divine hammer, kicking up a dust tornado three times the size of the first. This time, the surrounding observers were ready, shields and barriers braced against the blast.
When the sand finally settled, Veralie and Sheut stood far apart, both driven back by the exchange yet standing unharmed. Sheut's shadow sword crumbled away, dissolving into thin wisps of darkness.
Veralie was already at work, condensing light into floating orbs around her, each one glowing with a dense, volatile brilliance. With a sharp motion, she launched them toward Sheut.
He dropped into a loose batting stance.
Shadows surged from his hands, stretching and thickening into the shape of a baseball bat. Sheut swung with uncanny speed, meeting each orb in turn. Every impact shattered light and shadow into explosive blooms that lit the battlefield with strobing brilliance.
Veralie was winding up for what she intended as a final, decisive strike when the sound of pained cries cut through the chaos. Her focus snapped.
She spun toward her knights.
Many lay injured, scorched, or struggling to breathe. Some clutched at cracked shields, others simply knelt, gasping. Healers scrambled among them, frantically trying to mend what they could.
Realization hit her like its own kind of blow.
She turned back to the fiend, fury surging through the guilt.
"You attacked my men in a one v one! How despicable!" she snapped.
"Attacked them? I did no such thing," Sheut scoffed. "Do not blame me for your own lack of focus. Where did you think those silly little orbs would land after I deflected them? The moon?" He turned his head aside as if to hide his laughter, then added, barely holding it in, "Besides, the wind took that."
As if in protest, the wind suddenly died.
The desert and its surroundings grew noticeably hotter in the stillness. Laughter erupted from Queen Nandi's carriage at the sheer ridiculousness of the exchange. Even the ever-serious Big John could not hold back a chuckle.
Tail wagging in a slow, rhythmic pattern, General Kar watched in a mix of disbelief and amusement.
"Did nature dislike Sheut as much as he did?" he wondered.
He had no idea just how right he was.
Queen Nandi laughed with the effortless poise of a monarch. She covered her mouth delicately, emphasizing grace and modesty, while a melodic tone drifted from her lips instead of a vulgar roar.
Veralie was far beyond words.
Ignoring the fiend's antics, she answered with steel. She unleashed her fury through the flowing forms of the Sun Dance technique. Her blade became a shimmering arc, a streak of fire and light threatening to carve through the fiend's shadows with rhythmic, lethal grace.
She did not merely strike; she flowed. Her movements mirrored the rise of the sun itself, her silent rage channeled into a cinematic whirlwind of steel and radiance. With each spinning step and sweeping cut, she aimed to erase the devilish smile from Sheut's mocking face.
As the exchanges dragged on, the tide of the battle shifted with a sickening weight.
Veralie's attacks were no longer just parried. They were deflected with a crushing force that sent tremors through her arms and shoulders. Worse, she found herself besieged by her own technique. Every hour she had poured into mastering the Sun Dance, every repetition, every correction, every ounce of discipline, was now being used to dismantle her.
Sheut lacked her hard-earned refinement, but it did not matter. The raw power behind each of his blocks made her bones ring. He became a dark mirror; any opening his inexperience created was closed almost instantly. Her movements were copied, countered, and canceled out entirely.
The Radiantian soldiers stood slack-jawed, unable to look away from the scene unfolding before their eyes. They couldn't help but wonder if their fearless captain was on the verge of losing. One soldier stepped forward, breaking formation. ¨You can do it, captain! He´s nothing but a copycat! He didn't put in the blood, sweat, and tears into the craft! It's time to up the ante on him¨ he yelled from the pits of his guts. More soldiers followed suit and began yelling words of encouragement.
Veralie's chest heaved, every breath scraping like gravel against raw lungs. Her arms felt like lead, numb from shoulder to fingertip. Still, she refused to back down. Not after hearing the encouraging cries from her subordinates, encouraging her to prevail against this fiend. She summoned her last reserves of strength, her grip tightening around her weapon. The fiend loomed closer, its shadow menacing, but Veralie's resolve burned brighter.