Year: 7002 A.A. | Location: The war-scarred courtyard of Valoria, on the eastern slope of the High Keep
The courtyard stones were still warm from the battles earlier that day, but the air above them carried a chill — not from wind, but from the electric, unnatural stillness that precedes violence.
Kopa crouched low, his stance compact but coiled like a spring that could be released at any instant. Each breath he drew seemed to scrape his throat raw, a quiet hiss in his chest betraying the slow war Trask's poison was waging inside his body. Around him, faint tendrils of mana flickered and guttered like candle flames caught in a draft — unsteady, unreliable, but still burning.
Opposite him, the insect tracient stood with a kind of lazy menace, his segmented form shifting as if each movement was a deliberate display of what his unnatural body could do. Chitinous plates overlapped along his torso, glistening like oiled armor. The faint, almost subliminal hum of his gossamer wings was constant — a droning note that seemed to settle behind Kopa's eyes, irritating in a way that was as much psychological warfare as it was sound. His insect legs flexed and straightened with a subtle rustle, each motion reminding Kopa of a spider testing its web.
The sunlight, filtered through the roiling gray of storm clouds, fell in fractured beams over the courtyard. One such beam glanced across the mark etched boldly into the insect's shoulder — the Hazël rank #15. Not painted. Not worn as insignia. It was carved into him, as if the flesh itself had been branded by rank. The way the scar caught the light was unnerving, as though it were alive.
Kopa's sharp, almost predatory eyes took in every detail. He had been in enough battles to know the danger of letting an opponent's appearance intimidate him — but it was not the grotesque chitin or the unnatural insectoid anatomy that concerned him. It was the aura.
It pressed against him now, as tangible as an iron door, carrying with it the acrid taste of venom and the bone-deep wrongness that marked certain predators. He felt it not just on his skin but in his bones, in the marrow itself. For most, such pressure would gnaw at the edges of their mind until they flinched or faltered. Kopa had learned long ago to let it wash over him without yielding. That was the only reason he could still stand here without bowing his head.
He spoke first, his tone measured, as though reciting something half-remembered.
"I heard of an insect monster who decimated and devoured his siblings and parents moments after escaping the egg."
The words hung in the air, heavier than they had sounded in his mind. He knew this was not idle rumor — the story had reached him years ago, told in the hushed tones reserved for only the worst of the Hazël's atrocities.
"Even though the insect clan has long been banished, your deeds were so vile that they're still spoken of today. Trask the Horrible."
For the smallest instant, he thought he saw Trask's mandibles twitch in satisfaction — not at the accusation, but at the acknowledgment.
A low, clicking laugh vibrated from the insect tracient's throat, not unlike the sound of bones being cracked in rhythm.
"Is that right? So I'm famous?"
The clicks quickened, the rhythm tight and hungry.
"What an honor…"
He broke from his slow hover, wings folding in, and descended with the kind of weight that suggested each leg was tipped with a killing edge. His landing made the stone beneath him tremble faintly, a sound felt through the soles of Kopa's hooves more than heard.
"…to be acknowledged by the Viceroy of ArchenLand. What's your rank again? #17?"
The words were a feint of their own — not meant to gather information, but to strip dignity from the title.
Kopa's ear twitched, almost imperceptibly, the way a wolf's might before a strike. He did not allow the insult to draw any further reaction. There was no point in denying the rank — the shadow took perverse pleasure in peeling away a warrior's composure layer by layer. Better to offer them no grip at all.
The space between them seemed to shrink without either moving, the mana-pressure thickening until the very air felt denser. It was no longer the kind of tension that one could simply ignore — it clung to the lungs, to the muscles, urging them to brace.
Kopa's senses sharpened. As a sensory type, he was cursed and blessed with an awareness that most tracients never experienced. He could feel Trask's killing intent the way others might feel a sudden drop in temperature. It slid around him like oil, probing for weakness, feeding into the almost ceremonial weight of this confrontation. He imagined, in some corner of his mind, that even the stones of Valoria had begun to listen.
His own aura rose to meet it — not flaring outward in showy bursts of power, but steady, deliberate, like a fortress wall built stone by stone. His mind sifted through every subtle shift in Trask's stance, every faint whine of his wings, every restless adjustment of his legs. Nothing could be wasted here — not breath, not thought, not time.
Still, somewhere deep inside, beneath the discipline and steel of his focus, he could not entirely shut out the awareness of what Trask was: the story of an egg newly cracked, of siblings clawed and devoured before they had even spoken their first word, of a mother's carapace split open under the same fangs now clicking idly before him. It was not fear that these images stirred — Kopa had known fear before — but a grim, cold certainty that he was staring at something born without the smallest particle of mercy.
And yet, he did not take a step back.
Kopa's voice rang out across the courtyard, low but cutting.
"How did you get in?"
The question was more than suspicion — it was an accusation, sharpened to pierce. His stance did not waver, but his eyes locked on Trask's grotesque face with an intensity that made the air feel brittle.
"Lord Thrax's shield is practically impenetrable," he continued, each word delivered with the measured clarity of someone accustomed to weighing his accusations. "Any attempt to break it would have been detected long before now. Who is the traitor?"
The very mention of a traitor left a bitter taste in his mouth. Valoria was supposed to be secure. The High Keep's shield, The Eternal Shell — a shimmering barrier of mana that hung like an invisible wall above the city — was more than a defense; it was a statement of unassailable authority. For an enemy of this caliber to be standing here meant one of two things: a cataclysmic breach in magic, or a willing hand had turned the key from within.
Trask's compound eyes reflected faint fragments of the storm-choked light, their glossy surfaces catching and bending the world around them into warped, insectile visions. He tilted his head slightly, and for a moment Kopa thought he might speak plainly. But instead, the tracient's mandibles clicked together in a slow, deliberate rhythm — a sound that felt both mocking and patient, like a predator savoring the moment before the kill.
"You Narnans always want to play the clever one," Trask said at last, the sneer in his tone underlined by a faint buzzing in his throat.
The name stung, though not for the insult itself. It was the way Trask said it — as if "Narnan" were a flavor he could spit from his mouth at will.
"But enough talk."
There was no pause, no shift in expression, only a sudden and violent motion.
Trask launched forward in a blur, wings opening with a sharp crack of air. Mana flared around him, not in a steady glow but in jagged bursts, as though the very force driving him forward was eager to tear at anything in its path. The courtyard stones rang under the sudden acceleration, pebbles scattering like startled birds.
But Kopa had been watching. Every twitch, every weight shift, every faint pull in the tracient's aura had been accounted for. His body responded before conscious thought had time to interfere.
His arms shifted and split, skin pulling back to reveal the living green beneath. In an instant, his forearms became thick, thorn-lined stems, their bark ridged and fibrous, the air around them faintly scented with sap. His stance widened, and he braced for the strike.
When Trask hit, the impact was like two battering rams colliding. The ground beneath them trembled, a crack running through one of the courtyard stones with a sharp report. The shock travelled up Kopa's arms, rattling his bones even through the plant-form armor, but he held.
"You're strong," Trask admitted, his mandibles clicking in what might have been amusement — or hunger.
The grin that followed was all teeth and malice.
"But it's not enough."
From beneath the overlapping plates of Trask's abdomen, a second pincer shot forward — an unnatural, whip-like appendage tipped with a chitin blade. It darted toward Kopa's side with the speed and precision of a striking viper.
The strike landed, piercing through Kopa's ribs — only for the Viceroy's form to splinter into dry wood and scatter like shards.
Trask froze, compound eyes darting in disbelief. The thing he had pierced was no longer flesh but a wooden effigy, sap weeping like blood from the wound.
From behind him, Kopa's voice came, calm but edged with a quiet satisfaction.
"You let your guard down."
The wooden double he had left behind erupted with life. Vines — thick, thorned, and impatient — exploded outward from the substitution, wrapping around Trask's body. They coiled tight, their barbs digging between the chitin plates, seeking purchase in the narrow seams of his armor.
The tracient writhed, mandibles clacking in fury as the vines squeezed. The sound was ugly — a groan of bending chitin mixed with the wet creak of vine fibers under strain.
"NO!" Trask's cry was not a plea but a roar of outrage. His wings thrashed, throwing off gusts of stale, hot air, but the vines tightened, pulling him in as if the earth itself had decided it no longer wanted him free.
The courtyard floor shuddered as Kopa stepped back. His wooden arms softened, bark peeling away as the plant form receded, the green fading back into skin. His breath was heavy, but each exhale was steady, deliberate, as though he were pacing himself for the next inevitable exchange.
The vines constricted one final time before the tension in them lessened, slackening into stillness.
Kopa did not look away.
Inside, his thoughts were coldly pragmatic: the substitution had worked, but not without cost. His mana reserves had taken another hit, and his side ached where his real body had narrowly escaped Trask's pincer. Still — it was a wound avoided, and a moment won.
But then—
The voice came from behind, cold and unmistakably pleased with itself.
"So, it was a substitution."
Kopa turned sharply, his eyes narrowing. The vines still writhed where they had crushed Trask moments ago, but the thing inside them was no longer his opponent — only a hollow shell, a brittle, empty husk of chitin that split and curled in on itself like an abandoned casing.
Trask stood several paces away, wholly untouched. The sheen of his armor caught what little light the clouded sky still allowed, and his compound eyes glittered with a predator's satisfaction.
"I'm impressed," he went on, the casual venom in his voice making the words sound more like mockery than praise. "I almost fell for it."
Kopa's jaw tightened. The flicker of satisfaction from before — the small moment of advantage — was gone, replaced with the cold weight of reality.
"Then let's finish this."
He didn't raise his voice; there was no need. The words carried on the mana-laden air between them, heavy with the inevitability of a challenge accepted.
Trask's smile widened.
"Karanlık Yumruğu: Gölge Kovan!"
The name rolled off his mandibles with ritualistic force, and the air behind him blackened. It wasn't just a cloud — it was alive.
A swarm poured forth, their wings creating a furious, suffocating drone. The sound wasn't merely loud; it was layered — a hundred pitches at once, weaving into a vibration that crawled under the skin and made the air itself feel hostile. The swarm's density blotted out the broken light of the sky, turning the courtyard into a shrinking box of shadow.
Kopa didn't wait. The earth was already listening for his call.
He slammed his palms into the ground, the mana in his body flowing down into the soil like water into thirsty roots.
"Gaia's Touch: Diken Yağmuru!"
The courtyard answered with violence.
From the cracked stones and from the flesh of his own transformed arms, thorns erupted — not in a scattered trickle, but in a sudden, unrelenting storm. They flew in all directions, a rain of barbed green that cut the air with a hiss.
The swarm screamed. It wasn't a sound from their throats — insects did not scream — but from the tearing of their bodies, the shredding of countless wings, the crunch of chitin under thorn. The wave of buzzing faltered, broke, and fell apart, dissolving into a cloud of twitching remains.
When the last of them hit the ground, the air was suddenly too quiet, the ringing in Kopa's ears filling the space where the swarm had been. He straightened, thorns retracting back into his arms, the living wood and bark sinking beneath skin once more.
"My Arcem directly counters yours, Trask," he said, allowing a smirk to touch his lips. "You can't beat me."
Trask's antennae flickered — a faint, jerking movement that was almost imperceptible unless you knew to watch for it. The tracient's mandibles spread in a grin that did not touch his eyes.
"We'll see about that."
He surged forward, wings snapping open just enough to propel him in bursts between strikes. His pincers clashed against Kopa's thorned arms, the sound of their blows like stone meeting stone. The fight compressed into a flurry of sharp impacts and narrow parries, each moment shorter than the one before, the pace building as though the battle itself wanted to burn through both of them.
The courtyard stones splintered under the weight of their movements. Every blow that missed its mark shattered something else — a column, a stair, a section of wall that crumbled into dust. The storm overhead began to spit the first cold drops of rain, each one sizzling faintly where it struck the mana auras surrounding them.
But in the midst of the clash, something wrong began to whisper at the edges of Kopa's awareness.
His foot dragged a fraction longer than it should have after a step. His next strike felt heavy, as though the air itself resisted his movement. His breath came shorter, his chest rising and falling too quickly for the effort he thought he was expending.
And then, with a sinking certainty, he understood.
Poison.
The realization came not as panic, but as the cold alignment of facts. The faint, clinging cloud that still hovered between them — the broken remains of the swarm — was not merely battlefield debris. It was laced with something insidious, something he had already breathed too deeply.
The weight in his limbs was not fatigue. It was intrusion.
Trask's grin grew broader, his compound eyes reflecting the smallest flicker of triumph.
Kopa's vision swam in faint ripples of green and black. The poison was a quiet conqueror now — not rushing in like a flood, but seeping into every breath, every pulse, quietly laying claim to his body. He clenched his jaw, refusing to give Trask the satisfaction of seeing the weakness take hold.
His fingers pressed into the cracked courtyard stone until they found the stubborn, living thread of a root far beneath. He pulled on it with his will, coaxing life from the earth. A small sprout broke through the stone between his hand and knee, trembling under the strain of its unnatural summoning.
It was no more than a single leaf and stem, pale and unsteady, but it carried the quiet heartbeat of healing mana. Kopa knew it would take time — time he did not have — yet the act of summoning it was as much defiance as it was desperation.
Trask's shadow blotted out what little light reached him. The insect tracient's posture was relaxed now, assured. His pincers gleamed like cruel crescent moons, reflecting the dark sky above.
"You were a challenge," Trask admitted, his voice a slow, savoring drawl, "but now it's over."
The words might have been the closing of a chapter, the final snapping shut of the book of their battle — but Kopa wasn't ready to yield the last word. He lifted his head, eyes narrowing with a grin that did not match the weakness in his limbs.
"You may want to move," he said, his voice edged with something sharper than pain. "If you want to live."
It was not a bluff.
Trask's compound eyes flickered in brief confusion — and then a shadow swallowed them both.
It came not as a creeping darkness, but as a sudden eclipse. The ground trembled beneath them, dust leaping from between the stones as if trying to escape what was coming.
The impact that followed was a deep, resonant crack that rolled through the courtyard like a drumbeat. The air itself seemed to stagger under it. Trask reacted on instinct, his wings flaring once before he vaulted backward, landing light on his feet just beyond the growing cloud of dust.
Kopa remained where he was, his body swaying slightly but his eyes fixed on the form within the haze.
From the heart of that settling dust came a voice — calm in tone, but carrying the weight of a command that allowed no disobedience.
"Are you alright, Kopa?"
Relief did not often pass over Kopa's face in battle, but now it softened the tight line of his mouth. He allowed himself the smallest exhale, tasting iron and dust in the air.
"Yes, my King," he answered, his voice low but steady. "I'm sorry you had to see me like this."
The voice that replied was neither dismissive nor indulgent — only direct, the way a blade is direct in its work.
"You're forgiven, Viceroy."
Then, sharper:
"However…"
The dust peeled away like a curtain drawn aside, unveiling the figure that had descended into their fight.
Darius stood in full, unhidden presence. His light brown fur caught the fractured shafts of sunlight that broke through the clouds, each strand seeming to glint with its own quiet fire. His frame was broad and heavy with muscle, the kind earned in battlefields rather than training yards. On his shoulder, the Hazël insignia blazed — the rank #1 — as if the light itself bent to remind all who saw it who stood before them.
The bull horns arched proudly from his head, polished to a gleam, the sharp points glistening like ivory knives. His eyes — green, unyielding — fixed on Trask with the unspoken promise that this was no longer an even contest.
"…This is my fight."
He stepped forward once, and the air shifted. It was more than mana — though mana was there in abundance, flaring and roiling like the beginning of a storm that could strip a forest bare. It was the certainty of strength, the way mountains exist without needing to announce themselves.
Darius' fists clenched slowly, deliberately, the thick cords of muscle in his forearms flexing as his aura unfurled into the courtyard like an unrelenting tide. The storm overhead seemed to pause, as if the sky itself were watching to see what the King's Fist would do next.