A moment of stillness descended over the battlefield.
Kael's eyes darted left, scanning the shadows for movement but found nothing. He pivoted right, muscles tensed for an attack. Still nothing.
Then a faint rush of displaced air came from directly behind him.
He spun, but Lord Arid was faster this time.
The noble descended from above like a bird of prey, shadow blade aimed precisely at Kael's shoulder. Kael barely managed to raise his dagger in time, deflecting the strike, but the sheer force behind the blow drove him down to one knee, stone cracking beneath him.
Lord Arid's boot slammed into Kael's chest before he could recover.
Wham!
The impact sent Kael flying backward through the air. He hit the ground hard, rolled twice, and came up coughing dust and blood. His shoulder throbbed with sharp pain.
A burning sensation traced along his ribs where the shadow blade had grazed him mid-flight, leaving a shallow but searing wound.
Lord Arid approached slowly now, confidence restored. His weapon trailed behind him, scraping against stone with an unpleasant metallic screech.
"I thought you claimed you knew you could win," Lord Arid said with undisguised mockery.
Kael coughed, forcing himself upright despite protesting muscles. "I still do."
He wiped blood from his split lip with the back of his hand. His vision sharpened dramatically as adrenaline and his enhanced traits kicked into overdrive. Every detail of the gorge snapped into crystalline focus.
The scattered loose rocks. Jagged edges that could be used as cover or obstacles. The way flickering torchlight from above bounced off Lord Arid's shadow blade, revealing its trajectory milliseconds before each strike.
Night Predator synchronized with his breathing, his heartbeat, his very instincts.
Kael moved.
This time, he didn't charge straight ahead like before.
He broke left sharply, then cut right at an angle that forced Arid to adjust his stance. Then Kael vanished behind a large rock outcrop...
...only to reappear from the opposite side a heartbeat later, blade flashing upward in a vicious arc.
Lord Arid parried, but his timing was fractionally off.
Kael's dagger caught the noble across the forearm, a shallow cut, but it drew blood. Black mist hissed from the wound like steam, curling away into the air.
Lord Arid's expression didn't change, but his eyes narrowed dangerously.
Kael pressed his advantage harder.
He weaved between strikes now, reading every minute twitch of Arid's fingers, every subtle shift of weight in his feet. Another cut opened on Lord Arid's side. Then his shoulder. Then his thigh.
All shallow wounds, but the damage was accumulating steadily.
"Why are you still holding back?" Kael taunted, breathing hard but grinning.
Lord Arid didn't answer with words. Instead, he dropped to one knee and slammed his palm flat against the ground.
'Shadow Rift'
The earth split beneath Kael's feet with a sound like tearing fabric. A black void gaped open like a hungry maw. From within rose skeletal hands, twisted, unnatural things constructed from shadow and something that resembled bone but moved without order.
They reached upward, grasping for Kael's legs with horrifying intent.
Kael jumped, but one skeletal hand caught his ankle mid-air. The grip was impossibly strong. The arm twisted, flipping him, then slammed him into the ground with bone-rattling force that drove the air from his lungs.
More shadows surged upward from the rift, trying to drag him down into darkness.
Kael gritted his teeth and stabbed downward desperately. His dagger severed the hand gripping his ankle, but more came immediately, dozens of them, like the writhing tentacles of some deep-sea horror.
Too many. Far too many to fight individually.
He slashed frantically, kicked, burned through every reserve of strength trying to avoid being pulled into that void.
"Come on..." he hissed through clenched teeth, heart hammering against his ribs.
His eyes caught a sudden faint glow emanating from his dagger, the Abyssal Fang pulsing with power. Understanding flashed through his mind.
He drove the blade straight into the center of the rift itself.
The ground shook violently. A low, resonant hum surged from the dagger as energy pulsed outward in expanding waves of force.
The shadows 'screamed', actually screamed with voices that shouldn't exist in the physical realm, and retreated in one violent sweep of dispersing smoke and shrieking wind.
Kael collapsed to his hands and knees, panting heavily. Sweat soaked through his shirt, mixing with blood and dirt.
He looked up slowly.
Lord Arid stood at the opposite end of the battlefield, arm bleeding black ichor, eyes darker and more furious than before.
"You're becoming extremely annoying," Lord Arid spat, genuine hatred coloring his voice now.
Kael forced himself upright, smirking despite the pain. "Good. That means I'm doing something right."
Lord Arid raised his hand to cast another spell, but Kael was already moving.
He darted forward explosively, closing the distance before the noble could complete whatever devastating technique he'd been preparing. His blade slashed in a tight, controlled arc that forced Lord Arid to abandon his casting and step back defensively.
The moment Arid retreated, Kael shifted his weight low and struck again, this time aiming for the noble's already injured thigh.
Lord Arid twisted at the last possible second, avoiding a deep penetrating cut but taking a grazing slash along the side of his leg. A thin line of black blood welled up and began trailing down. His jaw tightened visibly, but he refused to show the pain.
Kael didn't give him any breathing room.
His dagger flicked out in rapid, precise strikes, each one calculated to push Lord Arid further onto the defensive, to restrict his options, to force mistakes.
The noble countered with practiced efficiency, his shadow-forged blade moving with eerie fluidity that seemed to defy physics. But Kael was faster now, more determined in his attack patterns.
His battle instincts, sharpened by Night Predator and Predator's Instincts working in tandem, picked up on the smallest details.
The way Arid's fingers contracted infinitesimally before each strike. The minute weight shifts in his stance that telegraphed his next move.
Kael ducked under a horizontal slash. Wind ruffled his hair as the shadow blade missed by a hair's breadth, literally. He kicked off hard, rolling past Lord Arid's guard and rising just behind him.
He drove his dagger toward the vulnerable spot between spine and skull.
A heartbeat before impact, shadows exploded from Lord Arid's back like dark wings. They slammed into Kael's chest with concussive force, knocking him completely off balance and sending him skidding across the dirt several feet.
He dug his heels in desperately to arrest his momentum, breath coming in ragged gasps.
Arid straightened slowly, his expression carved from ice. "I see it now," he murmured with cold clarity. "You're nothing but a stubborn, unkillable cockroach."
Kael wiped a fresh trail of blood from his lips and exhaled harshly. "And you're just a bitter old man playing puppet master."
Arid's fingers twitched. Kael's grip tightened reflexively on his blade.
They moved simultaneously.
Kael charged low, dagger angled perfectly for Lord Arid's already wounded ribs. The noble flicked his wrist sharply, sending a concentrated streak of shadow slicing toward Kael's exposed throat.
Kael twisted at the absolute last second, feeling the cold kiss of that formless weapon scrape against his skin, drawing blood but missing anything vital.
His dagger found flesh.
The blade plunged deep into Lord Arid's side, sinking to the hilt.
For the first time, Lord Arid made an actual sound, more a sharp hiss than a scream, but unmistakable pain laced it. His hand shot out, grabbing Kael's wrist with crushing force. Shadows coiled around his fingers like living chains, tightening until bone ground against bone.
Kael's teeth ground together as pain shot up his arm.
Lord Arid's eyes gleamed with something dark and triumphant. "You shouldn't have gotten this close."
The shadows surged with renewed intensity.
Cold, biting agony radiated up Kael's arm as the corrupted energy began eating into his flesh. He tried desperately to wrench his hand free, but Arid's supernatural grip held firm.
The noble raised his shadow blade for a killing strike...
Kael reacted on pure survival instinct.
He slammed his forehead directly into Lord Arid's nose with all his remaining strength.
Crack.
Cartilage and bone broke. Blood sprayed, crimson, not black this time.
Lord Arid's grip loosened fractionally as he recoiled from the sudden, intense pain. That split-second opening was all Kael needed.
He yanked his dagger free with a wet sound and wrenched backward, stumbling out of the noble's immediate reach.
Lord Arid snarled, a sound more beast than man. Black smoke-like shadows seeped from multiple wounds now. Crimson blood flowed freely from his shattered nose, but he didn't bother wiping it away. His eyes burned with pure hatred.
Kael rolled his injured shoulder experimentally and exhaled slowly. "Hurts, doesn't it?"