the fight against the hoards of ugly looking demons continued ,The surviving candidates—nine- now, where fifty had once stood, panting, their weapons still slick with the remnants of shadow and blood .the Chamber of Endless Hordes still reeked of blood and and sweat
Aethon wiped gore from his brow as the latest wave of shadow-beasts dissolved into mist. The Reaper's Fang vibrated impatiently at his hip.
"Twenty-seven," the sword announced smugly. "I'm winning."
Across the bloodied arena, Ilris's greatsword Godsgrave pulsed darkly, its runes glowing with each kill. lady virelle's lightning-whip crackled as it tallied its own victims. Even Korbin's glass dagger seemed to wink at them from across the battlefield.
Aethon sighed. "We don't need to keep score."
"Of course we do!" The sword's voice took on a petulant edge. "This is the Trial of Superior Steel, not the Trial of Mediocre Participation. Look at Tavish's stupid rapier - it's already crying in the corner."
Aethon glanced at the shattered remains of Argent Kiss. "It's broken."
"Exactly! Now let's go for the high score!" The blade practically bounced in its scabbard. "I want a kill-count so big they have to invent new numbers!"
Aethon rolled his eyes. "You're ridiculous."
"I'm MOTIVATED," the sword corrected. "Now charge that cluster of shadow-beasts before Ilris's overgrown butter knife gets them all!"
As Aethon reluctantly lunged forward, he could have sworn he heard Godsgrave growl back: "Butter knife?! I'll show you a butter knife, you toothpick!"
The Reaper's Fang cackled with glee. "That's the spirit! Murder buddies forever!"
Aethon groaned as he carved through another enemy. "I hate my life."
"Thirty-one!" the sword crowed
aethon rushed towards the cave the hoard of undead monster are emerging fr0om with the hope of launching a suprise attack
The moment the horde emerged, Aethon's world narrowed to a single face.
Hers.
His mother stood before him—not as some twisted shadow, but perfectly herself. The sun-worn lines at the corners of her eyes.
Aethon's mother lived in his memory like a blade half-drawn—always poised between motion and stillness.
Aethon's mother lived in his memory like a blade half-drawn—always poised between motion and stillness.
She had been tall for a woman of the Western Marches, her shoulders broad from years of swinging the harvest scythe . Her hands were rough-palmed, the fingers nimble—able to mend a torn shirt one moment and smack your ass the next. her sun kissed-skin the color of old oak
"Scars are just stories written in flesh," she'd said when he traced it with small fingers. "This one says: 'Try again, bastard.'"she'd always tell him
Her hair—black as a crow's wing, but strands always escaped, curling rebelliously at her temples. In the golden hours before dusk, when she thought no one was looking, she'd unwind it with a sigh, shaking it loose around her shoulders like a banner.
And her eyes. Gods, her eyes. The same storm-gray as his own, but where Aethon's simmered with quiet intensity, hers had laugh lines at the corners, even when her mouth didn't.
"A sword's only as good as the arm that swings it," she'd told him during their first sparring lesson, knocking his practice blade into the dirt. "But the arm's only as good as the heart behind it. So—what's yours made of, little hawk?"
The Reaper's Fang snarled. "Illusion! Kill it!"
Aethon didn't move.
The shadow-warrior tilted its head. "You were always too soft, little hawk," it murmured—and oh, the voice, the cadence, the way she'd teased him when he missed a parry—
The Reaper's Fang shrieked in his mind, its voice razor-edged with fury. "She's dead! This is just a phantom wearing her face!"
Aethon knew this.
And yet— He hesitated
The shadow's blade came again, that same economical swing his mother had used to disarm him a hundred times in training. The steel sang as it cut the air, and for a heartbeat, Aethon was back in their dusty courtyard, the smell of sunbaked earth and iron in his nose, her laughter ringing in his ears as his practice sword went spinning into the dirt.
"Too slow, little hawk."
The memory struck harder than the blade.
Aethon barely managed to raise the Reaper's Fang in time. Steel shrieked against steel, the impact vibrating up his arm like a tolling bell. His mother's shadow didn't stagger—she flowed into the next stance, her boots scuffing the arena stones in that familiar pattern.
"You remember this one," the shadow murmured, shifting its weight.
He did.
The Viper's Retreat. Her signature move.
He did manage to strike her by the elbow.
"Little Hawk, you know you hurt me, don't you?" The words distracted Aethon.
"Mom, are you hurt?" suprised and shocked
That moment of distraction was all it took.
The Reaper's Fang howled a warning—but Aethon was already moving too late.
The shadow's blade flickered out—not at his sword, not at his heart, but at the gap between his ribs where his armor laced.
Just like she'd taught him.
Pain exploded as the tip found flesh.
"Always watch the elbows," the shadow whispered, its voice unbearably gentle as it twisted the blade. "You never did."
Blood fountained hot down Aethon's side. He crashed to one knee, the world swimming. The Reaper's Fang thrashed in his grip, its fury a living thing.
"GET UP!" it roared
. "She died for you! Don't you dare—"
The shadow raised its blade for the final stroke.
And in that moment, Aethon saw it—the tiny flaw in its stance. The overextension.
The same mistake his real mother had made that day when she died.
The Reaper's Fang felt his realization.
"Now," it hissed.
Aethon moved.
But not fast enough.
The shadow's sword came down—
—and stopped a hair's breadth from his throat.
"Still too soft," it sighed.
Then dissolved like smoke on the wind,and he became a particle of dust(he was teleported out of the arena)