Nyxxa moved like poisoned smoke, her form bleeding into the arena's gloom. Every pass of her shadow-claws didn't just wound flesh – they stole fragments of Aero's soul.
"Your wind is empty noise," Nyxxa hissed, her voice a chorus of stolen whispers. A raking claw tore across Aero's forearm. Soul-energy bledfrom the wound like coiling black mist, draining her strength.
Aero staggered, her wind-swords flickering like dying candles. "Sido 6: Zephyr Shield!" A cyclone of air deflected a killing blow aimed at her throat, but Nyxxa's laughter, a cacophony of stolen voices, echoed: "I've consumed thousands. Your soul will sing in my eternal darkness!"
High above, the Masked Lord gripped the skybox railing. He heard them. Not just Nyxxa's taunts, but the screams trapped within her shadow-flesh:
"Release us!"
"She tore us apart!"
"Make it stop!"
The voices weren't sound; they were ice picks driven into his skull, a psychic assault amplifying the silver light bleeding from the crack in his mask. Tamotsu recoiled within the prison of ancient power.
As Nyxxa coalesced, lunging shadow-talons aimed straight for Aero's heart, Tamotsu acted.
CRACK. His hand slammed against the obsidian mask.
He tore it free, revealing his face – pale, strained, but his silver eyes blazing with defiance, not ancient cold.
"Ice Wisdom Phase 7: Frost Blink!" He vanished in a shower of icy motes.
Reappeared between Aero and Nyxxa, an ice glaive manifesting in his grip just in time to SHING! parry the killing shadow-claw.
Aero, bleeding soul-mist, gasped: "Fool! Get back! She'll devour you whole—!"
Tamotsu didn't look back, his voice sharp, clear, cutting through the psychic screams: "Her soul-pit is overflowing. Time to empty it."
Nyxxa recoiled, her shadowy form rippling with shock. "Ice?" Her stolen voices hissed in unison, laced with primal fear.
"The forgotten power— The Enemy of our ancestors —!"
Tamotsu didn't hesitate. His glaive swept low, trailing freezing mist: "GLACIAL CLEAVE!" A wave of razor-sharp ice surged across the sand.
Nyxxa flowed left like smoke, evading the ice— but the move exposed her shadowy back, turning her away from Aero.
Aero Strikes – The Wind's Mercy
Aero moved. Not with her usual blinding speed, but with lethal precision born of pain and fury. Wind-swift. Silent.
Her wind-blade, condensed to a point of pure cutting force, cleaved through the nebulous shadow where Nyxxa's neck should be.
Silence. Then—
Nyxxa's shadowy form dissolved, not into darkness, but into swirling, radiant light. A thousand points of brilliance burst free, dancing like captured starlight over the blood-stained arena. The oppressive dread lifted, replaced by a fragile, beautiful peace.
A single, clear child's voice whispered on the wind, felt more than heard: "Thank you..."
Utter Silence. Held for a breath.
Then the Arena exploded.
"Ice warden!"
"He mastered the lost art!"
"Aero's blade—like LIGHTNING!"
"They freed them!"
Later, in the makeshift medical bay stinking of blood and herbs, Tamotsu knelt beside Aero. His fingers, coated in gentle, numbing frost, carefully bandaged her soul-wound, the cold stopping the decay of her spirit-energy. The harsh arena lights softened the lines of exhaustion on his face.
Aero grinned weakly, wincing. "Tamotsu..." Her voice was rough. "...I never even heard you move."
Tamotsu met her gaze, a flicker of something warm in his silver eyes, a stark contrast to the ice he wielded. "Your decapitation strike..." He paused, a ghost of approval touching his lips. "...cleaner than mountain air after a storm."
His gaze swept the bay – Kenji, ribs bound, breathing shallow; Ren, leg splinted, face pale but determined. For the first time since the mask clamped down, Tamotsu felt it: a fragile, undeniable sense of belonging. These were his people. Thiswas where he fought.
Outside the bay, under the watchful, wary eyes of thousands of Soulwardens and their leaders, the remaining Demon Clan knelt in the bloody sand.
The Bone Clan Elder, his massive frame bowed, skeletal hands pressed to the ground, voice a hollow rasp:
"The Void King... he forced this corruption upon us! His chains were in our marrow!"
The Venom Clan Matriarch, scales dull, serpent-tail coiled tight, whispered with heartbreaking desperation: "We surrender. Not for mercy... We just... want to remember what it was like... to be humanagain."
The Scourge Warlord, a mountain of scarred muscle, head lowered: "We'll fight with you—against the realenemy. The Devourer in the Dark."
Tsuneo stepped forward, his stone-sword lowered but not sheathed, his eyes hard granite. "Prove it." His voice boomed across the silent arena. "Disband your legions. Surrender your void-cores. Now."
Without hesitation, the demon leaders bowed lower. Tears, thick and dark, cut tracks through the ash caked on their faces as they placed pulsating, obsidian-black void-cores onto the sand before them. The gesture was one of utter vulnerability, of shattered chains, and desperate hope.