The night hung heavy, as if the very sky were holding its breath.
Dry winds swept across the fields surrounding the forest, carrying with them the stench of ash, blood, and scorched leaves. Distant explosions echoed like ancient thunder — remnants of a silent war waged between mages, orders, and corrupted wills.
Gremory was already in position atop a partially destroyed outcrop, the black robe of the Tower of Wisdom billowing like a war banner. His green eyes were locked on the enemy ahead: Kreld, the rogue mage. Kreld's features looked as if they had been carved by cruelty itself. His sickly orange eyes burned, and his twisted smile endured even amidst the crashing spells around him.
Elise arrived like a storm.
"Ignis Caelestis," she murmured, extending her left hand.
A burst of blue fire erupted from her palm, slicing through the air like a celestial blade.
"Ignis Ardens!" she cried, her right hand unleashing a torrent of orange flames.
Kreld spun with unnatural grace, raising his hand to trace a circle in the air.
"Ventus Umbrae."
A blackened barrier of wind materialized, absorbing part of the twin infernos' impact.
The magics clashed with force, sparks bursting and illuminating the glade in a blinding light.
Kreld laughed, sliding across the ground and slamming his feet into the earth.
"Terra Venenum!" he shouted.
The soil trembled, and within moments, dozens of stone spears shot toward Elise. Despite being nearly sixty, she spun aside and leapt, rolling across the ash-covered ground. A gash sliced across her thigh, but she was already up again — breathless, her eyes ablaze.
"Glacies Fracta!" shouted Gremory, circling toward Kreld's left flank and firing a blast of ice. Shards of white tore through the air, but Kreld rolled aside, barely dodging the attack.
In response, the rogue mage raised both arms.
"Ignis Corruptum!"
Orange flames tinged with black spiraled from his hands. Gremory countered immediately.
"Ignis Puro!"
Pure fire clashed against corrupted flame. The explosion was brutal.
A wave of heat and force erupted, launching leaves, stones, and ice fragments in every direction. The ground trembled with a muffled roar, cracking beneath the combatants and opening glowing fissures. The air spun violently, howling like blades flaying flesh — stripping leaves from trees and whipping the mages' cloaks around their bodies. The stench of burnt magic and ozone choked the clearing.
Elise turned, eyes narrowed, fixed on the spell's epicenter. Something was wrong with that incantation.
"That magic… it's not Golden Dawn. Not Tower of Wisdom. Not Dark Throne…"
A chill crawled up her spine. That energy… was twisted. As if forged by unclean hands.
"Ventus Occisoris!" Kreld roared, summoning a black scythe of cutting wind. It spun toward them — swift, lethal.
"Murus Glacialis!" Gremory shouted. A wall of ice rose before Elise, absorbing the strike of the scythe that sliced the air like a living blade.
The impact shook the earth. Shards of ice exploded outward like frozen razors. The wall cracked deep, jagged veins forming through its core — but it held. Barely.
Elise leapt back, the flames on her mantle still flickering. Her breath came ragged. Her heart pounded not just from the assault, but from the sudden, troubling realization crashing through her mind like thunder.
"He's stronger than last time…"
She clenched her teeth, eyes fixed on Kreld — his presence now larger, more oppressive. The black runes crawling across his arms pulsed with a sickly energy. His magic had been tainted… by something she could not yet name.
"If Gremory hadn't raised that wall…"
She didn't finish the thought. She didn't need to. The cut would've been direct. Perhaps fatal. She felt it in her bones — the kind of instinct honed only by a lifetime of battle.
"You alright?" Gremory asked, still in guard stance, not taking his eyes off the enemy.
She drew a deep breath, trying to steady the surge of adrenaline. But the unease remained.
"What the hell happened to you, Kreld? What kind of magic is this…?"
"Yes. Continue," Elise answered firmly, even as her lungs still struggled for rhythm. Then she turned to Kreld, eyes flaring with suspicion.
"Was it Baron Hoffmann who sent you?!"
Kreld smiled.
A slow, venomous grin spread across his face. A smile that said everything — and nothing. As if savoring her doubt. As if he knew that, even if she was right, she had no proof to act on… and neither did anyone else.
Elise squinted, her fist curling at her side.
Then, her gaze drifted briefly.
To the side, the knight Gremory had slain lay sprawled across the ruined earth. Spears of ice pierced his torso and abdomen at unnatural angles, punching through his armor like soaked parchment. Blood still trickled through the soil's grooves, mingling with melted frost, pooling scarlet in the dark mud.
The knight's face was half-shadowed beneath a dented helmet, but Elise spotted the faded tattoo on his neck — the worn insignia of a minor mercenary guild. Nothing official. Nothing traceable.
"That man wasn't here out of conviction. He was here for coin. But Kreld… he doesn't come cheap."
Her gaze returned to the mage, who still wore that mocking grin. The black embers swirling around him crackled as if laughing too.
"I'm sure it was the Baron. But I have no proof. Damn it… what now?"
Time pressed in on her mind like a vice. No room for hesitation. So she did what she always did in the face of the abyss: she struck.
She didn't wait for an answer. She couldn't.
"Aqua Ignita!"
She raised both arms. From the heavens, drops of water began to fall — but as they neared her right hand, they ignited. Spears of boiling water took shape and launched toward Kreld.
He spun, casting a partial shield, but still took hits to the shoulder and flank. He stumbled back, cursing under his breath.
"Glacies Cælestis!" Gremory bellowed, casting icy fragments from the sky like divine needles.
Kreld screamed.
"Ignis Umbrae!"
Black flames erupted around him, melting chunks of the falling ice.
That's when Elise recognized it. The motions. The elemental fusion. The warped energy.
"Cursed Lotus…" she whispered, her voice tight, sweat dripping down her temple despite the cold air. Then she shouted — with the fury of someone recognizing an ancient enemy:
"Kreld, you bastard! You're with the Cursed Lotus!"
At the name, Gremory's eyes widened in shock.
"What…?" he breathed.
For a moment, he faltered. Ice still clung to his fingers, but his focus slipped, like old memories were dragging him back — memories he wished had stayed buried.
"That order… it should be extinct."
Kreld only laughed, blood spilling from his mouth onto the scorched ground. The red pooled and hissed against the heat.
"Maybe," he said with a sneer, shrugging like revealing an old, irrelevant secret. "But I won't be staying for the encore."
That wicked smile still stained his face despite his wounds, and his eyes burned with a sick light — like embers refusing to die.
A sharp whistle sliced the air — long, harsh, almost beastly.
Kreld turned, as if hearing a call from another world.
"My time's up," he said with a half-smile, voice heavy with fatigue and mockery.
"Aqua Obscura et Ignis!"
The earth trembled as the spell took form. The air's moisture snapped, then erupted into a thick shroud of scalding vapor. The heat stung the skin, steam and fire merging into a choking mist. The fog reeked of sulfur, spent magic… and blood.
Elise instinctively fell back, her eyes burning, her fist clenched so tightly her nails pierced her palm. Rage pulsed in her chest, in sync with the pain of loss, the doubt, the bitter truth of letting the enemy slip through her fingers.
"Damn you…!" she growled through gritted teeth, trying to pierce the fog with her gaze.
Beside her, Gremory slashed through the air with his eyes, seeking a target. His face — always stoic — now twisted into a mask of barely restrained fury.
"He ran," he said hoarsely. "Fucking coward."
When the mist finally dispersed, there was nothing left.
No body. No sound. No footprints.
Only the scorched trail on the ground — a magical scar, pulsing with the remnants of that twisted energy, as if the earth itself rejected whatever had tread there.
Elise kept her eyes fixed on the charred ground. The wind howled, lifting ash and melted ice around her.
The battle here was over.
But the night was not.
And it would leave scars on them all.