Gray dashed forward, the cold air biting against his face, his katana gleaming black under the torchlight. The white-haired woman stood firm at the center of the chamber, her posture deceptively calm. Defensive. Waiting. Her hollow gaze never blinked. The sound of the bubbling liquid from the brazier filled the silence, broken only when an arrow hissed through the air. Gray twisted his body, the arrow scraping past his shoulder, missing by a hair. He slammed his katana downward in a savage arc, meeting her frost-coated sword with a ringing impact.
The shock of the collision rattled his bones.
A sound followed, the faint, splintering crack of something giving way. Gray's mind jolted. His sword? Hers? He couldn't tell, but the thought didn't slow him. He pressed harder, his swings wild, savage, unrelenting. Rampaging. His strikes came in a storm of steel and shadow, sparks flying as their blades clashed again and again. Her precision, her calm, began to buckle under the sheer violence of his assault. Cuts opened along her pale arms, shallow lines spilling faint rivulets of blood that froze almost instantly.
She let out a sharp exhale and pushed him back several feet with a desperate shove. Then, for the first time, she surged forward, blade raised high. Offensive.
Gray ducked low. His katana flashed in a vicious horizontal sweep at stomach height. Steel tore through pale flesh, the cut biting deep, halfway through her torso before it snagged. He snarled, wrenching the blade free.
The wound should have ended her. But before his eyes, frost spread from the edges of the gash, sealing it in crystalline ice. The woman turned slowly, unnaturally, her expression unchanged. Her hands lifted her sword again with perfect, mechanical precision. No hesitation. No fear. No pain.
Gray's throat went dry. He had to remind himself, 'She isn't human. Not anymore...'
A whistle cut through the air.
Gray tilted his head instinctively. An arrow streaked past, close enough that the icy wind of its passage brushed his cheek. His eyes widened as he saw where it landed. The arrow buried itself in the side of the woman's skull. The impact spun her head violently, and her body toppled backward into the great stone bowl.
Gray's chest heaved. Relief, confusion, dread, all tangled together. But it didn't last.
The woman's hands slapped the rim of the bowl, catching her weight. Slowly, impossibly, she dragged herself out. Her face tilted toward him, the arrow still jutting from her head. With a deliberate, eerie calm, she gripped the shaft and pulled it free. Ice cracked, blood dripped, then sealed. Her lips parted, and for the first time, she screamed. A raw, piercing cry that shattered the silence and reverberated against the ice walls.
When she rushed him again, she was different.
No longer a silent, perfect fighter. Now she moved with feral savagery, her strikes heavier, her speed wild. She wielded her sword in one hand while her other became a weapon too, fists and kicks thrown with brutal force.
Gray barely brought his blade up in time to block as she leapt, her boot slamming into his guard and forcing him back several paces. He grunted, his ribs aching, but she didn't relent. Her sword came down in a brutal overhead slash. Gray slipped aside, but she overextended, the momentum pulling her low to the ground.
Before he could counter, her free hand shot out and clamped around his ankle.
"Shit—!"
With terrifying strength, she swung him bodily. His head smashed into one of the frozen torches, sparks erupting as fire licked into his hair. The smell of singed strands filled his nose before he slapped it out. Dazed, disoriented, he struggled, but her strength was merciless.
She heaved him around once more and hurled him.
Gray crashed into an ice wall. The impact rattled his spine, pain screaming up his back. He coughed blood onto the dark blue ice, staggering as he pressed his katana into the ground for support. His vision swam, but the archer hadn't stopped. Another arrow whistled toward him, striking the wall inches from his head.
His temper snapped. "Enough!" he roared, his voice echoing through the chamber. His throat burned with rage, the constant barrage of arrows wearing on his patience.
But the woman was already on him again. She leapt, her fist cocked. Gray pushed off the wall, dodging just as her punch smashed into the ice. The wall fractured with a booming crack, shards raining down.
As he fell, he swung. His katana ripped across her torso in a clean slice. The shadows infused in his blade burned the wound black for a heartbeat before the ice fought to freeze it closed. Her chest heaved faintly, but she gave no sign of pain.
Gray stumbled back, arrows hissing through the air in rapid succession. He twisted, dodged, blocked, but one grazed his arm, slicing through fabric and flesh. His chest burned. His body screamed.
They traded blows, steel against steel, flesh against bone. Her fists struck like hammers, and every counterattack he landed left him hurting more. His mind flickered to Severing Bloom. He could build pain. Use it. But the risk, if he failed, if he mistimed, it would undoubtedly him.
'Who the hell thought of that skill!Risking your life every time to use it!?' He shook his head but eyes still focused on the two figures.
Then, he saw another chance.
He gathered darkness in his left hand, the black tendrils writhing like ink in water. With a snarl, he threw it forward, a shroud of darkness bursting outward. The place bear the woman was stipped of all light, but only for a second. The woman's eyes flicked wildly, blinded.
Gray lunged. His katana slashed once, twice, forming an X across her torso. Blackened wounds seared into her flesh, the stink of scorched ice filling the air. She staggered.
But then another arrow tore through the gloom.
Gray's body jolted as the projectile buried into his shoulder. His blade dipped, his grip weakening. Before he could recover, the woman was on him.
'Oh fu—'
Her fist slammed into his jaw. White-hot agony exploded in his skull. His vision tilted. Blurring. He almost went down then, the chamber spinning, his body light and unmoored.
And then something flashed infront of his eyes.
He instinctively raised his hand up to block whatever was coming.
And then everything stopped, only the pain remained. Ringing in his ears.
He looked up in disbelief. Her sword had pierced straight through his palm, blood dripping hot and fast over the frozen floor. His hand slowly started to freeze from the wound, similair to the archers arrows.
Then her fist struck his chest, the impact hurling him backward. He slid against the cold ice, breathless, his blood spreading beneath him.
The woman loomed above him, her chilling eyes drilling into his mind, empty of everything but inevitability. Her blade still in his hand, ready to be torn free for the killing blow.
But she stopped.
Her head turned. Slowly.
Gray's hazy gaze followed, and froze.
At the far side of the chamber, Renn had moved. He stood behind the archer, both hands clamped desperately around the pale thing's skull. The archers body shook violently, blood running from his nose, his mouth, his eyes.
He twitched, bow slipping from his grasp. His pale body spasmed, slower… slower… until it sagged limp, lifeless.
Renn gasped for air, his chest heaving, his young frame nearly collapsing. But his eyes, bloodshot and pained, locked on the woman with raw defiance.
The woman stared back, preparing to dash towards a different target.
But Gray had other ideas.
Grays fingers tightened on the blade skewering his hand. With a guttural roar, he pushed upward, rising to his feet despite the agony. Blood streamed from his wounds, but he forced his body to move. The world blurred, narrowed, until there was only one motion left to make.
"Severing Bloom!"
The shadows flared around him, his katana flashing black in his grip. The blade sang through the air.
The woman's eyes widened a fraction before steel cut deep. Her head snapped back, a pale red line blooming across her throat. Not monster blood. But actual blood.
Her sword slipped from her grip as she stumbled, clutching her neck. The wound was slowly regenerating, stitched up again.
But Gray didn't let her heal. With a surge of fury, he flooded his left arm with Vyre. He lunged, driving his fist into her chest. His hand punched through ice, flesh, bone, gripping something cold and pulsing.
Her heart.
Frozen solid in his grasp.
With one final snarl, he crushed it.
Her body shuddered, eyes widening in something like shock, something almost human, for the first and last time. Then her frame went slack, lifeless, collapsing to the frost with a hollow thud.
Gray stood over her, chest heaving, his hand dripping with blood and frost. The torches flickered. The chamber fell into a heavy silence, broken only by the faint bubbling of the brazier.
He looked down at his hand. The crushed, frozen fragments of her heart fell from his fist.
It was over.