The air cracked again as bullet and water smashed against each other.
The hall shook, ancient pillars collapsing into rubble.
Tom had already backed as far as he could, pressed against the cold stone, his eyes wide.
Vera spun the trident, water spiraling like a cyclone, scattering bullet fragments into steam. His steps were calm, precise. He moved like a man who had done this dance a thousand times before.
The cowboy, however, grinned through the smoke. "You fight neat, boy. Too neat." He aimed, pulled the trigger and three bullets split into nine midair. They curved like birds of prey.
Vera's arm swept. Water hardened like glass, shattering the projectiles before they touched him. His voice was steady. "If all you have are tricks, this won't last long."
The cowboy laughed, but there was something raw in the sound. "Tricks? Son, I buried tricks decades ago."
They clashed again. Bullets tearing holes into the ceiling. Water lashing like whips. A pillar crumbled and crashed into the floor, dust flooding the hall.
As they circled, the cowboy spoke again. "Thirty-eight years." His revolver spun in his hand, glowing faint orange. "That's how long I've been in this cursed place."
Vera didn't blink. He thrust the trident. Water blades shot forward like spears. The cowboy rolled aside, the attack splitting the floor into cracks.
"I was a father once," the cowboy said between shots. His tone wasn't mocking. It was bitter, guttural. "Three daughters. A son. Then the sickness came. Flesh rotting. Bones breaking. A disease without a cure."
Vera deflected the bullets, a shield of water shimmering around him. He moved closer, his calm voice cutting through. "Stop yapping."
But the cowboy kept talking, his words as sharp as his shots.
"You don't understand. I had to kill them. My own blood. Every smile. Every cry. I burned it all with these hands, before the disease could finish them. You think you know loss?"
The revolver roared again, bullets splitting like meteors.
Vera dashed forward, water coiling around his body like armor. He blocked, deflected, then jabbed. The trident's tip pierced the ground, and an eruption of water shot up beneath the cowboy, hurling him across the hall.
Yet the older man landed on his feet, coughing blood but grinning. "Neat. But that won't fix the rot inside you, Blue Eyes. You think being calm makes you strong? No. It makes you hollow. Empty. Just like me."
Vera's jaw tightened. Still calm but the trident vibrated with heavier power. Water seeped into the cracks of the floor, crawling like veins, waiting for his command.
The cowboy raised his weapon again, blood dripping from his lip. "I erased a whole lineage to save the world from one curse. And what did I get?" He fired a bullet whistled, split, bent, and screamed through the air. "I got trapped in a coffin called eternity.... alone"
Vera caught the bullet in a blade of frozen water. It shattered with a hiss.
His eyes, usually serene, sharpened. "And still you waste breath."
The cowboy roared laughter, even as another strike sent him crashing against the wall. Stone cracked under his weight. Dust rained. But he still stood, staggering forward, revolver glowing hotter.
"You're just like the rest!" he barked, his voice hoarse. "Clinging to your ideals, your honor, your precious calm. But when the game strips you bare, when it takes your family, your name, your skin and then what? You'll rot like me. You'll laugh too!"
Another shot thundered. The bullet curved past Vera's guard, grazing his cheek. Blood dripped.
Vera didn't flinch. He twirled the trident, water spiraling back, eyes burning cold. "Then I'll rot standing. Not crawling."
The cowboy's grin faltered for the first time. Just a flicker. Then he snarled, cocked the revolver, and charged.
Vera leapt, water exploding around him like a tidal wave.
The clash split the hall apart as of stone pillars breaking, cracks running through the floor, steam swallowing the battlefield.
Tom covered his face, coughing, barely able to see. But even through the haze, he felt this was not just a fight. This was two different worlds colliding.
The hall was thunder.
Vera lunged, trident slicing arcs of water that howled like blades. The cowboy's revolver spat fire, each bullet splitting into twins midair, shrieking like demons. They collided steel and liquid, gunfire and flood. Stone cracked, pillars crumbled. Dust thickened until Tom could barely breathe.
Vera's armor of water shattered under a grazing shot, his arm bleeding. He spun, the trident's shaft snapping across the cowboy's ribs with a hollow crack. The older man staggered but answered instantly, firing at point-blank. The shot tore through Vera's shoulder, flesh ripping.
Neither slowed.
The cowboy vaulted across rubble, sliding under a wave of slicing water, revolver twirling, every shot timed between breaths. Vera pressed forward, stabbing, sweeping, summoning bursts of liquid that struck like hammers. Each clash sent shockwaves tearing through the altar hall.
One bullet ricocheted wild. It slammed into the altar.
The stone split, groaning.
From the fissure spilled a glow. Pure, blinding. An orb floated there, trembling like it was alive. The Face.
All three froze for half a second.
But only half a second.
The cowboy's grin tightened, blood dripping down his temple. Vera's eyes narrowed, his trident humming with power.
Then they lunged again.
The orb hovered between them as chaos resumed. Gunfire split the air, bullets curving into impossible paths. Vera's water spiraled with rage, lashing like serpents. Each man struck, dodged, bled that every blow measured, every wound ignored.
But neither Vera nor the cowboy slowed. They fought like men who had abandoned death long ago, clashing, breaking, refusing to yield.
Above it all, the Face shone.
Both men moved at once.
The cowboy fired, his revolver kicking like thunder. Vera launched, trident first, water spiraling behind him in a roaring current. Their eyes locked not on each other—but on the orb, glowing brighter, humming like a heartbeat.
They leapt.
But in that instant, they noticed him. Tom.
He wasn't fighting, wasn't striking just stumbling forward with all the breath and blood left in him. His fingers stretched out, trembling, almost grazing the light. He was too close to ignore, too fragile to dismiss.
The orb shone.
A crack ran across its surface, spilling fragments of light into the air. The glow intensified, burning away the shadows of the ruined hall. The altar groaned, splitting further. Dust rained down.
Vera froze mid-strike. The cowboy halted his next shot. Both understood instantly it wasn't about who grabbed it first. The orb was no longer waiting to be claimed.
It was choosing.
The light pulsed once then burst. Shards of brilliance scattered like wings, dissolving into the walls, the floor, even the broken pillars.
The hall became a storm of glow, every fragment of radiance circling like eyes, searching, judging.
Tom shielded his face, but he felt it. An invisible pull, crawling into his veins, pressing on his chest. His heart raced like it would burst. He couldn't breathe.
The orb had broken, but it wasn't gone.
It had become something greater.
Now it was no longer about who reached it first.
It was about who the Face would accept.
The glow tightened, the hall stilled. All three waited so long every heartbeat feels like a hammer wondering who it would choose.
Tom blinked.
One moment he was in the ruined hall with Vera and the cowboy. The next second he was nowhere. Or maybe everywhere.
He felt weightless, as if his body had forgotten the rules of gravity. Beneath his feet stretched something vast, shifting, unimaginable. A swirling black circle, like a blackhole made solid, threads of light spinning across it in strings. He dared a step forward, and the surface rippled, humming like a deep drum.
His chest tightened. He wasn't falling. He wasn't flying. He was just… suspended, walking on nothing.
Then, a voice.
Just there.... inside his head and outside all at once.
"You carry it now."
Tom froze. His throat went dry.
"Carry… what?"
"The Face," the voice answered. Calm. Steady. Almost human.
But Tom felt no warmth in it. Only a strange weight pressing through every syllable.
He swallowed. His hand instinctively touched his chest.
"I don't… I don't understand. Did I take it? Or was it given to me?"
The blackhole below him flickered, strings of light curling up around his feet like threads tying him down. The voice returned:
"Not whole. Not yet. It clings to you in strands… waiting to weave itself complete."
Tom's heart hammered.
"Strands? What do you mean strands? What am I supposed to do with—"
The ground beneath him trembled. The strings shivered like plucked wires, and he almost fell.
"Listen, Tom Greyrat," the voice said, firmer now, as though it reached closer into him. "You were not chosen fully. Thankfully, your characteristics matched the most among the three. The rest of the cloth will come depending on how you weave it."
Tom's breath hitched. His mind spun with questions, but before he could ask, the blackhole beneath his feet surged open like a mouth swallowing light.
Then, he fell in the Blackhole, his body collapsed....