The collision rang across the valley.
Steel screamed against steel.
Golden light and black mist exploded outward as Xavier and Zarin tore past one another.
The ground behind them split open.
For a heartbeat—
Silence.
Then both vanished.
BOOM!
They met again fifty meters away.
Aurelion carved a brilliant arc through the air, its light slicing the clouds themselves.
Zarin caught it one-handed.
Darkness wrapped around his blade as the impact folded the earth beneath his feet.
"...Better," Zarin murmured.
Xavier answered with another strike.
Then another.
Then another.
Each swing flowed into the next with flawless precision, every cut aimed to kill.
Zarin yielded nothing.
He parried with effortless movements, turning each attack aside by mere inches.
Their blades blurred.
Golden crescents tore through the forest while rivers of black mist swallowed them whole.
Above...
Thunder rolled.
----
I didn't have time to watch.
"Incoming!".
One of the shadow creatures vanished.
My instincts screamed.
"Left!"
Jace's voice cut through the chaos.
A burst of violet miasma erupted around us, rolling across the battlefield like living fog.
The creature emerged from the haze without warning.
A massive black scythe shrieked through the air, its blade carving straight toward my neck.
I didn't retreat.
I drove forward instead.
Lowering my center of gravity, I slipped beneath the murderous arc, my boots skidding across the fractured earth.
The shadow pressed its attack—
Then faltered.
Its arm suddenly dipped.
The scythe's momentum died mid-swing, the blade stopping inches short of its mark.
The miasma.
Jace had weakened it.
My eyes widened.
Now.
Darkness surged along my sword, swallowing the steel in a pitch-black aura.
I struck.
The creature reacted instantly, abandoning the scythe altogether. It twisted through the air and launched a vicious flying kick toward my head.
Too slow.
I ducked beneath the kick as the wind from its heel whipped past my face.
Using the opening, I drove upward with everything I had.
My blade erupted in a rising slash, cloaked in darkness, cutting from its waist toward its shoulder in one clean, explosive motion.
The impact blasted the shadow backward, black mist spilling from the wound as it crashed across the battlefield.....
---
The second creature erupted beside Annabeth, twin blades already descending.
She didn't flinch.
Roots burst violently from beneath the earth, coiling around its arms. The strike slowed—
Just enough.
Katara was already moving.
She spun into a blazing roundhouse, flames spiraling around her leg before crashing into the creature's ribs.
The impact hurled it sideways.
Katara didn't give it a moment to recover.
She exploded forward, closing the distance in an instant.
A right hook.
A knee to its abdomen.
An elbow across its jaw.
Each strike landed with bursts of flame, driving the shadow backward before it could regain its footing.
She planted one foot firmly into the ground and twisted her body.
Flames spiraled violently around the creature.
Within seconds, a roaring fire tornado engulfed it, swallowing both its form and its shrieks.
The inferno raged for only a moment.
Then, with a sharp sweep of Katara's arm, the flames dispersed.
"...Gone?"
"No!"
Annabeth's eyes widened.
"Above us!"
The shadow reformed high overhead.
Three blades plunged toward them in unison.
Iris reacted instantly.
A crystalline barrier erupted above the team, the descending blades crashing against the ice in a shower of frozen shards.
The creature landed atop the barrier—
Only for Katara to hurl a blazing fireball straight at its face.
It raised an arm to shield itself.
That was all Iris needed.
She swept her arm downward.
A violent gust of wind slammed into the shadow, ripping it off the barrier and hurling it across the clearing.
BOOM!
Its body crashed into the trunk of an old tree.
"Annabeth!"
"I know!"
The tree came alive.
Its bark split apart like a gaping maw before snapping shut around the creature, imprisoning it deep within the trunk.
The shadow thrashed violently.
Black blades hacked at the wood from within.
Annabeth planted both feet, gritting her teeth as glowing vines spread across the bark.
"You're... not getting out!"
The tree groaned.
Its grip tightened.
The creature's movements slowed.
Then—
Iris sprinted forward.
Frost raced along her arm, condensing into a razor-sharp lance of crystal.
She leapt.
With a single, decisive thrust—
The lance pierced through the trunk...
Straight through the shadow's heart.
A deafening shriek tore through the battlefield.
Cracks of ice spread from the wound as the creature convulsed.
Its body withered into ash-black smoke before dissolving completely into the wind.
The third shadow stood motionless.
It didn't rush.
It watched.
Then—
It disappeared.
A deafening crack split the air.
"There!"
Zayn vanished in a flash of blue-white lightning.
The ground exploded beneath his feet as he intercepted the creature mid-strike, his blade colliding with its own in a shower of sparks.
The impact sent both skidding across the battlefield.
Too fast.
The shadow lunged again.
Zayn met it head-on, his movements dissolving into streaks of lightning as he weaved through every slash, his blade flashing from impossible angles.
Each collision rang like thunder.
Yet no matter how fast he moved...
The shadow kept pace.
"Tch..."
Zayn clicked his tongue.
"It's reading my rhythm."
The creature twisted, slipping past his guard.
Before it could advance..
"Enough."
Tyra stepped forward.
Her eyes glowed amber.
The air rippled.
A deep, ancient rumble rolled through the clearing, as though something colossal had awakened beneath the earth.
"...Kneel."
The word wasn't shouted.
It was decreed.
The shadow's charge faltered.
Its body lurched violently as an overwhelming pressure crashed down upon it.
The ground beneath its feet splintered.
For the first time...
It was motionless.
Dragon Speech.
Not domination.
Authority.
The command lasted only a heartbeat.
But a heartbeat was enough.
"Cody!"
"I know."
Cody lifted a hand.
The space before the shadow folded like shattered glass.
Regaining its footing, the creature lashed forward—
Its blade cut through empty air.
No...
Reality itself had shifted.
Every step it took carried it somewhere it hadn't intended to go.
Forward became sideways.
Left became behind.
The trees twisted at impossible angles as the battlefield bent around it, trapping the creature within a maze of distorted space.
Its attacks vanished into rippling fractures, only to emerge from entirely different directions.
It was completely lost.
"Now, Zayn!"
"You don't have to tell me twice!"
Lightning erupted around him.
It gathered along his outstretched arm, compressing into a brilliant spear that crackled with violent energy.
At the last possible moment, Cody released his hold on space.
Reality snapped back into place.
The shadow barely had time to realize it was free.
Zayn was already there.
He became a bolt of lightning.
The spear pierced straight through the creature's chest.
A piercing shriek ripped across the battlefield as arcs of lightning erupted from the wound, tearing through its body from within.
The shadow convulsed once...
Then crumbled into drifting black ash before dissolving into the wind.
---
The shadow staggered back.
A jagged slash stretched across its chest, black mist pouring from the wound.
It didn't fall.
Instead...
Its body shuddered.
The darkness around it thickened, swallowing the clearing in a suffocating veil.
Jace muttered a curse under his breath
Crimson miasma seeped from his body, spreading through the black haze until the two colors intertwined.
The shadow lunged.
Hunter met it head-on.
Steel clashed.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Each exchange grew slower than the last.
Not Hunter.
The shadow.
Its movements had become sluggish, its swings losing the terrifying speed they possessed moments ago.
Jace's miasma was taking effect.
"You feel it now, don't you?" Jace said quietly.
"Your own body's betraying you."
The creature roared and abandoned technique, swinging its scythe in a brutal horizontal sweep.
Hunter ducked beneath it.
The blade carved through the air above his head.
Before the shadow could recover—
Jace appeared at its flank.
His crimson-coated blade drove into its shoulder.
The creature jerked violently, twisting to retaliate.
Exactly as planned.
"Hunter!"
Already moving.
Hunter planted his foot and burst forward.
Jace immediately sprang back, crimson miasma swirling around him as instinct screamed at him to get clear.
Darkness poured from Hunter's sword.
Not like an aura.
Like a flood.
The black energy crawled over the blade before spilling beyond it, warping the air around the weapon itself.
Hunter's eyes widened for the briefest moment.
Too much...
But there was no time to stop.
The shadow raised its scythe.
Too late.
Hunter slipped inside its guard.
One precise step.
One decisive swing.
The blade carved upward in a flawless diagonal arc.
For a heartbeat...
Nothing happened.
The shadow remained frozen.
A thin black line traced across its body.
Then—
The line continued.
Past the shadow.
Across the battlefield.
Across the trees behind it.
The world split.
BOOM!!
Darkness erupted along the slash's path in a violent explosion, tearing through everything caught in its wake.
Trees were ripped apart.
The earth was carved open.
A cloud of dust and shattered stone swallowed the clearing.
Hunter landed several meters away, sliding backwards as he fought to steady himself.
"...Damn..."
His grip tightened around the sword.
The darkness still bled from the blade before slowly retreating.
The attack...
Had gone farther than he'd intended.
As the smoke settled, the shadow's body split cleanly in two before dissolving into drifting black ash.
Behind a wall of crimson miasma, Jace lowered his arm and let out a slow breath.
"...Remind me never to stand behind you."
Hunter managed a sheepish grin.
"...Yeah... still working on that."