Malachar was fast.
Faster than any demon Lee had faced. Its bone and shadow limbs moved like striking snakes, each blow aimed at a vital point heart, throat, eyes, spine. Lee blocked and dodged and parried, but he couldn't find an opening.
It's reading your movements, Onyx Tempest warned. It knows what you're going to do before you do it.
"Then I'll do something it doesn't expect," Lee said.
He stopped fighting.
He lowered his sword.
Malachar paused, confused. "What are you doing?"
"Something stupid," Lee said.
He reached inside himself not for the golden light, but for something deeper. Something darker. The part of himself he'd always kept hidden. The part that was connected to Inyocha. The part that understood the darkness because it had darkness of its own.
The spiral on his chest black and white, light and shadow began to spin.
"What... what is this?" Malachar backed away, its many eyes widening.
"This," Lee said, "is what happens when you push a good man too far."
He struck.
Not with the golden light. Not with Onyx Tempest. With everything. All the pain. All the loss. All the fear and rage and despair he'd been carrying since he was a child.
The blow hit Malachar like a meteor.
The First Blade shattered its bone limbs flying in a dozen directions, its shadow body dissolving into mist. The coffin at its feet cracked open, revealing nothing inside. Nothing.
Malachar's voice echoed from the dissolving mist. "This isn't over, Light Bringer. The Hollow King will "
"Tell him yourself," Lee said.
He drove Onyx Tempest into the mist.
The golden light erupted.
And Malachar was gone.