VESPER
The shadows hissed.
Twisted.
Slithered outward like a language only Astra understood—ancient, primal, beautiful.
Vesper leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. Every noble of House Shadow in the viewing box had gone still. Velora's gaze froze, her breath caught in her chest. No one blinked. No one dared speak. Even the most powerful mages—Bishops—watched in stunned silence.
The darkness curled beneath Astra's boots.
Then—Astra's voice boomed, though the arena already simmered with rising power.
"Shadows of Night…"
It wasn't a chant.
It was an invocation.
The words struck the air like a blade drawn from the soul. And the spell—no, the force—answered. The earth cracked as shadows erupted in spirals, anchoring themselves to the arena's edges like the roots of some forgotten, slumbering titan.
Vesper felt it in his chest—a pressure, a pull. He could feel the shadows' emotions—tense, yearning, wrathful—because of his affinity. His own shadowflame stirred, flickering behind his ribs like an echo of something ancient.
This wasn't some clever counter.
This was artistry.
His heartbeat quickened.
"Shall rise and fall…"
A dark orb pulsed into being above Astra's head, formed from the whirling mass of shadow and Lucien's own light. That was the moment that made Vesper's breath catch—he was feeding the spell with Lucien's magic. Drawing sunlight as though it were his to command.
The crowd behind Vesper stirred—first murmurs, then gasps.
"He's… stealing the light—?"
"That's sun mana! It shouldn't even react with shadow—wait… leeching pull… but that shouldn't even be possible—!"
"What the hell is this spell?!"
Vesper didn't speak. He couldn't.
He stared, jaw tight, as the orb above Astra twisted in the air—unstable, seething, alive. A second sun, but black and cold, jagged with lashing tendrils of void that flicked toward the golden light like a predator tasting prey.
"Leech thy cruel light…"
The chant gripped the air. Power radiated in waves from Astra's core.
Vesper didn't understand it.
But he felt something shift.
The orb above him pulsed again, darker this time. Reality around it seemed to bend. Light curved toward it unnaturally, folding the very fabric of space. The arena's walls groaned under the force.
"As you eclipse all…"
Astra's cloak whipped behind him, caught in a wind that hadn't existed seconds ago. The light faltered. Shadows deepened. The orb swelled.
And then—
"Oh darkness of Shadowfall…"
The shadows surged. The orb expanded. The light twisted in ways that defied reason, drawn into the heart of the blackened sphere. The energy in the arena thickened—suffocating. The shadows danced with growing hunger, and even Lucien's sun flickered beneath its weight.
The pressure of Astra's power filled the entire arena. It reached beyond the dueling space, stretching out, suffusing every corner of the coliseum, and even the audience couldn't escape it. The air grew heavy, thick with the might of House Shadow.
Lucien's sun ignited brighter.
The world turned white.
It was as if he radiated the weight of a massive hill.
Rank Two. Pinnacle-tier.
Lucien's domain exploded in a wave of golden brilliance. His sun burned so bright that it sent a pulse of authority across the entire arena. Not just light. Not just heat. Authority.
True dominion over magic.
The kind that should drown lower ranks.
Even the Rank Twos in the stands flinched—some grimaced, chests tightening. Vesper saw it. The subtle recoiling. The widening of eyes. The rigid spines.
"He's… pushing us back—?"
"I can't breathe…"
"Isn't this just a Rank One duel?!"
The arena's enchantments weren't meant for mere Rank Ones, yet the level at which Astra and Lucien fought was just that high.
Astra didn't falter.
He stood taller.
The shadows thickened. Not recoiling—rejoicing darkly.
And then, Vesper felt it.
The authority of Astra's spell spread. Beyond the arena. Beyond the dueling space. Like fingers of night, it crawled up the spire's walls—and reached the upper viewing box.
The Bishops and Knights.
Shadows danced beneath their chairs, coiling tighter, richer, more welcoming. Not threatening. Not challenging.
Enhancing.
Like kin returning home.
One Bishop, draped in obsidian runes, let out a quiet, delighted sound.
"A Rank One… touching our tier? How amusing?"
Another, a woman crowned in raven-feather robes, offered a rare smile.
"He doesn't touch it. He's being received by it."
And for a moment, Vesper's heart thudded harder. Something about that word—received—unnerved him. Or thrilled him.
He glanced sideways—only once—at Alistair.
The magnificent Bishop wore a faint smile.
Just a flicker before it vanished.
He knows something, Vesper realized. Something no one else here does.
But whatever it was, it didn't matter now. Not to Vesper. Not when the arena had become a cathedral of clashing truths.
Because now—Lucien fought back.
His sun domain surged, the corona blazing wider. Light clawed at the shadows like a dying beast. Fire kissed the edges of the eclipse, pushing forward.
Two domains. Not fully formed—but vast. Terrible.
Light and Shadow.
One blazing, the other devouring.
Vesper couldn't take his eyes off Astra.
He had never seen a mage evolve in real time before—never watched a genius find themselves in the middle of a duel and step into it like a king claiming his throne.
Vesper couldn't help but smile at this beast.
.....
The arena pulsed with tension.
Lucien's sword gleamed like molten gold beneath the golden sun, the heat of his aura pressing outward in waves, suffocating. His every breath was measured, his stance perfect—disciplined, elegant, and suffused with power.
Astra stood in the eye of it all, shadow weaving around him like mist drawn to a storm. He could feel it—the invisible web of Lucien's pressure, pinning him in place. Sunlight surged across the sand like a living force. It crawled along his skin, threatening to brand him, to unravel him, to consume him whole.
His heartbeat slowed.
He watched Lucien—not just his stance, but the rhythm beneath it. The breath between thoughts. The twitch in his shoulder. The slight bend in his knee. His curse surged, unraveling Lucien's threads, mapping them. Astra didn't just see his opponent. He understood him.
Lucien moved. His sword slashed downward in a blur, trailing light.
Astra vanished.
The blade cleaved through nothing but heat and air. Astra reappeared behind him in a curl of shadow, his sword already in motion—a whisper-quiet strike aimed at Lucien's shoulder. The tip of his blade grazed cloth, not flesh. A breath too slow.
Lucien spun, eyes burning with sunlight. His blade snapped back, intercepting Astra's with a crack of impact that echoed across the arena. Sparks bloomed from the clash—light and shadow colliding, neither giving way.
Lucien stepped back and raised his hand.
A low hum built in the air. Sunlight bent toward him. His blade ignited.
A pillar of golden flame erupted outward, a blinding arc that swallowed the space between them.
Astra didn't flinch.
He stepped forward into the blaze.
The shadows moved. They split—not in fear, but with cunning purpose, folding around the sunfire, redirecting it, siphoning it away. Astra flowed between flames, his body slipping through narrow seams in reality, untouched by the inferno.
He emerged on the other side, armor smoking, eyes glowing violet.
Lucien's mouth twitched—not quite surprise, not quite approval. He advanced.
Blades clashed again. Once, twice, a dozen times. Astra ducked low, slipping beneath a radiant sweep and twisting to Lucien's side. His blade snapped forward—but Lucien turned with him, already there, his sword intercepting the blow with a jarring screech.
Then Lucien surged forward, and the world turned white.
He struck with relentless rhythm, his sword carving blazing crescents through the air. Astra parried, stepped, vanished, reappeared, parried again. Every blow rang out like a tolling bell. Every motion became sharper, more exacting.
Astra's curse flared.
He began to see not just where Lucien moved, but why. The thoughts that preceded action. The intention behind feints. Threads unraveled in real time. Astra adapted with terrifying speed.
The Sword of Dawn was truly dreadful, Luciens style was offensive and domineering, Speed and Fire power, and under this sun and Lucien's skillful spell casting and sword mastery, he was quite the foe, yet Astra began to unravel it little by little.
Lucien swung in a wide arc.
Astra bent backward, the blade slicing an inch above his nose. In the same motion, he pivoted, ducked, and brought his sword up in a tight upward slash toward Lucien's ribs.
But Lucien spun again, catching the blade on his golden gauntlet and twisting it aside.
The ground cracked beneath them.
The air between their swords shimmered with light and shadow clashing violently. The arena's enchantments finally flickered under the strain, golden glyphs activating at the perimeter.
Lucien stepped back, blade raised high.
He channeled.
The sun answered.
A wave of searing heat erupted around him, distorting the air. The shadows recoiled instinctively, but Astra stood his ground, his violet gaze locked onto Lucien's golden eyes.
"You're not the same as before," Lucien said quietly. "The shadows used to move with disdain and fear, now they serve with tyrannical faith."
"They don't fear the sun anymore," Astra smiling darkly replied, his voice low. "They've seen what burns brighter."
Lucien didn't smile. He lunged.
His blade blurred. Light condensed into a narrow, radiant spear trailing behind him as he struck.
Astra stepped left—but Lucien adjusted mid-lunge, altering the strike into a diagonal feint, his real attack coming low.
Astra parried it, barely. The force of the impact sent him sliding backward, boots gouging trenches in the stone floor.
Lucien pressed, relentless.
He became a storm. A whirlwind of disciplined fury, his blade a line of gold carving through the arena. The light thickened around him, almost too bright to face.
Astra staggered once. Twice.
Then the shadows surged.
They didn't flee—they fought.
They wrapped around Astra's body like armor, flowing over him in jagged, volatile arcs. His blade vanished into darkness and reemerged a breath later—sharper, faster, bound with something ancient. Tendrils of Darkness lashed out at Lucien constantly, yet they were burned or deflected.
Lucien noticed. His footwork adjusted. His eyes narrowed.
Astra struck.
Their blades met again—light and dark exploding with such force that the ground beneath them buckled. Cracks split the arena floor, and dust lifted in thick, golden plumes.
Lucien slid back, breath tight.
Astra advanced, cloak flaring behind him, shadows dancing like wolves at his heels. He pressed forward in perfect silence—one step, then two. Then—
He was gone.
Luciens instincts screamed as he spun.
Too late.
Astra emerged from behind him, blade arcing toward Lucien's exposed side—but Lucien pivoted, parried, twisted.
Still, the strike grazed his ribs.
The first hit.
A beat of silence followed, both of them breathing hard, blades raised.
Lucien exhaled.
Astra grinned.
The next clash came like a thunderclap.
Lucien's blade roared in a golden arc—fire trailing like a comet's tail. Astra met it with a twisted blade of shadow, thicker now, harder, a wicked edge forming mid-swing. The collision wasn't ethereal. It shook the arena. Their swords didn't slide—they screamed against each other.
Astra's foot dug into the fractured stone.
"You're slowing down," Lucien spat, breath hot with flame. "Did the darkness finally start eating you too?"
Astra's grin was sharp, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"You talk like a zealot who thinks heat makes you holy."
He drove his blade forward, and the shadows answered. They surged behind him—no longer mist and fear, but matter. Blades. Chains. Shards. All forged from the nucleus of that roiling Dark Sun beneath his core, pouring black radiance into the arena like a silent scream. The shadows solidified, humming with weight and pressure that warped the very light around them.
Lucien's eyes narrowed. "That's new."
Astra didn't respond. He lunged.
A spear of pure shadow shot toward Lucien's chest—Lucien batted it aside, only for another to follow. Then another. Then four. Then eight.
Each strike carried mass now. Pinnacle Rank Two force. Material that shouldn't exist outside a forge was now moving like smoke—blades with the density of black steel, impossible angles, burning with violet runes carved by Astra's will.
Lucien raised a hand. "Solar Guard."
The arena lit like a dying star. A barrier of molten gold snapped into place around him, catching the barrage of spears in a blaze of furious fire. They hissed, sizzled, and punched through. Not all—but some.
Lucien flinched as one shredded the golden pauldron from his shoulder.
Astra's voice was ice.
"You thought light would save you. Light burns. It doesn't protect."
Lucien stepped from the fading shield, blood trailing down his arm.
"Spoken like someone who's never touched the sun."
He raised his blade—and it exploded with brilliance.
Sunlight poured around him, transmuted by his mana into a weaponized aura. Every step scorched the ground. He blurred forward, sword screaming with fire, and brought it down with enough force to sunder steel.
Astra blocked it.
Not with his blade.
With a wall of living shadow—a slab of condensed darkness pulled from the core of his Dark Sun, so dense it cracked under impact but held. Sparks burst from the contact. The shadow hissed and began to melt—but not before Astra moved.
He stepped through the wall. Through it.
Lucien turned just in time to block the incoming slash, but the force still sent him skidding back, boots carving twin ruts into the arena floor.
"Not bad," he muttered. "You finally stopped hiding behind tricks."
Astra advanced, step by slow step, eyes glowing with that eerie, moonless light.
"I'm not hiding," he said. "I'm hunting."
Then came the next barrage—sickles of shadow spinning from his cloak, a dozen at once, each one jagged and real and terrible. They howled through the air like screaming crows.
Lucien bellowed, his body erupting in flame. "SUNBREAK!"
A wave of blinding heat burst from him in a circular blast, atomizing half the incoming weapons. The other half hit, shattering on his skin, slicing across armor and burning flesh.
He stumbled. Briefly.
Astra was already there.
Their swords met again—and this time, it wasn't just two weapons. It was philosophies. Legacies. Kingdoms of light and shadow colliding in the space between two breaths.
Lucien snarled, eyes wild.
"You're nothing but rot wrapped in dark armor."
"And you," Astra hissed, shadows flaring behind him like broken wings, "are a candle pretending to be a sun."
He pressed in—and for the first time, Lucien gave ground.
The sun burned hotter.
The shadows grew sharper.
And somewhere in the silence between strikes, the crowd forgot to breathe.
Their blades locked again—and this time, it wasn't silent.
"Fall." Astra's voice dropped like a guillotine, laced with his mana, and the world responded.
The shadows behind him snapped. A dozen spires erupted from the earth, spearing upward toward Lucien with the sound of steel breaking bone. But they weren't just constructs—they carried will, Astra's intent to drag Lucien down, to drown him in darkness.
Lucien's own voice split the air.
"Burn."
The word caught fire.
It lashed out from his mouth like a whip of divine light. The spires ignited mid-flight, shattering in radiant explosions before they could touch him.
Their voices had become spells. Their wills, commands.
Lucien dashed forward, faster now, his flame-etched armor thrumming with fury. His blade came in a horizontal slash aimed at Astra's ribs, trailing fire like comet dust.
Astra ducked low, twisting—and answered. A flash of his cloak, and the shadows bent like knives, forming a jagged wheel mid-spin that crashed into Lucien's leg. The impact threw him off-balance, and Astra capitalized, slashing upward.
Lucien twisted at the last second—the blade still kissed his side, black fire streaking across his ribs, the scent of burned silk and skin joining the chaos.
But Lucien roared through it.
"Radiant Ascension!"
A pulse of sunlight erupted from him—not heat, but force, a divine surge that caught Astra square in the chest and hurled him backward through a pillar of obsidian. Dust and shards flew.
Lucien didn't chase immediately.
He stood there, blood dripping down his hip, golden eyes burning.
"You hide behind clever tricks and theatrics," he snarled, voice dripping with mana. "But all I hear is the echo of someone who's afraid to be seen."
Astra stepped from the rubble, eyes aglow with darkness, that Dark Sun behind them flaring.
"And you talk like someone who's afraid to be forgotten."
The floor cracked under his step. Then he was there—again. No telegraph. No chant. Just motion.
They collided.
Again.
And again.
Shadow met flame, and both struck home. Lucien's gauntlet-wrapped fist cracked into Astra's jaw—Astra's knee struck Lucien's ribs with a sickening crunch.
"Bleed."
A whisper from Astra, and the shadows on Lucien's wounds spread, corrupting the flame, turning it dark, draining its bite.
"Shine."
Lucien's voice flared in response, burning the corruption away with sheer will.
Astra stabbed with his dark-forged blade—Lucien caught it with both hands, skin burning, then headbutted him. Astra staggered—but laughed.
"Did that hurt you more than me?"
Lucien didn't smile.
"You'll know when I'm finished."
Then fire engulfed them both.
They became blurs—flashes of light and shadow, carving paths across the arena, colliding in midair, raining shards of stone and mana with every strike. Their movements were mirrors, not because they matched, but because they opposed—each movement one made, the other had already prepared to answer.
Lucien struck high with a flaming arc—Astra parried low, shadows wrapping around Lucien's legs like snakes. Lucien burst upward in a flare, breaking free—Astra vanished into a shadow and reappeared behind him, blade drawn.
"Hold."
The word came like thunder. It wasn't just noise—it held everything. The flames dimmed. The arena hushed. Lucien's breath caught in his throat as he paused his shadow grew heavy for a second.
Then Astra slashed.
Lucien twisted just enough. The blade grazed his side—but he answered with a blast from his palm.
"Ignite!"
It detonated point-blank.
Astra was sent flying—again. He rolled once, twice, body steaming, cloak in tatters.
But he rose.
Slowly.
Shadows coiled around him like beasts, licking at the wounds with black fire. The Dark Sun within him pulsed again, heavier, brighter—its gravity pulling even Lucien's light toward it.
Lucien stood across from him, panting, sword trembling slightly.
Astra's breath rasped, chest rising and falling as wisps of black flame danced along his limbs. The Dark Sun pulsed behind him, growing heavier, darker—its core swirling with that cursed glimmer that had begun to surge again. A whisper at the edge of thought, threading through his mind like silk through bone.
You like this, don't you? The chaos. The pain. The glory of it all…
And damn it, he did.
Lucien stood across from him, body cut, burned, and trembling—but his grin only widened, eyes glowing like twin suns on the verge of supernova.
They surged toward each other—again.
And the ground cracked, again.
Shadow slammed into flame. Flesh into bone. Voice into will.
"Submit." Astra's whisper carried with it a sickening weight—his mana erupting into claws of darkness that sought to drag Lucien down into his shadow.
Lucien bared his teeth in a crooked grin.
"Not. A. Chance."
He twisted, slammed a flaming elbow into Astra's jaw, and kneed him in the gut. Astra retaliated with a shadow-drenched headbutt that cracked the air.
And then—Lucien stepped back. Blood ran freely from his mouth, but his voice was clear.
"Alright. You want it?"
Mana surged around him. The air turned golden, heat shimmering like the mouth of a dying star.
"Then burn with me!"
He raised his hand to the sky—and laughed.
"Fall."
"Setting Sun."
The sun answered.
A flaming sphere began to descend from the heavens, like a god's judgment crashing toward the arena. It wasn't a spell—it was an ending. Lucien's personal sun, drawn down like a curtain on this battle.
Astra's eyes widened.
Shit.
His voice cracked the sky in reply.
" Shadowfall!"
The Dark Sun above him screamed as it plummeted—black gravity and twisted fire, a sphere of compressed shadow and intent barreling to meet its opposite.
The arena trembled.
The two suns fell as they collided in the sky above, and the clash roared, sending shockwaves that split the clouds and shook the world. A whirlwind erupted, and in the eye of that apocalyptic storm
Lucien and Astra didn't stop as they grappled and fought under the apocalyptic sky.
No swords. No finesse. Just two bloodied warriors holding onto each other as their wills burned the world.
Lucien's fist slammed into Astra's ribs. Astra retaliated with a brutal hook to Lucien's face.
They laughed—loud, mad, almost joyous—as they were hurled through the air, buffeted by the spiraling collision of suns. Neither could summon a thing—too much mana was locked into the descent.
The crowd could only watch, jaws dropped, the pressure of their mana clash pressing down on them like a weight on the soul. Shields rippled. Wards groaned.
Still—the enchanted barrier easily held.
But even then, nobles and commoners alike had to shield their eyes. The light and shadow radiating from that cataclysm made it feel like something ancient and forbidden had been unleashed.
Then—impact.
The arena vanished in a storm of light and void.
Silence.
And when the flames finally dimmed, when the black fire curled back into nothing and the light dispersed—
There Astra knelt, his armor dismissed shirtless, burned, trembling. Blood ran down his temple. His hair hung in singed strands. His violet eyes looked hollow, yet still burning.
Below him—Lucien, unconscious, buried halfway in cracked stone, a faint grin still on his lips.
one of Astras hands on his neck as he still struggled against the sun mage.
Astra's reached out his other hand his fingers gripped something.
A blade?
No.
A dagger, small and cold, hidden in the shadows where no sun could reach. Pulled from Lucien's own silhouette.
Astra straddled him, panting, face blank. Then he slowly raised the dagger and pressed it to Lucien's throat.
No words.
Just the silence of two warriors who had given everything.
As Astra's hand trembled, still gripping the dagger above Lucien's throat, the world seemed to hold its breath, suspended in the stillness between their heartbeats. The arena around them felt like a distant dream, the only sounds the ragged, shared breaths of the two of them, the roar of blood in their ears drowning out the world.
The warmth of Lucien's pulse beneath his fingers was the only thing grounding him—if he could still feel that, he wasn't lost entirely.
Then, with a sharp crack, the dagger slipped from his fingers and clattered to the stone floor. His body crumpled forward, drained of the fury that had sustained him. Astra's vision blurred, his skin slick with sweat and blood. His breath came in desperate gasps, each inhale a struggle against the weight of the battle that still echoed through his bones.
He could hear the healers now—golden magic washing over them, a soft, soothing light breaking through the dark edges of his mind. But the storm inside him didn't settle so easily.
The crowd erupted into thunderous applause, but even their joy felt distant, like waves crashing against a far-off shore.
In the royal box, everything went quiet, too quiet. Nobles murmured among themselves, their voices hushed in awe, but nothing could pierce the hollow space between Astra's thoughts. He'd felt something shift in him during the fight—a dangerous, intoxicating curiosity. A taste of something darker, something more dangerous. A hunger for power, for control.
A sudden burst of light split the tension, the voice of the announcer trembling as he spoke:
"Astra... versus Lucien... Winner: Astra."
The words broke through the chaos, but all Astra could hear was the soft, melodic hum of the song that began to rise, a voice filling the air with something fragile, something tender. A lullaby for the lost, the broken, the beautiful in the chaos.
As the healers rushed to attend to the broken figures of Astra and Lucien, a quiet stillness descended upon the arena. The air was thick with the aftermath of the clash, but something lingered in the silence—something profound, like the final breath of a storm.
A single, whispered verse began to drift through the minds of those in the crowd, almost as if the very world itself was speaking: the ancient hym of Sahara
A soft, fleeting moment held the crowd in place, a single thread of truth woven between Astra and Lucien's fierce struggle.
And then—suddenly—the arena erupted.
Shouts, gasps, applause. The crowd exploded into chaos, their voices rising like a tide, echoing off the enchanted walls. Some were on their feet, some had their hands pressed to their mouths in disbelief. Nobles wiped away tears, while commoners cheered with abandon.