The assassin didn't charge. He glided, a blur of malice and momentum, closing the gap in a blink, essence screaming in his wake. The tunnels warped around him, the red rune on his mask pulsing like a heartbeat of doom.
Oriana met him head-on.
Sparks exploded as steel clashed with death-forged alloy. Her twin blades shrieked against his curved saber, black and red lightning dancing along the contact point. The force of the impact cracked the ground beneath them, shattering stone like brittle ice.
Tyson barely had time to react. He stumbled back, eyes wide as pressure rolled off the two like colliding storms. Red Fang didn't move like a man.
He flowed.
His cloak flared, slashing out like liquid blades, forcing Oriana to break the clash. She ducked, pivoted, and slashed upward. He vanished.
Reappeared behind her.
His saber plunged toward her back; Oriana spun mid-air, parrying with both blades crossed over her shoulder. The impact knocked her sideways, boots scraping stone as she steadied herself. Her chest rose and fell, not with fear but anticipation.
She grinned.
"Still just a boy with a grudge."
Red Fang did not reply.
Instead, he moved again. Faster.
A streak of red essence carved through the air. He twirled his saber, a dance of slaughter, and feinted low before lashing upward. Oriana blocked, but her knees buckled under the weight of it. His next move was a roundhouse kick wreathed in shadow. It connected with her ribs, sent her flying.
She smashed into the far wall, coughing blood.
Tyson stepped forward, instinct screaming to act, but Nyxari held her arm out.
"No," her voice sharp, "he'll tear you apart."
She was already summoning her bow. Ghostfire crackled, black skulls orbiting her fingers. She drew fast. Loosed two arrows. They curved mid-air, one for his face, one for his legs.
He blinked sideways, dodging both, then reappeared beside her. Too close.
Nyxari twisted, bow shifting to spear mid-motion, stabbing forward with ghostlight brilliance.
But he was faster.
Red Fang caught the shaft in his bare hand.
Ghostfire hissed against his palm.
Then he twisted.
SNAP.
Nyxari screamed as the spear shattered and with it, her arm. She staggered back, clutching her limb, essence flickering out of her fingertips.
Tyson moved without thinking.
"Oriana!" he shouted. She was already up.
Bruised. Bleeding. Smiling.
Her blades trailed black mist as she charged again. She didn't hold back this time. Not a single ounce of hesitation. She met him with a flurry of strikes, one after the next, faster than the eye could track.
Steel rang like thunder.
Sparks flew like stars.
Each blow chipped away at the walls, the floor, the reality around them.
Red Fang matched her, step for step. His saber never stopped moving, cutting, parrying, countering. His cloak moved as if alive, slashing out in tandem.
She ducked, rolled, countered. Her left blade nicked his mask, and for a second, she saw his eye; a burning coal of hate.
Then came the shockwave.
He slammed his saber into the ground, releasing a pulse of pure destructive will.
The explosion launched Oriana off her feet. Nyxari was thrown into the wall, unconscious.
Malric raised his hand. His necklace glowed. His eyes followed suit.
A blue barrier erupted around Tyson and Nyxari, just in time to absorb the blast.
Malric groaned. Blood leaked from his nose. "Hold… hold…"
The energy slammed into the shield cracking it like glass but it held. For now.
Tyson looked over. Malric's veins were glowing. His opal pulsed violently at his chest, and runes had formed down his arm, protective in design.
"What the hell…?"
"It's a memory shield," Malric gritted his teeth. "Stored spell. My father taught me… only works once."
The blast passed. The dust cleared.
Red Fang stood alone, cape still swaying from the force.
Oriana rose again.
Her face was bloodied. Her side gashed. Her eyes?
Still calm. Still defiant.
"You want my head?" she spat blood. "Come earn it."
Her blades lifted, trembling not with weakness, but with rage held too long.
She took one breath. Just one.
Then, without looking back, "Run."
Tyson froze. "What?"
"Take Nyxari. Get out of here."
"Oriana…"
"GO!" she roared, essence flaring violently around her. The tunnel shook from the sheer force of it.
Tyson's gut twisted. He wanted to argue. Wanted to stay.
But Nyxari lay in a crumpled heap, barely breathing, her arm bent at a wrong angle and ghostfire flickering out like dying embers.
He ran.
He slung her over his shoulder, her weight heavy, but manageable, and turned toward Malric. "We have to go!"
Malric stared at Oriana, awe and fear carved into every line of his face. "She's not going to make it."
Tyson did not stop. "She doesn't plan to."
They bolted down the tunnel.
The last thing Tyson heard as they vanished into the dark was laughter.
Not Red Fang's.
Hers.
***Oriana***
Oriana spun her blades once, the black mist coiling into thick tendrils, writhing like serpents eager to kill. Her wounds bled freely. Her breath was shallow. But her stance never faltered.
"I figured it'd be you," Oriana murmured, her voice frayed like old steel. Not surprised. Not impressed. Just… tired. "The last ember clinging to ash."
Red Fang didn't speak.
His mask tilted slightly, but his essence flared—uncontrolled, violent. The air distorted around him, warping the stone with each breath. The tunnel felt smaller suddenly, like it was bending around him. Like it knew what was coming.
"You've chased me across lifetimes," she said, lifting her cracked blade, blood still running from her side. "Seven centuries of obsession."
His saber rose in silence.
"I'm done running," he finally answered.
Oriana's lips twitched, no joy, no humor. Just a ghost of something long dead.
"Good," she said, planting her foot into the cracked stone. "Let me show you why the Gods tried to erase me."
And they collided.
No flourish. No warning. No mercy.
It was not a fight; it was two natural disasters meeting mid-storm.
Red Fang's saber howled as it met Oriana's twin blades, runes clashing, the air itself igniting with kinetic fury. Every strike sent ripples through the tunnel, shockwaves bursting like thundercracks. The walls screamed, splintering open, stone cascading like rain. One section of ceiling caved in behind them. Essence roared in all directions.
Shadows fought death.
Steel met soul.
And blood began to paint the stones.
Oriana was relentless, fluid as water, sharp as a blade, but her movements had weight now. Her body was fraying. Essence was bleeding through her every pore, and still she didn't stop. Couldn't.
Red Fang pressed harder. Every movement was precision. Every blow carved pieces of her rhythm away. He adapted. Faster than anything she had faced in hundreds of years.
And still she endured.
Even as her ankle twisted mid-pivot. Even as blood spattered from her mouth after a glancing blow cracked her ribs. Even as his cloak slashed across her thigh, nearly severing muscle.
She didn't break.
But she did slow.
Not from fear. Not from weakness.
From the weight of what she was about to do.
Red Fang saw the moment. He lunged, tendrils of his living cloak unraveling, all tipped with jagged runes meant to pierce soul and stone.
They surged toward her like hungry animals. And she didn't move.
She inhaled. The tunnel dimmed. Then recoiled.
Like the world itself was afraid.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"I invoke the Forgotten Rite…"
Her eyes turned black. Her veins ignited, glowing with deep pale blue fire. The air turned thin, brittle, as if reality itself was being peeled away.
"Let me show you why they called me The Hand of Death."
The ground cracked, and a ring of void ignited beneath her feet. The shadows didn't stretch, they fled. The stones wept, the air stilled, and death stood still to watch. Red Fang halted mid-strike. A flicker of horror passed behind his mask.
She could see the recognition behind his crystal mask. The same look of fear she had seen all those centuries ago, the lone figure left in a sea of death.
Oriana lifted her hand, her body levitating within the spiral of the void, and for the first time in centuries, she spoke the name of the forbidden art, banned across realms, etched in the bones of extinct gods.
"DEATH'S CATACLYSM."
The ceiling above shattered, not with force, but with rejection.
Space tore like wet paper.
And through the rupture came spears of pure annihilation; each forged from compressed death essence, burning with the screams of every soul she had ever reaped. Black meteors streaked the air, trailing trails of violet flame and memory.
Each one was a grave.
Each one was a world's end.
The first hit; erasing a tunnel like it had never existed.
The second crashed into a wall, vaporizing layers of stone and earth.
The third struck near Red Fang. The blast silenced sound. Stole color.
Unmade everything.
He vanished in the eruption, swallowed whole by a force no mortal should witness.
The entire subterranean network collapsed. Sections of tunnel imploded. The ground warped. Soulfire lamps blinked out, snuffed like candles in a void storm. Essence howled through the cracks, trying to flee.
And yet, it was toned down.
Just a fragment. A fraction.
The world screamed. And Oriana dropped. Her knees slammed into what little remained of the floor, essence spilling from her core like a dam broken. Blood spilled from her lips.
"Too much…" she whispered, trembling. "Didn't mean… that much…"
Her hands shook. Her skin peeled. Her body couldn't contain the recoil.
Across the rubble, a piece of Red Fang's crystal mask clinked against a shattered stone.
She could not see him. She did not care. She did not even know if he still existed.
Oriana collapsed forward, catching herself on one trembling arm. Her breath came ragged. Her bones groaned.
Death's Cataclysm had once turned a planet into a memory.
She had called upon one-tenth of its power.
Her world went black, reality slipping away.
***Tyson***
Tyson collapsed to one knee, the weight of Nyxari's body threatening to pull him down entirely. His heart raced. His vision blurred. But that wasn't what stopped him.
It was the pain. Not his.
Hers.
His soul screamed as it twisted in on itself, a jagged wire yanking at something ancient and raw, something that did not belong to him, but now lived inside him.
Oriana.
He felt her rage ignite like a dying star reborn. Her power flared, searing across his core. Then came the agony, fire behind his eyes, thorns wrapping around his lungs, a cold that was colder than death itself.
It was not a spell.
It was not an attack.
It was judgment.
His mouth opened, and a sound tore out that didn't sound human. It echoed off the tunnel walls like the cry of something dying inside out.
"TYSON!" Malric shouted, barely catching him before he hit the ground. The moment their skin touched, Malric felt it too, just a sliver and recoiled, stumbling back like he'd touched molten steel. The ground shook. The tunnel groaned.
Far behind them, where they had fled from, something detonated. The shockwave did not carry wind, it carried grief. A memory of worlds ending. A vibration that whispered, she is still capable of this.
Nyxari was unconscious. Blood at her nose. She did not stir.
Tyson writhed in place, clutching at his chest like something inside was trying to escape. He wasn't bleeding, but his soul was fracturing under the pressure of the shared bond.
Malric stood alone. The only one still conscious. The only one still untouched by the true depth of her power.
Then he heard it. A name.
A whisper carried on essence, clawing through the tunnel like a curse that remembered every death it had ever caused.
"Death's Cataclysm."
His knees buckled. It was not just power.
It was not just a technique.
It was a reminder… that the woman they followed was not a person.
She was a force.