The wind hissed through the glade like a serpent between stones. Smoke curled from the grass where lightning had struck, and the scent of scorched soil hung thick in the air.
Neil stood motionless.
His blood-red hair, wild and damp from the charge, whipped slightly in the breeze. His skin—dark like burnt bronze—gleamed faintly with lines of static still twitching beneath the surface. The garb he wore, stitched from strange cloth and wrapped with metallic threads, looked like nothing the Duke had ever seen.
Caligo Varn tilted his head.
"What realm spat you out?" he muttered. "Blood like fire. Skin like shadow. And that robe… You don't belong to any court I know of."
He almost sounded impressed.
Neil said nothing.
He glanced down at Zephyra, bruised and bleeding, collapsed near a broken ridge. Her breaths were shallow. Her once-proud aura now barely flickered around her.
"I want to move her," Neil said flatly.
The Duke raised a brow. "To safety?"
"Yes."
A beat passed. Then Caligo chuckled.
"I suppose it's only right," he said. "You look like you've come to die. A last mercy, then."
Neil approached Zephyra, carefully lifting her into his arms. Her eyes fluttered open at the contact, dazed.
"…Neil…?" she whispered.
"I'm here."
She looked at him—truly looked at him—and for a moment, even through the pain, she marveled. His features were nothing like anyone she'd known. His presence—glowing, stable, and wild—felt completely other. As if he came from a different age.
Neil didn't notice. He was already placing her down behind a large rock, wrapping his own cloak around her, shielding her from the coming storm.
He returned to the field.
The Duke stood waiting, arms open.
"I can't lie—I'm curious. You're not like the girl. You're something else."
Neil's jaw tightened. "You hurt her."
Caligo grinned. "I educated her."
Neil's fists began to spark again. But before he attacked, he paused.
A memory struck him.
"Dark Casters are the most diverse of all," his master had once said, voice calm beneath a glowing tree that never died. "Darkness has no shape, Neil. It takes on the shape of whatever wields it. Fear. Wrath. Hunger. There's no standard form. That makes them hard to read."
"So how do I fight them?" Neil had asked.
"You don't. Not right away. First you observe. Every shadow has a rhythm. Every caster depends on something. When you find the pattern, then you strike."
Neil lowered his stance.
He watched.
The Duke's aura writhed like ink in water—erratic, but not random. His spikes always came from angles where shadows were cast, not conjured. They needed sources—trees, rocks, his own body.
"Let's begin," Caligo said.
Neil vanished.
A crackle—then movement.
The Duke spun, sending a tendril of darkness surging behind him, but Neil had already sidestepped it. He ducked beneath another, then fired a quick bolt not at the Duke—but at his own shadow.
The flash disrupted the spike mid-form.
Caligo's eyes narrowed.
Neil danced back, lightning flickering along his arms. No overcommits. No wasted movements.
He wasn't attacking. He was studying.
And the Duke, for the first time in years, felt something stir beneath the weight of arrogance.
Excitement.
---
The glade pulsed with kinetic tension as lightning and shadow tore through the air.
Neil spun, ducked, and slid beneath another spike, his movement fluid—almost casual. He surged forward and struck the ground near the Duke's heel, causing a localized burst of electricity to jolt through the shadow trail.
Caligo flinched, forced to sidestep—him, sidestep—then flung out both hands.
A forest of black spines erupted from the trees behind Neil.
Neil didn't run. He flashed forward, energy sparking in his wake, zigzagging with precision. Another spike burst from his left, but he had already stepped around it. He landed a palm strike to Caligo's ribs, sending him staggering a half-step—just a half—but it was enough.
"Where did you learn to fight like this?" the Duke growled, his voice breaking into breathless shock.
Neil didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
His movements said enough. Efficient. Controlled. Precise.
Caligo spun and launched a barrage of spikes, sweeping the ground with writhing tendrils—but Neil ducked, bent backward in a motion that shouldn't have been human, and slid beneath the shadows.
Another lightning burst exploded behind Caligo's shoulder. He turned—too slow.
Neil was already on the opposite side.
"You—" the Duke muttered, "—you're not just fast. You're predicting me. How…?"
He shot a spike upward.
Neil flipped midair and landed directly in the Duke's blind spot—the one he kept leaving open, unintentionally, every time he turned right.
He's always exposing that same side, Neil thought. That's the habit. That's the breach.
---
From behind the stone ridge, Zephyra watched through blurry eyes. She was still weak—her body sore—but her senses were sharp enough to witness what was happening.
Neil was fighting like no one she'd ever seen before.
She gasped as he moved around the Duke like water sliding through cracks in stone. Every time the Duke struck, Neil was already beyond the reach of it. His lightning wasn't overwhelming—it was targeted. Intelligent. Measured.
Zephyra had grown up with freedom. She used to sneak away from lessons, choosing wind-dancing and games over drills. Her elders told her she had potential—but she never wanted to take it seriously.
Now she watched this stranger—this boy with flaming red hair and skin like midnight—and felt something stir deep in her chest.
Awe. Guilt. Respect.
"He's fighting not to impress, but to protect. To finish it. I've never seen anything like it…"
She clutched the cloak Neil had wrapped around her.
"I'll follow him," she whispered. "No matter what."
---
Back in the battlefield, Caligo snarled, frustrated.
"Enough playing."
He stabbed his hand toward the ground.
A spike erupted directly from Neil's own shadow.
Neil barely twisted aside, sparks trailing as the dark tendril grazed his shoulder.
The Duke laughed. "You thought I was limited to the field? You underestimated darkness, boy. You carry it with you."
More spikes launched from Neil's moving shadow.
But even then… Neil adjusted.
He stopped using straight movement.
He staggered his steps—angled his stride so that his shadow bent and warped. He kept moving into the sun-cast light, where his silhouette flickered and failed.
The Duke's attacks missed.
Neil flashed forward again, this time with force—his foot slammed down beside Caligo's, and a bolt burst directly upward.
The Duke caught it with a swirling veil of black, but staggered back two steps, gritting his teeth.
He's slowing, Neil thought. The attacks are fewer now…
And then it clicked.
He ends fights fast. Every move has intent to kill. Why? Because… he can't keep going. His stamina's low. That's why he finishes them quickly.
Neil narrowed his eyes.
The battle wasn't about overpowering the Duke.
It was about lasting long enough to watch him fall apart.
---
Even the soldiers who had remained behind with the Duke stood at the edge of the glade in disbelief.
"That's the Duke…"
"He's… losing?"
"No—he's not losing. He's being countered."
They had always feared the Duke—believed him untouchable. His fights were short. Brutal. Clean.
They had never seen him like this—sweating, breathing hard, pushed back by a boy they'd never heard of before today.
A boy with lightning in his veins.
---
The Duke's chest rose and fell with labored breath. His arms trembled now, black aura flickering and unstable around his fingertips. Across from him, Neil stood calm and unreadable, faint arcs of white lightning crackling at his sides.
"Your casting's become sloppy," Neil said.
Caligo gritted his teeth.
"You're not used to long fights. You burn everything too fast. That's why you finish your enemies early."
"Shut up," the Duke snarled.
Neil took a step forward.
"You've already lost. I'll say this once. Surrender. Never return. Walk away."
The glade held its breath.
For a long moment, the Duke just stared—expression unreadable.
Then, finally, he dropped to one knee, raising both hands, shadows withdrawing into the dirt.
"…Fine," he rasped. "You win. I… surrender."
Neil took a breath, watching closely.
But then—
A single black spike burst from directly beneath Neil's feet, aimed at his skull.
Too fast for most.
But not for him.
Neil sidestepped mid-breath, eyes already anticipating it.
"You're predictable."
He raised one arm—and in that same motion, struck downward with a burst of pure lightning, slamming the Duke into the dirt. The blast cratered the ground beneath Caligo's body.
The spike disintegrated mid-rise.
The Duke gasped, trying to push himself up—but his arms gave out.
Neil stood over him.
"That was your last mistake."
---
The soldiers—vagabonds loyal by fear, not love—stood frozen.
Their master was on the ground. Unmoving. Humiliated.
One of them turned.
"Let's get out of—"
But before he could finish, a bolt of light flashed past, and suddenly Neil was there, standing in front of them.
No sound. No movement.
Just presence.
The boy with glowing white eyes and fire-red hair.
"If any of you ever do this again," Neil said quietly, "if I hear even a whisper of you harming villages or raiding innocents… I'll find you."
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't have to.
The message was burned into the silence.
The vagabonds scattered, running like rats from a firestorm.
---
Later, in the clearing, Zephyra stood beside Neil as the last of the soldiers vanished into the trees. She smiled, still nursing her wounds.
"You really meant it when you said you'd protect me," she said.
Neil handed her the bow—Whisperwind—and the small bundle of Wind Tribe tools and the bark-skin book.
Her eyes widened.
"You found these?"
"In the Duke's compound," Neil said. "They belong with you."
Zephyra took them gently. She looked at the bow for a long moment, fingers tracing the grooves of her people's mark, then looked back up at him.
"I want you to come with me," she said. "To what's left of my village. There are still people there. Survivors. Elders. Families. They need to meet you."
Neil hesitated. "Who… exactly are you going to introduce me as?"
Zephyra smiled faintly.
"The new hope," she said. "The hope this dying world forgot it needed."