Okhist roared, swinging the mammoth axe with enough force to split the office in two. Kazel's jagged blade caught the edge, sparks screaming as steel met steel. The force blasted the tables and chairs into splinters.
Kazel pressed forward, chain rattling as he ripped the blade free and slashed again, carving a deep line across the walls. Okhist answered with a stomp—the spirit mammoth trumpeted, shaking the floorboards until the entire building groaned in protest.
For less than ten seconds, the office became a storm of shattered wood, slashed stone, and flying debris. Files, furniture, and glass exploded into the air as the two figures blurred within the chaos.
With a thunderous crash, the wall gave in. Both men burst outside, the storm's rain swallowing them whole.
The Great Mammoth loomed behind Okhist as he raised his axe again, lightning flashing overhead. Kazel's blade gleamed jagged and merciless under the storm.
Their clash had only just begun.
Liodra's violet hair slipped over her shoulder as she leaned closer to the window. Her sharp eyes narrowed, watching the storm split apart with each collision. The roof tiles shattered beneath their steps, every strike between jagged blade and mammoth axe ripping the rain into ribbons.
( That man… he's tearing through a Great Mammoth's might? ) she thought, heart pounding in a way she hadn't felt in years.
Downstairs, Arhatam nearly stumbled over himself, pressing his face against the glass like a child. His jaw fell open, his hands trembling against the sill."OH MY LORDNESS, IT'S KAZEL!" he cried, voice cracking.
Madam Yi, usually unshaken and composed, turned her head sharply toward the sound. Her gaze followed Arhatam's trembling finger to the window. When she saw the black-haired youth crossing blades with the Shield and Spear's Black Knight on the rooftop, her lips parted in sheer disbelief.
Liodra's nails pressed against the wooden frame of the window as her eyes tracked the two figures battling atop the drenched rooftops. Each clash split the night into steel and thunder, every stroke shaking the storm itself. Her violet eyes glimmered beneath the flickering lightning.
( That boy… no, that thing—what in the heavens is he? )
Kazel was too young, too reckless, his body lean and sinewed with the hunger of someone who had never once thought of defeat. His blade sang with fury, his steps carried by defiance alone, and yet… it was not the recklessness of youth.
( To be that young, yet fight as though he has lived a thousand battles… To be that hungry, as if the world itself is prey… To be that powerful and feisty, like a storm given flesh. )
Her chest tightened, a dangerous heat creeping into her veins.
( What kind of man were you in the past, Kazel? …No, not a man. What kind of creature are you really? )
Lightning split the heavens again, and in that stark brilliance she saw him — drenched, bloody, grinning in the face of the mammoth's shadow — and for a moment, Liodra forgot how to breathe.
The rooftop buckled under the force of Okhist's mammoth-backed swing, tiles and rain bursting outward like shrapnel. Kazel slipped past the arc, his jagged blade hissing across the axe's haft before carving a long red line across Okhist's arm.
"GRAAAAH!" Okhist roared, his spirit beast shrieking behind him, tusks thrashing, blood mist fusing with rain.
Kazel's smile was cold, his blue eyes alight with merciless hunger. "You're cracking, Okhist. Every swing, every breath — they reek of fear."
The axe came down again, splitting a roof beam in half. Kazel darted aside, his cloak whipping through the storm as he retaliated with a slash that lit the night like lightning itself.
The noise rolled through the streets, a rhythm of thunder and steel that could not be ignored.
Far across the rain-drenched district, two figures stirred from their lodgings at the Curved Blade Sect's guest quarters.
Nobu slid the door open with one hand resting on the hilt of his curved blade, his sharp eyes narrowing as the shockwaves of battle reached even here. "What in the blazes is that?"
Saya, hair unbound and still in her loose inner robes, stepped beside him, her face pale against the lantern light. Her gaze drifted toward the north, where the storm flashed unnaturally bright.
"That isn't thunder," she whispered, clutching her sleeve. "That's steel."
Nobu's jaw tightened. For an instant, lightning cut the night — and high above, on the rooftops torn apart by rain and force, he saw them. A black axe against a jagged blade, a mammoth's bellow against a man whose grin burned fiercer than any spirit beast.
"…Kazel," Nobu muttered under his breath, recognition hardening into disbelief.
Saya's lips parted. She had seen Kazel fierce, but this? This was not a duel. This was carnage wearing the face of a youth.
And in the pit of her stomach, an old instinct stirred. Fear.
Nobu's knuckles tightened around his blade. The rain beat down mercilessly, soaking tiles, walls, and skin alike — but then a shiver ran across his spine, sharp and unnatural.
Slowly, he turned.
Not far from the edge of the guest quarters stood a figure. A silhouette carved from the night itself, tall, unmoving. Yet not a single droplet of rain touched them. The storm bent around its presence, as though the heavens themselves dared not defile it.
Saya followed Nobu's gaze, but her breath caught in her throat before she could speak.
The silhouette remained silent, its presence pressing down heavier than thunder, its unseen eyes locked wholly on the clash between Kazel and Okhist.
Nobu's throat dried. His instincts screamed at him, the kind honed not in training halls, but in the marrow of a warrior's soul. He swallowed hard, mind racing, and the thought slipped out like a whisper inside his skull.
(Grandmaster…?)
But even that word felt too small.
Okhist roared, veins bulging in his neck as the phantom of the Great Mammoth bellowed behind him. The storm itself seemed to quake at its cry. He swung his massive axe high, both hands gripping the haft like it was an extension of his fury.
"Mammoth Rampart Smash!"
The axe came down with a force that split the rooftop tiles in half, a shockwave tearing outward in a brutal arc meant to crush anything in its path. The phantom mammoth's tusks mirrored the strike, goring forward with unstoppable momentum.
But Kazel didn't retreat. He didn't evade.
Instead, he surged forward, blue eyes flashing under the lightning, the jagged blade biting into the storm itself. He met the mammoth head-on, his shout cutting through the thunder.
Steel rang against steel, tusks met defiance. The rooftop shattered beneath them, chunks of stone and wood flying like shrapnel. The blast shook the entire block, windows cracking in the Duskwind Inn as Madam Yi and the others shielded their faces from the trembling glass.
Okhist's grin twisted into disbelief as he felt the resistance — not crumbling, not yielding, but pressing back. Kazel's blade dug into the phantom tusk, and with a sudden flare of murderous intent, he pushed, snarling—
"You think your beast can trample me? Then watch it bleed!"
The phantom mammoth howled as cracks of soul-energy split its image, rippling under the tyrant's reckless advance.
The rooftop quaked beneath the clash, Okhist's axe bearing down with the full wrath of his Great Mammoth. The phantom tusks drove forward, a mountain of force meant to crush Kazel utterly.
But Kazel's lips curved into that dangerous grin. His left hand flared with black light as he whispered the word that split the storm:
"Amplify."
Power surged through him like a tidal wave breaking its chains. His veins glowed faintly, muscles taut, every ounce of strength, speed, and killing intent heightened beyond mortal bounds.
He didn't block this time. He drove forward.
The jagged blade roared with his will as Kazel swung upward in a brutal counter, colliding against the descending axe.
The impact was apocalyptic.
A shockwave tore the rooftop to pieces, sending planks, stone, and shattered tiles flying into the storm like cannon fire. Lightning itself seemed to scatter in the wake of the blow. The phantom mammoth shrieked, its tusks splintering under the amplified strike, its form rippling as if about to break apart.
Okhist stumbled back, boots carving trenches across the soaked wood, his eyes wide with horror. His axe trembled in his grip.
Kazel advanced one step, his blue eyes glowing feral, the storm swirling around him like a cloak.
"You brought your beast against me," Kazel growled, blade humming with lingering Amplify, "but I am the beast."
The storm above blackened further as jagged hailstones crashed down from the heavens, each shard of ice sharp enough to pierce through stone. Kazel's instincts flared—his body moved without thought, his jagged blade spinning into a whirlwind. Each frozen spear shattered into glittering fragments before it could reach him. The rooftop groaned, tiles cracking under the relentless bombardment.
Okhist's lips twisted into a sneer, eyes gleaming with cruel hope."Looks like even the heavens have chosen my side!" he roared, his mammoth spirit surging once more at his back.
But then—
A piercing cry split the storm. The sound was unmistakable: shrill, arrogant, and drenched in fire. The Blue Phoenix.
The Fang trembled as the immortal bird descended, its wings spreading wide enough to blot out what little light dared to shine through the storm clouds. Its screech scattered the ice as if it commanded the weather itself.
Gasps rose from every corner of the Fang; cultivators and knights alike turned their eyes skyward in dread. To them, this was the herald of annihilation.
And yet—Kazel laughed.
A laugh that cut through thunder, wind, and fear. His teeth bared, eyes blazing brighter than the lightning above.
"How perfect," he spat, raising the jagged blade high. "Come then, Blue Phoenix. Come and fall like the rest! I'll end you—" he shoved Okhist back, the force of his strike lifting the burly knight clear off his feet, driving him upward like a ragdoll caught in the gale, "—and your wretched order ALTOGETHER!"
The two of them burst skyward, steel and storm entwined, heading straight toward the descending Phoenix's shadow.