She raised her sword slowly, her arms trembling but unyielding. Her lips moved, soft and steady.
"One slash."
The black smoke that had been leaking from her body suddenly surged upward, crawling and coiling until it wrapped around her entire weapon.
It swallowed the blade whole, devouring the steel until the sword itself vanished from sight. In her hands it no longer looked like a sword at all, it looked like fire. Not flames of warmth, but dark, suffocating fire, as though she gripped a burning piece of the abyss.
Her body shook as she drew the blade back. Then, with a cry that ripped through the battlefield, she slashed it down.
The strike came as a single, straight line at first. Clean, sharp, perfect. But halfway down the arc, the black fire on her blade exploded.
Smoke burst outward like a storm unchained. And then it wasn't one slash anymore. It was countless.
