"What?" Icariel whispered aloud, eyes wide, the voice in his mind ringing louder than thunder. His heartbeat slammed against his ribs like a prisoner in chains begging for escape.
Smoke coiled between the trees like the breath of an old god awakening from slumber, and the firelight painted grotesque shapes across the torn battlefield—faces of agony, shadows of betrayal.
The woman closed in on Galien.
He knelt in the dirt, unmoving, blood stringing from his fingertips like melted wax. His twin swords were driven into the soil—not blades anymore, but crutches for a body collapsing under history. A warrior turned into a ruin.
Her two-edged sword hovered at his throat. The blade shimmered in the firelight with a carnivore's gleam.
"It was a pleasure, Galien," she purred, her voice sliding through the air like poisoned silk. "Now my bears will slaughter the ones you gave your life to protect—the ones you betrayed us for."
Galien exhaled.
It was not the breath of a man preparing to fight.
It was the breath of a man crumbling beneath the weight of memory. His limbs screamed with ancient wounds, his fingers curled like dead leaves, and his vision closed inward, a flame eating the edges of his world.
"So this is how it ends..."
"I could not avenge you, my son. I could not save them."
"Everything I endured—every sacrifice, every scar—and still…"
A bitter smile touched his lips, flickering like a dying wick.
"Perhaps this is justice. Perhaps this is fate. But if only—if only I had just a little more time..."
His fingers twitched against the hilts.
But there was no strength left in them. No rage. Only ash. A warrior's fire smothered beneath the long snowfall of years.
"I failed you, my son."
His head lowered. The sword at his throat gleamed, eager to end what age had not.
Then—
An axe shrieked through the smoke like a star torn from its orbit.
CLANG.
Steel met steel in a burst of screaming sparks. She staggered, blade thrown slightly off-course.
"Who dares?" she snarled, eyes igniting like twin furnaces.
The woods offered no answer. Only trees charred into skeletal hands, their limbs clawing skyward. Smoke hung heavy as mourning cloth. The air stank of blood, burned flesh, and something older—something sacred and broken.
Hidden behind a crumbling tree, Icariel gasped, clutching his chest as if it might contain the quake in his ribs.
"I knew it."
"There was no way Galien would fall without a plan. That mana gathering around him—that wasn't surrender. That was the beginning."
The woman turned back—and froze.
Galien was rising.
Agonizingly slow.
Unstoppable.
His aura had once flickered like a dying flame. Now it blazed—molten, furious, alive. It expanded around him like a newborn sun, lighting the battlefield with ruinous glory.
"You bastard…" she breathed. "You still have this much left?!"
She stepped back—but too late.
He lunged forward and locked his arms around her, an embrace not of love, but of finality.
"Let go of me!" she howled, slashing at his side. Steel met flesh. He did not flinch.
Galien smiled.
It was tired.
It was triumphant.
"I knew it," he whispered, voice trembling with bone-deep gratitude. "Even though you're the most selfish creature I've ever known… at the final moment, you always show up."
He exhaled.
"You damn brat… Icariel. Thank you."
Behind the tree, Icariel blinked. Then grinned—just a flicker, a fracture of joy within the storm. "He waited for the opening. The axe was the trigger. That was the plan all along."
"The voice told me what to do... and I trusted it."
Flashback.
"Throw your axe at her head. Now."
"What?" Icariel had gasped.
"Your odds of survival will increase tenfold."
Present.
Icariel crouched, breathing smoke and adrenaline. Galien's arms clamped tighter.
"So this was the plan…"
"You never gamble with my life unless the stakes are divine. That's why I always listen. Always… isn't that right?"
No answer came from the voice.
Galien's aura erupted—no longer heat, but divinity. The flames bowed. The trees bent. The air wept.
"You are going down with me," he said.
The woman's manic grin cracked. Her crimson aura flared, frenzied. "What are you doing?" she spat. "You would not—"
"I obtained a skill in that cursed mountain," Galien murmured. His voice bore reverence. Grief. Finality.
"It is called Equal Prey."
Icariel's heart stopped.
Equal… Prey?
Elektra thrashed in his arms. "What does it do?!"
Galien's aura became a black hole. The flames around them hesitated—then collapsed toward him, drawn like blood to a wound.
"It makes us prey," he said. "Both of us. No predator. No mercy. No escape."
"You mad bastard," she shrieked. "You'll die too!"
He smiled. "That's the point."
"They both die the same," he whispered. "Hunted."
Icariel's breath caught.
No… no, Galien—this wasn't how it was meant to end…
Galien's body burned now, a furnace in the shape of a man. But his voice remained.
"This skill pulls all mana into my body. Every ounce. I become a vessel. I become the trap. I become the tomb."
He looked into Elektra's eyes.
"It kills my opponent… and myself."
A tear broke down his cheek, turned to steam before it fell.
"A fitting end… for the monster who took my son."
Elektra screamed. Fought. Failed.
"YOU DAMN BASTARD!"
Galien smirked through the fire. "Goodbye, Icariel. Thank you… for giving me this chance."
Icariel sprinted forward, but it was too late.
The world detonated.
Light surged. The forest howled.
Trees cracked like ribs. Fire became blades. Wind became screams. Earth split.
Icariel's body was flung skyward. Branches clawed his skin. The ground struck him like stone fists. His mind shattered into sparks.
The sky—he saw it, just before the dark—burning like a funeral pyre.
Then—
Silence.
He awoke to cinders in his lungs.
His face was battered, his hair charred. The air was smoke. The world was ruin. Trees lay broken like fallen titans. Flames still licked the bones of the forest.
Equal Prey had devoured everything.
And still… through the ash, a voice hissed in his skull like the last whisper of a god.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
He groaned, forcing his ruined limbs to move. "I… I'm already awake," he murmured, pressing a palm to his head.
The voice sharpened.
Run.
"Run?" he mumbled. "Why? She's dead. Galien killed her—"
Run now. She is alive.
Terror gripped him like ice tightening around his lungs. He turned—
And saw.
Galien's body still stood upright in the distance. But it was not Galien anymore. Arms—gone. Torso—charred. Face—unrecognizable.
But something moved through the flames.
A shape. A figure.
Elektra.
Alive.
Walking through fire as though it were nothing but mist. Her armor—shattered and charred—still clung to her. Her face bloodied, hair wild, eyes burning with hatred unquenched by death.
"How…?" Icariel breathed. His legs refused to obey. He was frozen.
RUN! the voice screamed.
He tried—but a fallen tree pinned his leg, crushing it beneath bark and stone.
She was on him.
A shadow of vengeance.
She knelt, grabbed him by the hair, yanked his head back until pain bloomed in his skull. Her face was inches from his. Hate radiated from her like fever.
"So it was you," she hissed. "You threw the axe. You cost me my one-time-use armor. Do you have any idea how rare that is?!"
Icariel trembled. It was over.
Her fingers gripped tighter. "I'll make you bleed. I'll make you scream. I'll write your name into agony."
His vision blurred. Her voice slipped away.
"Ah…" he mumbled, eyelids closing.
"I'm done for."
And then—darkness.