The Hollow Pass shuddered beneath the storm of steel.
The gorge itself seemed to breathe with the armies massed within it—thousands of men pressing forward, screaming, crying, dying, bleeding into the earth. Yet for all their numbers, all their fury, the world's gaze had narrowed to two figures locked at its heart.
Ryon.
The scarred commander.
Their duel had outlasted the sun's zenith. Their blades sang through air thick with ash and mist, each strike sending ripples through the battlefield. It was just as if even the clash of armies had begun to hesitate, waiting, because the victor here would decide more than a single life.
It would decide the Hollow itself.
Ryon's arms burned, shoulders trembling beneath the weight of endless parries. He could still feel the commander's last kick rattling through his ribs, bruised deep enough to sting every breath. His own blade dripped crimson, his blood and the commander's indistinguishable now.
