The leader, calm, drew the second katana.
The sound of steel sliding from the sheath cut through the silence — cold, metallic, final.
He raised his arm, positioning the blade above his shoulder, ready for the descending strike.
Before the blade fell, something moved in the air.
A snap — dry, quick.
The golden leather of Isabela's lasso caught the leader's forearm, locking the strike mid-path.
The blade stopped a few centimeters from Karna's face, vibrating under the tension of the impact.
From afar, Isabela held her stance firm — feet rooted to the ground, body slightly inclined backward, the muscles in her arm strained to the limit.
The air trembled between them, the lasso glinting under the filtered forest light.
Before the enemy could react, Lyra was already moving.
A clean leap — driven.
She used Karna's shoulder as a step; her left foot touched the metal of his armor, the right one launching her forward.
Her body spun in the air, fluid, precise.
The leader lifted his gaze the instant she descended.
The impact was direct.
Lyra locked onto him, her legs crossed around his neck, her body solid and centered.
Her hands touched the sides of his head — and then the sound came.
Vibration.
Short seismic waves, rhythmic, each one more intense than the last.
The first cracked part of the mask — and something snapped in her arm, but she ignored it.
The second opened the metal at the edges — another snap, sharper this time, her arm giving way, pain rushing fast.
The third — a dry crack, the sound of steel breaking — and with it Lyra's bones opened from within, the wet sound of the fracture echoing — yet she held the technique to the end, teeth clenched, not retreating a millimeter.
At the same time the sounds of breaking bones echoed, Karna rolled across the ground, recovering his bow.
His fingers slid along the weapon's body, locking the grip with precision.
In a single motion, he turned, kneeling on the rough soil.
The string stretched, the arrow ready — his eyes fixed on the target.
But as the fragments of the mask began to fall, he froze.
The face that emerged beneath was impossible to mistake.
"T…?" — his voice faltered, almost a whisper.
The figure stared back in silence — an empty, unreadable look.
Then the free arm rose.
Fingers closed brutally around Lyra's hair.
He ripped her off balance.
Threw her to the ground as if the world had flipped upside down.
The impact hit like a hammer, cracking the earth.
Lyra coughed blood, her body arching, her eyes losing focus.
In the same instant, he twisted the trapped wrist.
The tension of the lasso shifted direction.
Isabela felt it before she saw it — the violent pull cutting through the air like lightning.
There was no time to react.
She was wrenched from the ground, her body dragged in a straight line, leaves and dirt lifting in her wake.
As she neared, he simply pivoted and kicked, using her own momentum against her.
The strike was brutal.
Isabela collided with the trunk of a thick tree, the impact echoing down the road.
The lasso released, falling to the ground.
She collapsed, gasping, her arm trembling, her shoulder throbbing.
Between the trees, the wind blew, scattering dust and fragments of the broken mask.
And Karna, unmoving, still held the bow.
But now, the arrow trembled.
Karna took an uncertain step, the arrow still between his fingers.
"Telvaris…" — his voice wavered. "Where have you been… all this time?"
The other stared at him in silence, eyes drowned in something no longer human.
No word.
No sign of recognition.
Only darkness.
For a moment, nothing — just the sound of Karna's ragged breathing and the rustle of leaves.
Then Telvaris moved.
Slowly.
He knelt, eyes still locked on Karna, and reached for the fallen katanas.
His fingers closed around the hilts — the metal scraped against the damp earth.
When he stood, the cold shine of the blades caught the filtered forest light.
Then he advanced.
Karna swallowed hard, trying to ignore the weight crushing his chest.
"Why…?" he whispered. "After everything we lived through…"
The first blade came in a rising arc — fast, precise.
Karna lifted the bow and blocked it, the shock vibrating through his bones.
"You don't understand…" — Telvaris's voice came rough, distant, as he pushed the strike with growing force. "I died… with them."
The words hit harder than the blade.
Karna staggered back a step, the shock of the strike tangled with the shock of the truth.
"No…" he rasped. "I looked for you. I believed…!"
Telvaris spun, the next cut coming low, lethally calculated.
Karna leapt back — the wind of the strike passed so close it felt like it cut his breath itself.
"If you believed…" murmured Telvaris, turning both blades in sync, his voice hollow of any memory, "then you should've let the past die with me."
He attacked again, a double strike — one high, one lateral.
Karna blocked the first with the bow, dodged the second with his body, but the impact made him stumble.
"This isn't you!" he shouted. "The boy I knew, who slept beside me in the orphanage… who shared his bread with me… who said one day we'd leave that place together?"
Telvaris hesitated — for a moment, the attacks ceased.
"He grew up," he answered, voice low, almost cold. "And he learned that promises don't save anyone."
The words hit Karna like a distant echo — the memory of Telvaris's voice inside him, soft, steady, from years ago:
"Karna, we're family. No matter what happens… that will never change. I promise."
Karna lowered the bow.
The arrow fell.
The sound that echoed was something breaking inside him.
Telvaris lifted the blade in a clean trajectory — ready for the final strike.
A crow screamed in the distance, like an omen.
Before the steel cut the air above Karna's head, a shadow burst into the clearing.
A black cloak tore through the space between the trees; the figure moved so fast only the gleam of his eyes was clear for a heartbeat — heterochromatic and impossible: the left one gold, like burning coals; the right, ice-blue, cold as a blade.
He went straight for Telvaris's sword.
Without a weapon, with only bare hands, he touched the edge before it descended.
The metal never completed its arc: the blade shuddered, stopped, caught between the cloaked man's arm and a force that wasn't entirely physical.
"We already have the girl," he said, voice low, steady. "Stand down, Executor."
Telvaris lifted his gaze.
His cold eyes met the hooded figure's.
Irritation flickered — not surprise.
He pushed against the restraint, trying to finish the strike.
The stranger's hand tightened.
The trembling edge groaned like a taut rope.
The hooded figure didn't retreat; didn't waver.
"Move," Telvaris said, voice controlled. "Or I'll move you."
The hooded man smiled.
A short, corner-tilted smile that held no warmth at all.
And in a second, he snapped his fingers.
Blades of light appeared — thin, sharp as strands of dawn — aligning above Telvaris like a rain ready to fall.
He raised his face to meet them, still, for an instant, eyes hard.
The glow reflected on his swords.
"Step back, Executor." — The order came calm, but absolute. "The orders were clear."
Telvaris didn't answer with words.
His eyes made one last recognition toward Karna — a silent sentence — and then he sheathed both swords in a single dry motion.
Behind him, the broken metal fragments scattered across the field began to vibrate — shattered blades, lost splinters, pieces of iron and steel strewn across the ground.
The sound was low, the hum of something alive.
Then the shine of the shards dissolved, as if the metal itself exhaled a final breath.
They became a black liquid, thick, beginning to move on its own.
The fluid ran across the ground like living oil, joining into rivulets seeking a single destination.
It touched Isabela.
It touched Lyra.
In seconds, the liquid climbed over their bodies — rising like dark veils, binding them, lifting them in a cold embrace.
Isabela arched, her face contorted in pain, the sword slipping from her hands.
Lyra coughed, her gaze reaching for Karna in a silent plea before disappearing beneath the black fluid.
Karna screamed:
"Telvaris!"
He paused, just for a second.
He looked at Karna — and the same black liquid began to rise over Telvaris's face, shaping a new mask against his skin.
No emotion… only frozen disdain.
"The next time you look into my eyes… will be the moment before you die," he murmured, voice low and absolute.
And he turned, vanishing in a line between the trees, precise steps swallowed by the night.
The cloaked figure remained before Karna.
The voice that followed carried no urgency — only authority:
"Send a message to the Prince of the Abyss."
"Tell him that if he wants the girl, he should come claim her in the eastern castle."
"And that for every day he hesitates, we'll tear a piece of her away until he learns the cost of delay."
Karna crawled forward, rage and pain tangled in a hoarse sound.
Without thinking, he tried to strike him, hand extended in a blind blow.
The hooded man responded with a movement that wasn't human — a shove of will, a pressure that never touched him yet slammed him down.
Karna fell on his back.
The blow left no physical mark, but the force wrecked him entirely; his vision spun, the edges of the world trembling.
He shut his eyes in reflexive pain — and darkness swallowed him before he could breathe again.
Karna woke with a jolt, heart racing.
Air rushed into his lungs as if it had failed him moments before.
He blinked fast, trying to adjust his vision to the darkness around him.
The cave was silent.
A single beam of light slipped through an opening above, illuminating dust suspended in the air.
He took a long breath.
His body ached — not like a cut, but as if the world had crushed him somewhere he couldn't remember.
"Master Karna."
The voice cut through the silence.
He turned his face, still dizzy.
Zeph sat a few steps away, back against the damp cave wall.
His face tired, his eyes alert.
"Good thing you woke up," he said, relief contained.
Karna blinked slowly, chasing memories that slipped through his fingers like water.
"How… long?"
"Two days," Zeph answered. "You've been unconscious since the fight."
Karna's chest tightened.
"How… how did I get here?"
Zeph drew a long breath before replying.
"After the assassins began retreating. Neriah and Ryden managed to return to the clearing. They found you unconscious on the ground." He hesitated for a second. "But… Lady Isabela and Lyra weren't there."
A sharp, piercing point of pain drove into Karna's head.
Images snapped back — the mask breaking, the black liquid rising, Lyra dragged away, Isabela slammed against the tree.
He pressed his hand to his forehead, the pain intensifying.
"They took both of them," he murmured, voice hoarse.
Zeph nodded slowly.
"We're close to reaching the Eastern Viscounty. The soldiers who survived came with me this far, but…" — his gaze sought Karna's — "only you can give them the will to keep going."
Karna remained still, breathing slow, the distant echo of memories throbbing behind his eyes.
Zeph rose carefully, using a hand on his knee for support.
He took two steps toward the narrow cave exit and looked outside, at the silent camp beyond.
"When you're ready…" he said, without turning. "They'll all be waiting for your command."
He left.
The sound of his footsteps faded quickly, swallowed by stone and dark.
Silence fell over the cave again like a weight — dense, cold, absolute.
The faint light above flickered.
Karna breathed, feeling the air trapped between his teeth, unable to ignore the empty space left behind.