They had been fighting for a long time.
Allisa and Yuji stood in the middle of the main street, their powers clashing so often that the stones were furred with frost and scorched by sparks; they moved like two forces that had known each other long, testing strength, trading blows, never giving ground nor letting the other breathe.
Allisa's cloak whipped around her as she moved; every time she tried to push into Yuji's ice, a new wall rose and blocked her path. She forced her will outward again and again, trying to touch his mind, to silence the cold laugh he kept letting fall from his lips.
"You can't keep this up." Yuji's voice was low, almost kind. "You keep bleeding, and you think pain will change me? It will only make you softer. So fight, or die."
She answered with a shout and thrust her hand forward. The street hummed and a dozen weak illusions snapped into life, wolves of shadow leaping toward Yuji. He raised his staff and melted the wolves mid-air into thin dust. He did not even blink. He stayed calm, composed, like the storm itself.
Oban saw the way Allisa was straining. He saw how she kept throwing her mind at Yuji and being denied. He felt the pressure of the city pushing back, of rune and ward and mirror working in the background to keep Yuji safe. He moved close enough to see their faces up close—her eyes angry and red; his eyes cold and clear.
Oban did not waste time on words.
He stepped forward and slashed.
The Vampiric Nightblade bit the air. The blade cut so hard it rang like a bell. The edge met the outer wall of a building and drove through stone as if the stone were soft bread. Dust rained down in a cloud. A long crack split the wall open, showing the inner rooms behind it.
The crack made a sound like a shout. Mages nearby turned. The distraction broke a few of Yuji's frozen spears. That was Oban's aim—to open space and keep pressure.
Then a light appeared, neat and cold in his sight.
[ SYSTEM ][ COMBAT MODE: ACTIVE ][ HOST: OBAN ][ LEVEL: 27 ][ STR: 148 → 160 ][ SPD: 132 → 145 ][ END: 119 → 130 ][ BLOOD MANIPULATION PHASE III: TEMPORARY BOOST ENABLED ][ NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: RAZOR RAIN (Multi-Slash) ][ NOTIFICATION: Vampiric Nightblade TIER UPGRADE COMPLETE ]
Oban blinked. The panel felt clinical, sharp — like a machine reporting facts. But the facts were real in his hands. He felt the blade hum, accepting the change.
He tested the new slash.
He thrusted, then spun, then pulled his arm in a tight arc. For each movement the blade left afterimages in the air—three, five, seven echoes of the same cut moving so fast they blurred. The multiple slashes didn't just hit once; they tore through three mages who had been raising a barricade at the corner.
They fell together, like dummies knocked clean from a shelf. Oban didn't even watch them drop. He moved on, the Nightblade singing in his grip.
On the other side, Klein was in the middle of his own war.
A mage with a scorched robe kept chanting. Fire and lightning danced around the man's palms, mixing together into swirling orbs. He threw one ball and it hit the ground with a hard stomp. The blast flared up into a wide ring of flame and thunder that threw people back.
Klein let the shock hit him and absorbed it. His skin smoked for a moment, but he didn't fall. He took the blast and turned it into momentum. He ran through the fire, the heat right through him, and slammed his shoulder into the mage.
They tumbled. The mage tried to shove him away with another pulse, this time faster, a cluster of smaller lightning-flame orbs. Klein ducked and used the smoke from his own body to slip aside, then he drove his foot into the mage's chest with a brutal kick that sent the man sliding across the cobbles.
The mage spat blood and laughed dangerously. "Let me finish this," he said, turning his palms skyward and throwing everything he had into the next spell.
He formed a tornado of flame wrapped in lightning. It grew like a small sun, ripped from the earth. It spun toward Klein, who stood solid in the ring of heat. The mage's grin showed teeth under the blood.
Klein's eyes narrowed. He moved like a machine, and then like a storm. With a single breath he vanished into a plume of smoke.
When the tornado hit the ground where Klein had stood, it threw apart into shards of fire. Klein reappeared behind the mage, his fist driving through the man's chest with the sound of breaking bone. The mage's torso cracked open like rotten wood.
Klein didn't stop. He looked down, and the dead man twisted and rose, the flames crawling over the skin and lightning crackling along the veins. The dead mage's eyes flashed and two small horns pushed from his skull. His skin went red as blood and his laughter turned into a howl.
Klein took one quick step back as the newly changed mage raised two blazing thrones of electricity. The air screamed. Klein had seconds.
He dodged the first strike. He folded, rolled, and took the second by catching the blast on his forearm and flinging it aside. The city rang with the noise. This was no normal opponent. The mage had become something else—an ember of magic and rage, stitched back by whatever dark will the battlefield allowed.
Klein frowned. These are not ordinary mages, he thought. This is personal. Someone is feeding them worse power.
He put down the man for good then. The way Klein struck left a clean hole in the mage's chest. The electric aura faded like a lantern blown out. Around them, dozens of fights continued, each a small war inside the big one.
Back at Allisa and Yuji, the two leaders pressed harder.
Yuji kept raising the frost soldier count. The creatures rose again and again, each more detailed than the last. He formed shields of ice that glowed with inner light. He formed spears that cracked the earth. He laughed, enjoying the test.
Allisa matched him blade for blade. For a while her mind tricks slowed him, but he had weeds of ward in his breathing and no blind spot left for her touch. He had prepared many countermeasures. He had thought of the mind first, and he'd put his defenses there. He was ready.
"You prepared for me," Allisa panted at one point, a line of blood on her lip. "Who taught you?"
Yuji smiled, all softness and knife. "I taught myself," he said. "I taught myself to survive. Your tricks do not touch my core."
A spear of ice slammed close to Allisa, freezing the cobblestone with its scream. The frost bear—huge, misshapen, not just ordinary ice but a beast laced with crimson crystals—stomped into the ring and exhaled a sound that made the air quiver.
Allisa's cloak whipped around her as she tried to regroup. Her face was sharp and tired, but she kept stance and refused to fall.
Oban cut through a pair of mages who were trying to flank the pair. He used Razor Rain twice, and both times the air filled with echoing cuts that removed shields and sliced runes off staffs. The mages fell where they stood.
He felt the Nightblade drink the heat of their magic as if it were food. He felt his own Blood Resonance pulse faster, giving him the edge. The system chimed.
[ SYSTEM ][ BLOOD RESONANCE: STABLE ][ RAZOR RAIN: COOLDOWN RECOVERING ][ REWARD TRACE: Vampiric Nightblade absorbed Mage Aether ]
Oban laughed, a small sound that surprised him. This was not joy so much as recognition. The tool in his hand worked. The system worked. He was not alone in his growth.
On The Other Side
Yuji frowned. He threw his staff down and cupped his hands. A frost Bear Come Out from the Ground and When it saw Allisa,It quickly Goes to Harm Her
Allisa rushed forward, trying to slay the beast. She cut through ice, but the crystals in its hide resisted, small sparks of light that stabbed back with every swing.
Yuji's voice rose, clean and cold. "Finish now," he said, to her and the whole field. "End this. Show me whether you are hunger-born or merely thirsty animals."
Allisa threw her mind forward once more, a hard surge. She tried to force the bear to collapse to snow. The attempt reached toward Yuji's mind like a blade.
Yuji's laughter broke again, sharp. He lifted his hand and the bear stopped. The crystals in its skin flashed bright. The creature's roar turned into a scream.
Allisa took a heavy blow across her shoulder from the bear's paw. She staggered. Blood ran in thin threads over the white of her sleeve.
Oban's throat tightened. He ran to her side and cut at the bear's leg. The blade bit in and the leg crumbled in a cloud of frost and red sparks. The bear stumbled. Yuji's eyes narrowed.
"You fight well," Yuji said. "But not well enough." He tapped his staff and the entire circle of ice soldiers hummed. They gathered into a dome and closed around Allisa. The dome raised itself like a prison.
Allisa did not cry out. She kept her blade up and tried to bite through the ice, but the wall held. Her mind reached outward, combing for a seam. Nothing. The dome had been built with runes that blocked thought—his wards were honed.
Oban shouted and struck the dome with his blade. The Nightblade sparked and ate the ice, but the runes held. The dome was not only frozen; it was bound.
Yuji watched them fight the imprisonment like a conductor watching an orchestra.
He smiled and whispered, "Now, show me what you are when you are truly trapped."
A cold wind hit the street, and the frost bear screamed — a high, terrible note that made the ears ache and the heart tighten.
The scream echoed through Mage City and cut off the rest of the noise for a long second.
It was the sound of the battle changing.