"Step out if you are bold enough", Darr's voice cut through.
The air rippled.
It was not a ripple of wind, nor of heat, but of spiritual distortion—the strange tremor that accompanied El Como whenever he tore himself free from the flesh of another. Bullteik's frame convulsed violently, his chest bowing backward, limbs splaying, eyes turning milky white. A strangled gasp echoed from his throat before his entire body burst in a corona of light.
While manifesting, El Como decided to activate his ability albeit much effort .:
( Ability: Shaping
(Ability Gift: /Incorporeal/ /Permeability/ /.../ /.../)
El Como smiled. He had tested his Ability Gift on Bullteik and now possessed a slight undestanding. Breathing deeply, he looked at the lifeless body of Bullteik which he had been residing in for quite a while even though the fellow was dead.
He thought mildly and passed a mental command.
(/ Incorporeal/ Ability Gift deactivated).
(Latent form achieved)
Suddenly, another information popped up.
(/ Incorporeal/ Mode Count: 1/50)
Huh? Nice !
El Como did not step, nor crawl, but instead unfurled—like smoke unraveling from the crevice of the world. His form glistened, radiant and incorporeal, a ghost-figure whose very presence filled the valley with piercing brilliance.
The light was unbearable. Trees bent away, their leaves seared into translucent veins. The grass blackened at the edges of the shockwave. Stones cracked, splitting like brittle eggshells. And for a moment, the world seemed to forget its shadows.
Darr shielded his face, though his eyes burned red with fury rather than the brilliance itself. His hand clenched tightly around the long shaft of his weapon—the Lucerne Sword, a weapon not merely forged of steel but woven with living enchantments, its edges licked with an ethereal shimmer.
"Como," Darr growled through gritted teeth. "You dare—"
El Como's incorporeal head turned slowly toward him, red light spilling from hollow sockets like rivers of molten dusk. His voice echoed strangely, not bound to lips or tongue, but rattling inside Darr's skull.
"You blame me for what has already rotted," El Como whispered, the voice like chimes struck within a tomb. "But it was Bullteik's spirit that decayed. My presence hastened what was inevitable."
"Inevitable?" Darr spat, stepping forward. "You rotted him like fruit in the sun! You climbed inside his memory, crawled through his soul, and left him to scream. You think I'll let that pass?"
El Como's incorporeal chest heaved, a faint shimmer of regret flickering across his light. Yet he made no apology. "His death was a price of your path, not mine."
Darr's knuckles whitened. He slammed the Lucerne sword's butt into the soil, and the ground trembled like a drum. Blue sparks crawled across the blade's length, singing with ancient resonance.
"You killed my brother-in-arms. You unstitched his life like parchment. Now, Como, you'll find I am not as forgiving as the dead."
Como smiled."That's what I always do".
The silence that followed carried weight heavier than stone. El Como drifted closer, the air bending around his spectral presence, and for the first time since he had left Bullteik's body, he fully solidified. His red hair, dull as dying embers, curled down his temple. Flesh knitted from light re-formed along his limbs, robes woven from the very brilliance of his essence.
"I do not seek forgiveness," El Como said. "But if it is battle you crave, then step forward, wielder of the Lucerne sword. Let us write our grief upon the earth."
Darr roared, charging.
The Lucerne sword, though heavy, moved in his grip as though guided by the wind itself. He swung it in a wide arc, the enchanted blade singing through the air. Sparks of azure light showered from its edge as it struck the glowing barrier El Como conjured around his arm.
The clash shook the valley.
Stone ruptured beneath their feet. The clash of red brilliance and blue lightning blinded the sky, tearing through the silence with the sound of shattering bells.
"You are no shaper!" Darr snarled, pressing harder. "You are a parasite!"
"And you—" El Como pushed back, voice straining as his hand blazed brighter, "—are chained to grief. You fight not for justice, but for vengeance!"
The Lucerne sword whined. Its enchantments thrummed, pulsing blue waves across the soil. Darr twisted the shaft, hooking the sword's edge downward and sliding past El Como's guard. He thrust the spear-tip toward El Como's chest.
The strike pierced through light.
El Como gasped, incandescent fluid spilling like molten fire from the wound. But instead of retreating, he grasped the blade itself with bare hands. His skin hissed, searing black against its enchantments.
"I carry the weight of hundreds of souls!" Como bellowed, shoving the weapon aside with supernatural strength. "Do not measure me against a single death!"
The ground erupted as their bodies collided.
They fought through the clearing, each strike an echo of fury. Darr's blade glimmered with ancestral whispers; El Como's fists blazed with spectral flame. The clash of their powers left scars upon the land: fissures in the earth, trees reduced to ash, and air vibrating with unseen hymns.
But within the storm, they still spoke.
"El Como!" Darr shouted, sweat mingling with dust across his brow. "Everywhere you walk, decay follows! Do you not see? You are cursed! Even your shaping corrodes what it touches!"
El Como ducked beneath a swing, his red eyes narrowing. "Decay is the truth of all things. I do not bring it—I reveal it."
"You dare twist your poison into philosophy?"
"Truth does not beg to be liked!"
Darr thrust again. El Como twisted, catching the shaft of the weapon and snapping its rhythm aside. His spectral light surged outward, blasting Darr into the trunk of a charred oak. The bark shattered under impact.
Still, Darr rose, unbroken, blood streaming down his temple. He lifted the Lucerne sword with both hands, pressing it against the ground. The weapon drank his blood eagerly, pulsing brighter in return.
"You speak of truth," Darr growled. "Then let my truth carve yours to pieces."
El Como raised his hand.
The light surrounding his body coalesced into a storm, condensing into radiant shards that whirled around him like blades of crystal. Each shard hummed with memory—the voices of those whose bodies he had once inhabited. Their whispers filled the clearing, lamenting, screaming, and chanting.
Darr faltered for a heartbeat. The voices clawed at his ears, each one carrying the timbre of Bullteik's groan, his final agony. Rage returned with vengeance.
He charged again.
The shards flew.
Every movement became a tempest. El Como's shards carved through the air, slicing stone and wood alike, while Darr's Lucerne sword cleaved them apart with dazzling sweeps. Each broken shard burst into flares of red, painting the battlefield with streaks of bloody light.
"You think to drown me in voices?" Darr shouted, cleaving through another wave. "All it does is remind me why I will kill you!"
El Como's voice thundered above the storm: "Then come, Darr! Come claim vengeance, if you can withstand the truth of what I am!"
They collided once more.
*****
Hours seemed to pass, though it was mere minutes. The valley shook as though giants fought within it. Streams boiled, rocks split, and the sky above grew choked with crimson and cobalt light.
Finally, with a deafening crash, Darr slammed the Lucerne sword into the ground. The enchantment roared to life. Blue chains of lightning erupted from the soil, lashing outward like serpents, binding El Como's limbs.
The light-being writhed, his brilliance cracking like glass.
"Now you fall," Darr hissed, stepping closer. "Now, Bullteik is avenged."
El Como's eyes burned brighter, twin suns bleeding defiance. He strained against the chains, his voice echoing in every direction.
"Avenged? Do you think killing me will return him? Do you think the dead care for your blade?"
Darr raised the sword high. "They care that you join them."
At the moment the Lucerne sword descended, El Como unleashed everything.
The chains shattered. The light that had until then been focused around his form erupted in all directions, a second sun born upon the valley floor. The brilliance engulfed Darr, swallowing the sword, the trees, the stone, even the echoes of their rage.
And for a moment, there was only white.
When the glow faded, both figures stood panting amidst a wasteland of glass and ash. The Lucerne sword was still in Darr's hand, but its glow had dimmed, runes flickering faintly. El Como's form flickered, body unstable, shifting between light and flesh.
Neither had won.
Yet neither would yield.
Darr lowered the blade just slightly, his eyes narrowed, his voice hoarse. "This isn't over, Como. Not until one of us lies with the dead."
El Como, though weakened, straightened his back. His gaze burned like twin coals in the dusk. "Then let the world tremble again when we meet next, Darr. For this was only the opening of our war."
The wind swept between them, carrying with it the silence of Bullteik's absence. And in that silence, both men realized that nothing—not grief, not rage, not even their weapons—could erase what had already been carved into fate.
The duel had only begun.