The Overdrawn smiled.
Not a human smile.
A beast’s rictus—one that already knew the outcome of the fight.
A long, thin sword burst from its flesh.
Its teeth gleamed in the daylight.
And without warning, it leapt.
Straight at Kael.
Kael raised his guard, Needle-Blade up, breath caught in his throat.
But at the last moment, the Overdrawn pivoted.
A perfect arc.
Surgical.
And streaked like lightning toward Lucanis.
Its fist drew back.
Then came down.
A blow meant to crush ribs.
Lucanis’s eyes went wide. He acted without thinking.
Pure instinct.
He raised his sword with both hands, the flat of the blade toward the impact,
and braced.
The shock hurled him backward.
Like a rag doll, he flew several meters
and crashed into the grass with a dull thud.
Without hesitation, Althéa joined the fray.
Spear in hand. Light on her feet. Body taut.
She spun like a white flame,
short hair floating in the air,
her cloak slicing space behind her.
A thrust.
A slash.
A twist.
Wood whistled.
Metal bit.
The Overdrawn tried to follow,
but every one of Althéa’s movements was one step ahead of it.
She sliced its shoulder.
Then its thigh.
Then its flank.
Small wounds—but precise.
Each strike was a warning.
The Overdrawn stepped back half a pace, surprised.
Not by the pain.
By the rhythm.
Kael was circling.
He didn’t strike. Not yet.
He was analyzing.
Reading the movements.
He was calculating the gap between each dodge,
spotting the tiniest openings.
Every step he took traced an invisible circle around the Overdrawn.
And then—
he tried a strike.
A fast sequence. Three blows.
Not to kill.
To test.
To understand how the Overdrawn adapted.
There was a method. A flaw.
Kael was certain it existed.
Lucanis pushed himself back to his feet with a grunt.
Breath ragged, jaw clenched,
he charged back into the fight,
greatsword raised, ready to cleave.
But none of his strikes landed.
The Overdrawn parried.
Or dodged.
With effortless ease.
As if it had already lived this battle
a hundred times.
Only Althéa—through her rapid, precise assaults—
still managed to touch it.
Thin cuts,
but enough to disrupt the enemy’s rhythm.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Kael, meanwhile, searched for the opening.
A few poorly placed attacks.
Feints—too slow.
Nothing went through.
It’s already adapted to our styles…
…but not yet to Althéa’s—to her spear.
The Overdrawn seemed to realize it at the same moment.
It pivoted brutally,
grabbed Althéa’s spear with its bare hands,
and tore it from her grip with a sharp wrench.
Then, in the same motion,
it struck sideways—
not with the tip…
but with the shaft.
A clubbing blow. Violent.
Althéa raised her arm,
folded it tight against her ribs to absorb the impact.
But her eyes went wide with pain.
Her scream was smothered.
Her body was thrown several meters away,
skidding across the dirt,
the spear still far from her reach.
Lucanis, in silence, continued his assault.
Not out of rage.
Out of calculation.
He was waiting for the mistake. The fraction too far.
Kael understood it in a single glance.
He won’t stop… not until he finds the flaw.
Kael tried again.
Quick evasions.
Feinted strikes.
Still nothing.
Despair began to gnaw at his thoughts.
I have to find something… fast… something it hasn’t seen…
His gaze slid.
To Althéa.
She was forcing herself back up.
One knee on the ground,
fist buried in the dirt to regain her balance.
A suspended instant.
And then—he understood.
Its eyes snapped wide.
A flash tore through his mind.
The Overdrawn had turned its attention toward him.
A cruel smile stretched its lips.
Kael slowly raised his Needle-Blade…
…lifted it to the level of his own face…
And let it fall to the ground.
Before the Overdrawn could even understand,
Kael cocked his fist
and drove it straight into its jaw.
The Overdrawn’s head snapped sideways from the impact.
It staggered.
Kael gave it no reprieve.
A knee slammed into its chest.
A right hook crushed into its flank.
An uppercut snapped the creature’s chin upward.
Then a kick to the knee—meant to unbalance.
The Overdrawn screamed in rage,
and in a desperate motion
tried to drive its blade into Kael.
But another pain caught it first.
A sharp strike to the knee.
Althéa.
Still gasping for breath.
But there—
her foot had struck the joint with perfect precision.
The Overdrawn lost its balance
and dropped to its knees.
Its injured knee was already rebuilding itself.
Black veins pulsed beneath its skin,
cartilage knitting back into shape.
It lifted its head.
Its gaze devoured Kael with hatred.
“YOU ARE MINE!” it roared,
its breath saturated with pure violence.
But then—
The world tipped.
Literally.
Its field of vision inverted.
Up became down.
The ground became the sky.
Its eyes flew wide.
A sharp crack echoed.
Lucanis.
Calm.
Silent.
Implacable.
Had slipped in behind it.
And with a surgical motion,
he snapped its neck.
The Overdrawn’s head lolled to the side.
Its body collapsed,
limp like a puppet with its strings cut.
That was the mistake.
The one Lucanis had been waiting for.
None of them spoke.
And yet…
All of them understood.
What had to be done.
How.
When.
Silence fell—heavy as the calm after a storm.
The monster lay on the ground,
neck snapped,
head twisted at an inhuman angle.
But its eyes…
They were still moving.
Slow. Unstable.
The reflection of a mind trapped inside a broken body.
Kael stepped closer,
Needle-Blade back in hand,
his face set.
Dark.
Cold.
Drained of all emotion.
He leaned slightly forward.
Looked into that warped reflection of himself,
that nightmarish echo of a life he refused.
Then he said:
“That makes four times now that you’ve failed.”
He paused.
“Four times. Next time… do better.”
Another silence.
Longer.
Colder.
“You are… disappointing.”
The Overdrawn’s face twisted.
Its eyes widened, bloodshot.
Its teeth ground together in mute frustration.
Its fingers trembled.
Its gaze locked onto Kael’s,
as if trying to pour every ounce of hatred into him.
And it managed to growl:
“How dare you… next ti—”
CRACK.
The Needle-Blade drove into its mouth
and burst out through the back of its skull.
Clean.
Absolute.
Not a scream.
Just a spasm.
Then nothing.
The Overdrawn’s body sagged.
Finally inert.
The guard remained frozen.
Still shaken by the look the princess had given him.
Cold.
Sharp.
A gaze that buries you alive without you ever understanding why.
He would never forget it.
Another guard came running back, breathless.
“Orders from the princess! Do not, under any circumstances, attack the two individuals with the same face!”
Too late.
He had seen everything.
And he would never have dared raise his weapon against them.
He had witnessed the entire scene.
From afar.
He had wanted to look away.
But he couldn’t.
He was transfixed.
Then…
They returned.
Three silhouettes.
Three young Trame Bearers.
They walked along the path leading to the entrance of the Acropolis.
Their steps were calm.
But something in the air was electric.
An echo of violence, still hanging over them like a shadow.
Their Institute uniforms were in tatters.
Each of them wore a thick, dark fur cloak.
Their left shoulders bare, exposed to the wind.
The cloaks snapped behind them like banners from another age.
The guard swallowed.
The first—
A young man with striking green eyes.
Deep dark circles carved into his gaze.
Yet he moved like a beast.
A predator.
The second—
Eyes so black they seemed to swallow the light.
A starless night.
He calmly wiped a long, thin, elegant blade on what remained of his uniform.
And the third—
A young woman.
Short white hair.
A fringe, with two longer strands framing her closed-off face.
Amethyst eyes… as cold as crystals forgotten at the bottom of a cave.
The princess.
She walked between them.
Perfectly upright.
Without a word.
They stopped in front of the guards.
The guard felt his heart pound faster.
He didn’t know whether he should bow…
Or step back.
And then the one with black eyes looked up at them.
A crooked smile.
Sarcastic.
Tired.
And he drawled, almost mocking:
“So?
Where’s the welcoming committee?”
