Arc 2 Final: Begin of A New Order (1/3)

  Before even the minimal span of time remained for us to fill the void of Arik's violent disappearance—that cold decree of Reyn's—with horror or even the beginning of grief, two new, ominous figures stepped out from behind the Bastard of Storm. They didn't materialize through a flash of light or smoke; it was as if they were born from Reyn's own condensed shadow, but they were not pitch-black, eerie phantoms like the army on the bridge. They were beings of flesh and blood. More or less.

  One was a nightmare in steel. He was encased from head to toe in steel-gray armor that covered every damn inch of his body. The plating was massive, cold, and of a menacing, cruel efficiency. His armor bore no insignias, no heraldic signs—it was functional and designed to survive and kill. His eyes in the narrow viewing slits, however, were the worst. They didn't glow; they were infused with a dull, gray sheen, but I had the unsettling, paralyzing feeling that they were staring directly into my soul, respecting not a single layer of my inner shell or my demonic defenses.

  But the truly most impressive thing was his back. He didn't carry ordinary equipment, but a horrifying, organized chaos of weapons. It was a walking arsenal, artfully strapped to his back: two large swords and axes paired with dozens of daggers, scythes, heavy morning stars, and even a modern firearm from the deep dwarven realms—an anachronistic element that seemed out of place here. He was a living killing machine. A brief, cold wave of relief washed over me: I was glad if Vin took him on for me, as she was already aiming at him with disturbing calmness, her glowing hands ready to unleash her power.

  What surprised me almost more than the knight, however, was the person to Reyn's left. A Dragon-Woman whose existence I had almost forgotten in the rush of the last few weeks: Narla. Her red scales shimmered softly in the blue light of the central crystal, as did her golden breastplate. In her hands, she held a greatsword, whose design was surprisingly simple and unadorned, but whose blade was the size of a small shield. Her gaze was no longer the pleading and fearful expression when she had knelt before me. Instead, she smiled—it was a darkly determined, unyielding smile.

  And although I knew they had to be Reyn's unwilling puppets, they appeared astonishingly independent. Free. Neither of them had that blank, glassy stare of the shadow creatures on the bridge. Neither moved at a command from Reyn. Narla looked resolute, but I noticed a hint of sadness in her eyes as she fixed on us. It was as if she had hoped until the last second that this fight wouldn't have to happen, that we would have turned back. The steel knight's posture, on the other hand, stated something completely different: pure, unmoved, murderous intent.

  Finally, Reyn broke the tense, almost breathless silence of the platform. He spoke one last time before the inevitable battle:

  “You should learn the names of your tormentors before they finish their work. I don't think I need to introduce you to Narla.” He paused briefly, letting the connection between the Dragon-Woman and our past briefly resonate. “But this,” he gestured elegantly and casually toward the knight, “is Corven.”

  Thereupon, that arrogant, smug smile spread across his face again, igniting the cold, controlled rage within me. He spread his arms slightly to incorporate the three figures into the scene.

  “And now... the beginning of a new order starts.”

  -

  The Armored Knight lunged at Vin immediately, shooting a series of knives from his back, while Narla unleashed her fire breath to engulf Maira's face.

  Vin's vines shot out of the ground, intercepting the silver blades just in time, while Maira, with a single, flowing movement, created a red glowing shield of pure energy that drove the scorching heat back down Narla's throat. The rebels fought fiercely, drawing every available ounce of strength from their despair. But it was only the echo of her death to be heard. But I blocked all of them out. Everything around me faded into darkness – until only he remained. Reyn. And I.

  We faced each other. Amidst this massive, carved-in-stone cavern. A place that felt as ancient as it was hideous, a mix of ritual chamber, machine heart, and tomb. I didn't know what Reyn did here. But I knew what I had to do now.

  I finished the transformation in the last second before Reyn took the first step. Gravor absorbed me, permeated me. Black scales and thorns grew over my paladin armor. She cracked open on her back as the tail ran out, the blade of flesh and blood shot out of my claw-studded, right arm, alive, twitching. My body swelled, pulsating with contained fury. And Reyn's golden eyes narrowed. No blink. No expression. Only recognition. He saw me – saw us – in full symbiosis.

  He didn't move. But suddenly there was movement. No gesture. No spell. The shadows themselves obeyed him. Hundreds of hands of darkness sped towards me, with a scratching hiss, as if they were gliding through space and time. I reacted instinctively, cleaving the first wave in half with a wide arc of my blade. The matter disintegrated like mist, as if Gravor had negated its very existence. I used the resistance to propel myself forward – straight towards Reyn.

  Hardly was the first wave shattered, when the second came: broad golden energy waves, focused, malicious, tearing down everything in their path. The ground beneath me melted – but I was no longer there. With a single jerk, I unfolded my wings, hurled myself into the air, felt the heat beneath me like a dying star, and flew with all my might towards my target.

  But as soon as I was above him, gravity changed. My body turned to lead. I sucked in air, but it didn't come. The world pressed me against the invisible floor. I felt my wings crackle, as if the tendons were tearing. But I forced Gravor to unleash a green, circular shockwave beneath me. With a deafening bang, I broke free from his grip.

  I didn't stagger. I flew. I raced. I was faster than before, letting my movement spiral in chaotic loops, while Reyn reacted instantly – Mana-fists, condensed from stormy blue energy, shot towards me. I dodged, danced through the sky of this chamber, let one fist deliberately shoot past me and used its slipstream to increase my speed. I became the answer to his violence.

  “Bro, let me breathe for a sec!” I yelled, letting my voice echo through the chamber – more tactics than plea. Reyn didn't react. But he never reacted to words. Only to strength.

  Miniature stars, saturated with light, zipped towards me in zigzag patterns. Two hit. Pain burned in my shoulder, my wing twitched. But I ignored it. I overloaded the struck areas, letting Gravor swallow the thermal energy. I was ready – and lunged at him again.

  As fast as lightning, I shot diagonally downwards, my sword in a swing. The anger over the deflected attack transformed into merciless speed. The wings ripped open the air, I became a dark green projectile, the blade of flesh and blood leading the way, twitching and ready to break Reyn's statuesque stillness. The distance shrank to zero.

  A second before impact, I noticed cosmic Mana gathering around Reyn. It was not the gold of his earlier strikes, but a deep, shimmering violet that promised doom. The air around him rippled, the energy sucked the remaining light out of the room until only his silhouette and that wicked, glowing sheen remained. A paralyzing cold crept over my scales – it was the cold of the vacuum, of pure destruction.

  A millisecond in time, I switched to a shield of hardened bone and some kind of demon steel, Gravor that is, to ward off an explosion. I heard Gravor's silent consensus in my mind, the immediate readiness. With a mighty jerk, I pulled the chitin blade back, letting it mutate into a massive, shield-shaped plate of dark brown, obsidian-like bone, laced with glossy black demon steel. The transformation was instantaneous, a wall pushing itself between me and the impending annihilation. The violet Mana exploded.

  The bang was apocalyptic, a massive discharge that shook the entire cavern. The pressure didn't just hit the shield, it crushed it. My bones groaned under the weight of my own defense. A scream of elemental shock escaped me as the pressure wave caught me and pushed me back. I became a living plow, dragging through the red Tharnit floor. My feet dug deep trenches in the hard, magical stone, smoke rose, and the heat boiled against the desperate stability of my stature. Yet I remained on my feet. Reyn's discharge hadn't broken me, only thrown me back.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  This brief moment allowed me to look at the ritual. My gaze involuntarily tore to the side, driven by the knowledge that the real fight was happening elsewhere. The human-sized crystal was now not just pulsating, it was glowing white from within. The energy from the runes was no longer flowing, it was surging into it. It looked as if a shape was slowly forming, like an embryo in the womb. The contours were still indistinct, a terrible, luminous form, but the end was already manifesting.

  I didn't have much time left. The urgent necessity squeezed the air from my chest. The others were fighting to give me this second, and I couldn't waste it. The shield of bone and steel slid back into the shape of the twitching blade.

  "Alright," I whispered, my voice hoarse from smoke and exertion, but infused with new, relentless hardness. "Round Two." The golden glow in Reyn's eyes accepted my challenge.

  -

  The Armored Knight lunged at Vin and shot a series of knives from his back.

  Vin felt the metallic hiss of the blades, shooting from Corven’s back like feathers from a sliced-open pillow. It was not an organic attack, but a cold, mechanical salvo that offended her deepest instinct – the root of life. Her reaction was pure, a cry of nature. Mighty, whip-like vines shot from the deepest crevices of the Tharnit floor, thicker than forearms, the thorns black with hardness. They intercepted the silver blades just in time, which stuck in the organic mesh with a shrill screech.

  The second the blades were neutralized, Vin had to abandon her position. Corven, the Armored Knight, was already moving, his main sword whistling through the air, seeking her neck. The sharpness of the danger froze her cold blood. With a swift, flowing backward leap, she retreated onto the large staircase leading away from the platform, narrowly escaping decapitation. She felt the draw of the sword, which clipped a strand of hair.

  Vin found new footing on the first steps of the stairs. She was not at a disadvantage, she was in her element – resistance. Seven thick vines shot simultaneously from the staircase floor, attempting to encircle Corven, to bind him, to halt his movement. But the Knight was cruelly efficient. He twisted the sword in his hand, a silver sickle, and with three swift, mechanically precise cuts, he severed the organic strands as if they were paper. Vin’s frustration twitched, but she knew she couldn't defeat him with brute force.

  He drove her back step by step on the gigantic staircase. Corven was an unstoppable vector of violence. His sword danced, every deflection of a vine was effortless, a deadly choreography. Vin felt the despair at her back – every step she lost brought her closer to Reyn's platform. The staircase became a cage. Corven now continuously fired blades and small projectiles from his back, forcing Vin to use her vines for pure defense instead of binding him.

  Finally, Vin knew she had to switch tactics. She concentrated her innermost, botanical magic and summoned dozens of tiny, fleshy projectiles from her palms. They were not simple spheres, but fast-growing seed pods, green and unassuming, that flew towards Corven. Just before contact, they exploded with a wet plop, releasing a cloud of green, toxic dust that not only blocked vision but also corroded the air.

  A spell more suited to Maira. The moment Corven vanished into the cloud, Vin had to smile. A dark, self-satisfied smile. The pure joy of the surprise. How little her friends knew the arsenal of her abilities, she thought with a hint of pride. She was more than just vines and roots; she was the entire, complicated malice of nature.

  Vin seized the second the Knight staggered, his mechanical struggle with the dust audible. She shot a single, razor-sharp vine from the ground, wrapping around Corven's feet and pulling him off his legs. He fell onto the steps with a metallic clang. Without hesitation, she fired a thick, black thorn aimed at his heart, a death blow. But in the last moment, when the thorn was mere centimeters from his armor, the enemy drew a second sword and blocked the attack. The thorn hit the blade with a painful screech, sparks flew, but the death-shackle was repelled.

  Vin growled. It was a deep, animalistic sound that showed her unbridled rage at the close failure. Corven, marked by the dust and the attack, rose to his feet with a brutal roar. His armor shone silver as he summoned a new series of daggers that were not only flying but imbued with divine wrath. Flying daggers. Burning daggers. They hung around him like a malevolent swarm.

  The daggers raced towards Vin. Not a targeted attack, but an area bombardment intended to destroy the staircase itself. Vin barely jumped aside, the frantic necessity of flight in her muscles. The daggers struck the steps like bombs. Stone splintered, the magical seals of the staircase were torn open, and the steps themselves exploded into dust and fire.

  The Armored Knight did not hesitate for a second. He was not a machine, but a perfectly conditioned weapon. He sprinted toward Vin, who now stood on the destroyed terrain. Vin, at full run, unleashed her most dangerous, stealthy weapon: tiny, barely visible pollen. They were costly in manifestation, but deadly in effect. The pollen flew like an invisible smoke veil into Corven's visor, inevitably slipping into the Knight's nose and ears.

  After another mechanical strike that missed Vin, the enemy suddenly paused. He staggered, his hand instinctively flying to the sides of his helmet. A cry of pain, muffled by the metal, erupted from him. The pollen generated extremely loud, painful sounds directly inside him, an acoustic weapon that instantly incapacitated most fighters. Relief and the recognition of the opportunity flowed through Vin.

  She took advantage of the brief second. The vines did not shoot from the ground; they grew from her own body, thicker and faster, binding the Knight in an instant. Thorns dug into the joints of his armor, holding him fast. Corven, immobilized for the first time since the fight began, spoke. His voice was angry, but also confused, a disturbing contrast to his usual precision.

  "HOW CAN YOU DO THAT!?" he roared, the desperation in his tone almost shocking. He tore at the vines, struggling to break the shackles. "THERE IS NO NATURE HERE!" His pure, unbelievable rage hit Vin like a blow. The answer lay within her: I am nature.

  -

  Narla unleashed her fire breath to engulf Maira’s face, but with a single, flowing movement, Maira created a red glowing shield of pure energy that drove the scorching heat back down Narla’s throat.

  Maira watched Narla instinctively flinch, the glowing breath suffocating within herself.

  Maira had a chance to attack, the perfect gap in Narla's defense. But she remained defensive, dodging every attack of the dragon blade. Narla's blade was fast, a deadly, silver sickle whose movements were dictated by rage, not precision. Maira parried, blocked, and retreated, but never countered. For a very simple reason: diplomacy. She felt a deep, unsettling empathy for the dragon woman. Narla seemed tormented; her rage was not her own.

  "You don't want this!" Maira called out to the dragon woman, her voice clear, urgent, and free of battle noise. She ignored the fury in Narla's eyes and saw the emptiness behind it.

  "You're just a puppet! He's forcing you to serve him! You are better than this!" Maira's words were a direct assault on Narla's will, a desperate attempt to reach the woman beneath Reyn's corruption. She felt the hope that somewhere within Narla, a spark of resistance still glowed.

  Narla didn't react. She hurled a fireball that narrowly missed Maira, exploding against a rock wall with a dull thud. The dragon woman raised the blade again, her eyes hard.

  Finally, Narla did answer, shortly after a failed fireball. And her voice sounded... honest. Full of emotion. Not empty, her words not controlled by a foreign power. Maira felt her heart skip a beat. The words were real.

  "Perhaps," she said and paused, her blade dropping just an inch. Narla's gaze flickered, her own truth breaking through. "Perhaps he controls me slightly. Perhaps entirely."

  For a moment, Maira saw something like shame on Narla's face. A fleeting, human gesture of humility amidst her draconic transformation. Maira briefly harbored hope, a warm, swift feeling of possibility. Now, she thought, now Narla would break. She would drop her weapon, and they could fight together.

  "But no matter what he does to me," Narla strode towards Maira, the blade firm in her hand again, the fleeting shame gone, replaced by a dark conviction. "His motives... they are right. His rule... is the most just in centuries." Narla's words were like whips, full of an absolute, dreadful belief. Maira was inwardly shocked. Was the corruption already too deep?

  "But by what means?" Maira countered, her voice hard and reasonable. But Narla's words lingered, Maira's own hope fading. "He kills! He will destroy Tirros to spread his order! Do you truly want to be a part of that?" Maira tried to appeal to universal morality, to the fear of the apocalypse Reyn intended to unleash.

  "Rather than that of a hunted people!" the dragonborn retorted, her voice becoming loud, bitter, and angry. She pointed at Maira. "Just like you." The accusation hit Maira unexpectedly and sharply. Narla had instantly recognized their shared trauma.

  Then she raised her blade and pointed at Maira. "We share a common fate," she said now quieter, her voice dropping to a whispering, confidential tone that deeply unsettled Maira. "Both of us are despised by the rest of this world. Hunted. Exterminated. They are afraid of us! They consider us monsters! Cruel murderers! Yet we have done nothing to them!" Narla's final words were a passionate plea for the outsiders, the outcasts, the hunted.

  Maira felt a cold sting of truth in those words. Done nothing? A dark, cynical humor arose within her, almost distorting her lips. Well, Maira couldn't exactly claim "for nothing." She remembered the sacrifices she made in her youth, the cold, calculated way she killed her enemies. She killed her enemies cruelly, letting people rot from the inside, infecting them with sores and diseases, and had regularly sacrificed living beings in her past. Her magic was the magic of decay, of plague-like corruption. Maira had to admit that she wasn't hunted for nothing and was certainly no saint. A heavy, somber feeling of self-awareness settled over her.

  And precisely because of that...

  A cold, determined smile settled on Maira's lips, a smile that radiated no warmth but absolute certainty. It was the smile of self-recognized guilt.

  "I will never fight for Reyn," she gave Narla a final, harsh refusal. The hope for diplomacy died in that moment. Then she spoke quieter, almost to herself, smiling: "Because the world is right."