Whispers of the Blackthrone

A moonless sky smothered the world in darkness.

Above Stormfall Ridge, black clouds tangled with the mountain peaks, trailing ghostly fingers across jagged crags and sheer cliffs.

The wind howled between the rocks, its mournful cries echoing through the desolate heights as though the mountains themselves remembered a grief too ancient to name.

It tore at cloaks, scraped against steel, and clawed its way into the bones of those who dared to stand upon the summit.

At the highest point of the ridge stood Gideon Silversword, the Sword Saint.

He remained motionless against the raging storm, his silver cloak billowing behind him. Its movement carried no elegance, only grim defiance against the merciless wind.

Every thread shimmered faintly with enchanted runes, bearing the lingering blessings of a forgotten goddess. Beneath it, his armor was dull and scarred, its surface marked by the countless battles that had shaped his long career.

Yet neither his armor nor the divine enchantments woven into his cloak revealed the true weight resting upon his shoulders.

That burden lay in his eyes.

Pale gray, cold as steel beneath a winter frost, they remained fixed upon the empty space before him.

He did not blink.

He did not move.

He waited.

The mountain wind howled louder, rushing between the peaks with enough force to make the rocks tremble. Then, without warning—

Silence.

It was not the peaceful silence that followed the passing of a storm.

It was something far more unsettling, an unnatural absence that seemed to strip the world of its very breath. It felt like the moment before a scream, when terror had already taken hold but the sound itself had yet to escape.

Then the world snapped.

Lucian Blackthorne stood before him.

There had been no sound, no shimmer of light, no discernible trace of movement. One moment, the space had been empty. The next, Lucian occupied it as though he had always belonged there.

Gideon felt the change before his mind could fully comprehend what he was seeing. A chill crawled down his spine, not from the freezing wind, but from the instinctive realization that something unnatural had entered his presence.

The shadows surrounding Lucian did not merely stretch across the ground beneath the moonless sky.

They stood upright.

They gathered around him in silent ranks, their dark forms resembling soldiers awaiting the arrival of their king.

Lucian wore no armor. A dark, weather-worn cloak hung from his shoulders, its frayed edges stirring in the wind. It seemed woven from moonless nights and broken promises, swallowing what little light touched its surface. His black hair had been tousled by the storm, yet his expression remained undisturbed.

And his eyes—

They were black voids shot through with faint starlight, as though the cosmos itself had abandoned the heavens and chosen to dwell within him.

Three paces separated the two men.

One stood as a sentinel of light, a warrior who had devoted his life to upholding the order of the world.

The other resembled an eclipse slowly advancing across the heavens, an encroaching darkness that promised to consume everything in its path.

For several moments, neither spoke.

Gideon finally parted his lips, his breath emerging as a pale cloud in the freezing air. His right hand moved toward the hilt of Celestial Aether, his fingers tightening around the leather-wrapped grip as though the familiar weapon could anchor him against the unease settling within his chest.

“I cannot sense Caius's presence,” he murmured.

There was no accusation in his voice, nor did he attempt to disguise his suspicion. The words carried the weight of a truth he had already begun to accept.

Lucian regarded him with an almost indifferent expression.

“Don't worry,” he replied softly. “You'll hear his voice soon enough... in the afterlife.”

His words were quiet, almost casual. Yet each syllable settled into the silence like the toll of a funeral bell.

The stillness between them shattered.

Gideon's expression hardened. The uncertainty in his eyes gave way to anger, and the pressure of his aura began to rise.

“You slew a National Hunter,” he said, his voice trembling with restrained fury. “And now you threaten another. You truly have some nerve, you... successor to the Dark Emperor.”

Lucian tilted his head slightly.

The shadows curled along his jaw, moving like living tendrils eager to answer his unspoken will.

“What else would you expect?” he asked. “The Blackthorne bloodline predates your legends.”

His response carried neither pride nor indignation. He spoke as though he were stating an indisputable fact, one that required no justification from him.

Gideon's grip tightened around his sword.

So he admits it. He truly is the Dark Emperor's successor.

His gaze traveled across Lucian's face, searching for some indication of deception, some explanation that might reconcile the young man's appearance with the terrifying pressure radiating from him.

But how is this possible? Only a few years have passed, and he already stands on equal footing with me—a National-Class Hunter.

The thought unsettled him more than he cared to admit.

Gideon had spent decades tempering his swordsmanship, refining his control over divine mana, and confronting enemies whose names had become legends in their own right. His title as Sword Saint had not been granted through inheritance or political favor. He had earned it through blood, sacrifice, and countless battles.

Yet the young man standing before him possessed a presence that challenged everything Gideon understood about power.

He could not afford to hesitate any longer.

With a sharp movement, Gideon raised his sword and drove its tip into the stone beneath his feet.

A deafening crack rang across the summit.

Brilliant light erupted from the point of impact, racing through the rock in branching veins of gold and silver. The ground trembled as an intricate formation began to take shape, its ancient runes illuminating the surrounding mist.

“Formation—Celestial Convergence!”

The command thundered across the ridge.

From the edges of the mist, four figures emerged like living echoes. They were members of the Dawnbloods, the elite warriors also known as the Celestial Swords. Each was an S-class master personally selected by Gideon, a distinction reserved for those whose strength and loyalty had survived the harshest trials.

They moved without hesitation, taking their designated positions around Lucian.

One stood to his left, another to his right, while the remaining two closed the formation from behind. Their movements were precise and coordinated, leaving no obvious gap through which an opponent could escape.

As they settled into position, their auras began to intertwine.

Golden light rose from their bodies, merging with the silver radiance emanating from Gideon's sword. The separate currents of power braided together, gathering strength with every passing moment until the entire summit seemed to rest beneath the pressure of a single, unified will.

Above them, even the turbulent clouds appeared to slow.

Gideon raised his palm.

Celestial Aether responded instantly. Holy light surged along its blade before the weapon dissolved into brilliant particles and embedded itself within his hand, its radiance coalescing into a concentrated mass of divine power.

The other hunters followed his lead.

Relics manifested in their grasp: blades inscribed with sacred laws, gauntlets wrapped in ancient prayer-seals, and staves carved from the roots of world-trees. Each artifact released its own distinctive aura, yet all of them resonated with the same celestial frequency.

Then the formation activated.

The cliff shuddered beneath their feet as concentric rings of light unfurled from the ground. Perfectly aligned and merciless in their design, they spread across the summit, enclosing Lucian within a lattice of divine energy.

This was no ordinary battle formation.

It was an embodiment of order, a declaration of absolute authority imposed upon the mountain itself.

The air grew heavy. The mist froze in place, and the wind that had battered the summit moments earlier fell completely silent.

Within the formation, every movement would be monitored, every fluctuation of mana suppressed, and every attempt at resistance met with the combined force of five powerful warriors.

Yet Lucian merely blinked.

There was no fear in his expression. No visible tension in his shoulders, nor any sign that the overwhelming pressure had unsettled him.

He simply narrowed his eyes, regarding the formation with faint amusement.

“You are not the first to wield light,” he said. “And you will not be the last to drown in darkness.”

He slowly raised his right hand.

There was no extravagant flourish, no unnecessary movement. His fingers traced a sigil through the air with deliberate precision, following a pattern invisible to ordinary sight.

The wind did not carry the gesture.

Instead, the world itself seemed to bend around it.

For a fleeting instant, the space before Lucian distorted. The celestial runes beneath his feet flickered, their brilliant radiance dimming as though an unseen force had begun to devour their foundations.

Then the Abyss answered.

An obsidian dome erupted around him.

Darkness surged outward in a single, overwhelming wave, swallowing the Celestial Convergence formation before its practitioners could react. The golden rings vanished beneath its expanding surface, and the light illuminating the summit was extinguished as though someone had snuffed out the stars.

Eclipse of Desolation.

The world within the dome became something alien.

Sound warped and distorted. Colors drained from the surroundings, leaving behind a landscape of muted gray and absolute black. Gravity itself seemed to lose its certainty, while the mana flowing through the formation began to dissipate like warmth escaping into the depths of winter.

The Celestial Swords faltered.

One of them staggered, his knees nearly buckling beneath the sudden pressure. Another struggled to maintain his stance as the divine energy sustaining the formation flickered erratically.

They had expected resistance. They had prepared themselves to face a formidable opponent.

They had not expected a single technique to undermine the very foundation of their combined power.

Lucian lowered his hand.

He had already drawn his sword.

Its dark blade rested at his side, its edge humming with a low, mournful resonance. The sound carried the weight of an inheritance passed from father to son, forged through generations of injustice, betrayal, and loss.

For an instant, Lucian's gaze swept across the faltering formation.

Then he moved.

“Phantom's Requiem. Sixth Form.”

His sword traveled through the air in a slow, graceful arc.

There was no explosive burst of energy, no deafening roar to announce the attack. The blade barely whispered as it passed through the darkness, its movement so restrained that it seemed almost harmless.

But within the oppressive silence of the dome, that faint whisper sounded like a sentence being passed.

The hunters at the front of the formation never saw the attack.

Their bodies stiffened.

A heartbeat later, they collapsed.

No visible wound marked their armor. No blade had touched their skin. Yet something had severed their presence from the battlefield, leaving their bodies crumpled upon the stone as though the world had simply rejected their existence.

Their final expressions remained frozen in disbelief.

They had entered the formation expecting to overwhelm a single opponent through the combined might of their weapons and divine power.

Instead, they had been erased before they could properly understand the danger standing before them.

“YOU BASTARD!”

Gideon's roar tore through the silence.

The sight of his comrades falling shattered whatever restraint remained within him. His aura erupted in a violent surge, golden light pouring from his body until the surrounding darkness trembled beneath its radiance.

He seized the power gathering around his hand, and Celestial Aether blazed into existence once more.

The blade shone with such intensity that the shadows recoiled from its surface.

“Heaven's Descent!”

Gideon swung upward.

A colossal beam of divine energy tore through the sky, descending with the force of celestial judgment. It carved across the mountain's spine, splitting stone and sending an avalanche of shattered rock tumbling into the ravines below.

Far beyond the summit, trees burst into flames beneath the passing wave of heat. Flocks of birds scattered from the surrounding forests, many unable to escape the violent turbulence that swept across the ridge.

Gideon's wrath had become a catastrophe in its own right.

But the attack never reached its target.

Lucian moved.

Not through raw speed alone. Not through an instantaneous displacement or some convenient distortion of space.

He moved with mastery.

“Shadow's Wrath. Eighth Form.”

Gideon's vision fractured.

Darkness spread across the battlefield, spilling into every corner of his perception. Shadows emerged where none should have existed, each one carrying the faint outline of Lucian's presence.

A dozen afterimages surrounded him.

They were too convincing to dismiss as simple illusions, yet too elusive to strike with certainty. Every figure possessed the same dark silhouette, the same merciless gaze, and the same suggestion of a blade poised to end his life.

Gideon turned toward one.

It vanished.

Another appeared behind him.

He spun around, only to find empty air.

A third emerged above, its sword already descending. Gideon raised his weapon to intercept it, but the figure dissolved before the blades could meet.

Lucian was everywhere.

And nowhere.

His presence filled the battlefield while his true position remained concealed, forcing Gideon to divide his attention between threats that could not be reliably distinguished from one another.

For the first time that night, the Sword Saint found himself reacting rather than controlling the course of battle.

Then Lucian noticed it.

A slight shift in Gideon's footing. A fraction of a second spent redirecting his attention toward the wrong shadow. An opening created not by carelessness alone, but by the fury that had begun to overwhelm his judgment.

It was small.

But it was enough to make Lucian reconsider his approach.

This fight is going to drag on longer than I expected.

His breathing had grown heavier. Beneath his cloak, his muscles trembled with the strain of sustaining his techniques. Every movement demanded more from his body than the last, and the accumulated damage was beginning to catch up with him.

My body is reaching its limit. Every exchange is taking more out of me than I can afford. If I continue like this, I'll collapse before I can even draw enough blood from Gideon to weaken him.

He steadied his breathing, refusing to let the strain show in his movements.

He still had enough strength to fight.

But he could no longer afford to waste it.

No. There's only one path left.

His gaze shifted toward the remaining Celestial Swords.

I need to eliminate as many of them as possible before my strength gives out. Gideon is the center of this formation. As long as his allies remain beside him, they'll continue supporting his attacks and restricting my movements.

His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword.

I have to isolate him. If I can break their formation, even for a few moments, the entire battle will change.

The decision settled in Lucian's mind.

He couldn't afford another prolonged exchange. His breathing had grown ragged, and the strength that had carried him through the battle was rapidly slipping away. Even maintaining the shadows around him had become a burden.

Gideon was still standing.

Worse, the Sword Saint was beginning to adapt.

Lucian's gaze shifted toward the remaining two Celestial Swords. They had lost their coordination when Gideon's furious assault disrupted the formation, but they were already struggling to regain their footing.

He had only a few moments before they recovered.

I have to do it now.

His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword. A dull ache spread through his arm, and for an instant, his grip threatened to loosen.

He forced it steady.

If I can't finish them here, I'll have to face all three of them until my body gives out.

Lucian drew a slow breath, gathering what remained of his strength. The shadows around his blade grew denser, their edges trembling as violet-black mana crawled along the steel.

“Nocturne's Ascendancy. Seventh Form.”

He stepped forward.

The first hunter reacted almost immediately, raising his weapon to intercept the approaching blade. His companion moved to cover his flank, attempting to restore the formation before Lucian could break through.

They were a fraction too late.

Lucian's sword swept across the gap between them.

For a fleeting instant, the violet-black edge seemed to bend, its trajectory shifting just enough to slip past the first hunter's guard. The man barely had time to register the movement before the attack continued toward his companion.

Neither had anticipated that the same stroke would threaten them both.

Then the darkness caught up with them.

The first hunter staggered, his weapon slipping from his grasp. His companion took another step forward before his body abruptly faltered. Neither screamed. Neither understood what had happened until the strength drained from their limbs.

A heartbeat later, both collapsed.

Violet-black energy spread across their bodies, consuming them from within until their forms disintegrated into drifting ash.

Lucian watched them fall, but he felt no satisfaction.

The instant the technique ended, the strain he had been suppressing came crashing back. His sword dipped, and he had to tighten his grip with both hands to keep its point from striking the ground.

Damn it.

His lungs burned. His arm trembled. The Seventh Form had done what he needed, but it had taken another piece of his dwindling strength.

Still, the formation was broken.

The radiant rings beneath their feet flickered once, then fractured into scattered motes of light. The oppressive pressure that had weighed upon Lucian began to recede, and the surviving traces of celestial mana dissolved into the night.

For the first time since the battle began, there were no other hunters standing between him and Gideon.

Only the Sword Saint remained.

Lucian slowly raised his head.

Across the ruined summit, Gideon stared at the drifting ash where his companions had stood moments earlier. His sword remained raised, but the golden radiance surrounding its blade had begun to intensify.

The fury in his eyes had changed.

It was no longer the anger of a warrior whose formation had been disrupted.

It was the rage of a man who had watched his comrades die before he could save them.

And Lucian, already nearing his limit, now had to face it alone.

Gideon staggered.

His chest rose and fell beneath his battered armor, each breath harsher than the last. Blood trickled from several wounds, staining the silver fabric beneath his breastplate. His sword arm trembled, yet he barely seemed to notice.

His gaze remained fixed on the drifting ash scattered across the summit.

They were gone.

For years, those men had fought at his side. They had shared victories, endured defeats, and stood beside him through battles that had tested the limits of their strength.

He remembered the arguments around their campfires, the promises they had made after surviving impossible odds, and the dreams they had spoken of when the fighting was over.

One had hoped to return to his family and spend the rest of his days away from the battlefield. Another had sworn to establish a school where the next generation could learn to wield a sword without repeating the mistakes of their predecessors.

Gideon remembered every one of them.

And now, there was nothing left to bury.

His fingers tightened around the hilt of Celestial Aether.

For a moment, the Sword Saint lowered his head. The golden radiance surrounding his body flickered, revealing the exhaustion beneath his formidable presence.

Then he raised his hand.

The mana around him stirred.

It did not erupt in a blind explosion of fury. Instead, it gathered slowly, responding to something deeper than anger.

The remnants of his aura rose from the shattered ground, circling his body in delicate streams of gold and silver.

One by one, ten radiant swords emerged from the light.

They floated around him in a perfect orbit, their blades engraved with ancient inscriptions. Each carried a distinct resonance, a fragment of the ideals once carved into the walls of the Temple of Light.

Honor.

Courage.

Faith.

Will.

Unity.

Sacrifice.

Valor.

Wisdom.

Judgment.

Hope.

The ten blades rotated in silence, casting shifting patterns of light across Gideon's battered armor.

He looked at them with a solemnity that had been absent from his expression throughout the battle.

"This is the Resonance of the Celestial Blades," he murmured.

His voice was hoarse, but the words carried an unwavering conviction.

"Everything we stood for... everything we swore to protect..."

His eyes returned to Lucian.

"You will answer for it."

The ten swords moved.

They scattered in an instant, spreading across the battlefield before converging upon Lucian from every direction. One descended toward his head while another swept toward his ribs. Two more attacked from opposite sides, their trajectories overlapping to close off his escape.

Lucian's expression hardened.

He raised his sword.

Clang!

The first collision sent a sharp vibration through his arm. Before he could recover, another celestial blade struck from the side. He twisted his wrist and redirected it, only to meet a third sword descending toward his shoulder.

He intercepted it as well.

The impacts came faster.

Each blade possessed its own rhythm, its own angle of attack, and its own peculiar fluctuation of mana. Some struck with overwhelming force, while others changed direction at the last moment, exploiting the smallest openings in his defense.

Lucian had fought powerful opponents before, but battles like this were still unfamiliar to him. He had never faced a technique that attacked with such coordination while leaving its wielder free to pursue his own assault.

He could not afford to block every strike directly.

His strength was already failing him.

Instead, he began to adapt.

When one blade descended, he guided it aside rather than meeting it head-on. When two attacked simultaneously, he adjusted his footing and intercepted both with a single sweep.

He allowed the momentum of one sword to carry it into the path of another, disrupting their rhythm just long enough to create a fraction of breathing room.

But the openings never lasted.

The celestial blades corrected their trajectories almost immediately, resuming their assault before Lucian could capitalize on the gaps.

A sword grazed his shoulder.

Another forced him to retreat several steps, its impact sending a tremor through his already weakened arm.

Lucian gritted his teeth.

They're not moving independently.

His gaze flickered between the ten swords.

Gideon is controlling the entire pattern.

The realization changed everything.

Until then, Lucian had been treating the blades as ten separate opponents.

But their movements were connected by delicate streams of mana, each sword responding to the others as though they were parts of a single mechanism.

And every connection led back to Gideon.

Lucian's eyes narrowed.

If I disrupt the flow connecting them, the entire technique will falter.

He needed an opening.

Gideon gave him none.

The Sword Saint advanced behind the storm of blades, his own weapon following each shift in the formation.

Every time Lucian attempted to close the distance, a celestial sword intercepted him. Every time he tried to retreat, two more cut off his escape.

The pressure steadily mounted.

Lucian's breathing grew ragged. Sweat trickled down his temple, mingling with the blood at his collar.

His fingers had begun to lose their sensitivity around the hilt, and the effort of maintaining his stance sent fresh waves of pain through his body.

He couldn't keep this up.

Not for much longer.

A celestial blade swept toward his neck.

Lucian leaned back just enough to evade it, then twisted his body as another sword thrust toward his chest. He knocked the second weapon aside, but the impact dragged his arm downward, leaving his guard exposed.

Three more swords converged.

He barely managed to escape their combined attack.

The nearest blade passed within inches of his face before cutting through the air behind him.

Lucian stumbled.

For the first time since the formation had collapsed, his footing betrayed him.

Gideon noticed.

The Sword Saint's expression hardened, and the ten blades accelerated.

There.

Amid the shifting currents of mana, Lucian caught a brief irregularity.

One of the swords had changed direction a fraction too late. Its movement disrupted the flow connecting it to the others, creating a momentary imbalance in the formation.

It was barely an opening.

But it was the only one he was going to get.

Lucian drew upon the last reserve of mana he could safely force through his body.

Pain shot up his arm.

The darkness gathering around his sword thickened until the blade's outline became difficult to distinguish. Rather than releasing the energy outward, he compressed it along the edge, forcing it into the delicate streams of mana connecting the celestial swords.

The air shuddered.

Gideon's eyes widened.

He understood what Lucian was attempting a moment too late.

The compressed mana struck the formation's connections, disrupting their rhythm. Two swords veered off course, while another faltered in midair. For the briefest instant, the perfect orbit lost its balance.

Lucian moved.

One step carried him beyond the reach of the nearest blade.

A second brought him into the opening.

His sword rose.

"Abyssal Exile. Ninth Form."

The blade howled.

There was no sound in the conventional sense. What filled the summit was a sensation of insatiable hunger, a pressure that seemed to draw the light itself toward the darkness gathering along Lucian's sword.

He swung.

The attack passed through the formation.

One celestial blade fractured, its radiant inscriptions dissolving into scattered sparks. Another split apart before its fragments could strike the ground.

The remaining swords trembled as the darkness spread through their connected streams of mana, severing the resonance that had sustained them.

Honor vanished.

Courage followed.

One by one, the ten virtues unraveled, their brilliance fading into the night.

The final sword broke apart.

The orbit collapsed.

For the first time since Gideon had invoked the technique, the battlefield fell silent.

The Sword Saint stood motionless.

His gaze remained fixed on the empty space where the ten blades had revolved moments earlier. His hand was still raised, fingers curled as though he could somehow command the shattered formation to return.

Then his eyes shifted toward Lucian.

"You..." His voice emerged as little more than a whisper. "You've walked too far into the Abyss."

Lucian's breathing was uneven. He could feel the consequences of forcing so much mana through his exhausted body, but he refused to lower his sword.

"No."

He raised his gaze.

"I am the Abyss."

For a brief moment, neither moved.

Then Celestial Aether began to dissolve.

Golden light seeped through Gideon's fingers, breaking away from the weapon in tiny fragments that drifted into the air like pieces of a dying star.

His knees trembled beneath him, and his shoulders sagged under the accumulated weight of the battle.

Yet his eyes remained fixed on Lucian.

The golden light within them had not gone out.

It had merely changed.

The grief was still there, but something else had risen to the surface—a terrible, unwavering resolve.

Lucian recognized the look.

He had seen it in the eyes of men who had decided that survival no longer mattered.

His instincts stirred.

Something was wrong.

He tightened his grip on his sword and took a cautious step forward.

The sole of his boot crunched against the shattered stone.

Then the mana around Gideon changed.

The currents that had sustained the celestial formation began to flow inward, spiraling toward his body. The remaining traces of divine power gathered around his chest and right arm, compressing until the air itself seemed to buckle beneath their pressure.

Lucian stopped.

The surrounding shadows recoiled.

Gideon lowered his head.

For several seconds, he stood in silence, his body trembling as the gathering power threatened to tear apart what remained of his strength.

Then he laughed.

It began as a faint, broken sound.

A breath escaping through clenched teeth.

But it grew louder, rising into a ragged, almost disbelieving laugh that echoed across the ruined summit.

"Ah... ahahahaha!"

He lifted his face.

Blood streaked his cheek, and his silver cloak hung in torn strips from his shoulders. There was nothing left of the composed Sword Saint who had stood waiting beneath the storm.

Only a warrior who had lost everything he had brought into battle.

"You really are..." Gideon gasped between his laughter. "You really are the Dark Emperor's successor."

The mana surrounding him surged.

"But don't mistake this for your victory."

The light erupted.

Lucian immediately raised his sword, but the pressure forced him backward.

The ground beneath Gideon's feet fractured as a pillar of golden radiance climbed into the sky, illuminating the clouds above Stormfall Ridge.

The Sword Saint's body became the center of the eruption.

His armor began to glow from within. Fine cracks of light spread across its surface, and the silver fabric beneath it fluttered in the rising heat.

His remaining strength was being consumed to sustain the transformation, leaving nothing behind for his own survival.

Gideon didn't attempt to summon another celestial formation.

He no longer had the strength for one.

Instead, he brought everything he had left into a single weapon.

A sword began to take shape in his right hand.

It was not an ordinary relic, nor was it a weapon summoned from some distant space. It emerged directly from the condensed essence of his soul, taking form through sheer will and the last reserves of his divine power.

The blade was brilliant gold, its edges so sharply defined that the air seemed to split around them.

Lucian's eyes narrowed.

He had never encountered a weapon like it.

There was no elaborate inscription, no ornamentation, and no unnecessary display.

The spiritual sword possessed a terrifying simplicity, as though every trace of Gideon's power had been stripped of everything except its capacity to cut.

Even the shadows seemed reluctant to approach it.

Gideon raised the weapon.

His right arm shook violently beneath its weight.

"This is everything I have left," he said.

His voice was quieter now.

"I won't let you leave this mountain alive."

Lucian's expression tightened.

He's burning through his own life to sustain that sword.

He could feel it in the pressure gathering around Gideon. The power was immense, but unstable. Every passing moment brought the Sword Saint closer to the end of his strength.

That should have been an advantage.

It wasn't.

Lucian's own body was already failing him.

His breathing had become shallow, and the mana within his veins was little more than a dwindling ember. The Ninth Form had disrupted the celestial formation, but the effort had left his sword arm trembling.

He had no room for another prolonged exchange.

He needed to end this now.

Lucian shifted his stance and began to advance.

Gideon watched him approach.

Then, without warning, the Sword Saint disappeared into a burst of golden light.

Lucian's instincts screamed.

He twisted aside.

The spiritual blade swept past his shoulder, cutting through his cloak and sending a violent wave of pressure across the summit. Lucian staggered, barely retaining his footing as Gideon reappeared beside him.

The Sword Saint moved again.

His sword came from the opposite direction, forcing Lucian to raise his weapon in defense.

The collision drove him backward.

Lucian's boots carved two deep grooves through the stone before he managed to stop himself. Pain flared through his arms, and his sword nearly slipped from his grasp.

Gideon did not give him time to recover.

He attacked again.

The spiritual blade descended, rose, and swept sideways in a relentless succession of strikes. Each movement consumed more of Gideon's remaining strength, but the power behind them only grew more violent.

Lucian parried the first.

He evaded the second.

The third struck his guard with enough force to numb his fingers.

He was falling behind.

The realization settled coldly in his chest.

I can't keep blocking him.

Gideon had abandoned every concern except landing the next strike. His movements had become reckless, yet that recklessness made him more dangerous.

He was willing to sacrifice his defense, his body, and his remaining life if it meant taking Lucian down with him.

Lucian searched for an opening.

He found one.

Gideon's right shoulder dipped after a powerful swing, leaving his neck exposed for a fraction of a second.

Lucian moved immediately.

His sword rose toward the Sword Saint's throat.

He was almost there.

Then Gideon twisted his body and drove his spiritual blade upward.

Lucian's eyes widened.

He had misjudged the remaining strength in Gideon's arm.

The Sword Saint had deliberately left the opening, baiting him into committing to the attack.

Lucian tried to withdraw, but his exhausted body was a fraction too slow.

Gideon's spiritual sword descended.

A vertical arc of golden energy tore through the night.

The attack was enormous, its brilliance stretching from the clouds to the shattered summit. The force behind it swept away the remaining debris, split the stone beneath Lucian's feet, and threatened to consume everything in its path.

Lucian tried to move.

His legs refused to respond.

His muscles had reached their limit, and the mana he needed to force them into motion was nearly gone.

For one terrible instant, he could do nothing but watch the descending light.

Damn it...

The attack swallowed his vision.

He shut his eyes and braced himself.

Then something stirred against his chest.

A faint violet glow appeared beneath his collar.

It flickered once.

Twice.

Then the Nyxveil Relic awakened.

The pendant his father had given him released a pulse of violet light, spreading across Lucian's body in a sudden, protective surge.

The descending sword aura struck the barrier.

The mountain shook.

For a moment, golden radiance engulfed the entire summit, swallowing Lucian and the surrounding cliffs in a blinding torrent of energy.

Then the violet light flared.

The attack unraveled.

The immense wave of divine power fragmented into countless streams, each dissolving before it could reach Lucian. The pressure vanished, leaving only drifting motes of gold that faded into the darkness.

Silence followed.

Lucian lowered his head, staring at the pendant resting against his chest.

A hairline fracture had appeared along its surface.

The violet glow dimmed, pulsed weakly, and disappeared.

He understood immediately.

The relic had protected him, but it had expended the power needed for its other functions.

Teleportation was no longer an option.

And he had no idea how long it would take to recover.

Across the summit, Gideon stared at him in disbelief.

Then his expression twisted.

"You still have that much left?"

The golden aura around his body surged once more.

He didn't wait for an answer.

With a roar, Gideon charged.

His spiritual sword was larger now, its brilliance almost unbearable. Light spilled from its edges, consuming the remaining fabric of his cloak and burning through the armor covering his right arm.

He was destroying himself to maintain the weapon.

And he had chosen to spend what remained of his life on one final attack.

Lucian barely had time to raise his sword.

The two weapons collided.

The impact shattered the air.

A shock wave swept across the summit, blasting apart the remaining stone formations and sending fragments tumbling into the darkness below.

Lucian felt the force travel through his arms, into his shoulders, and through the bones of his chest.

Then his feet left the ground.

He was hurled backward.

The world spun around him as he crashed through a ridge of broken stone before striking the cliffside nearly half a mile from where the collision had begun.

The rock fractured beneath the impact, sending cracks spreading across its surface.

For several seconds, Lucian couldn't move.

He couldn't even draw a proper breath.

His sword lay beside him, its point buried in the dirt.

He stared at it through blurred vision, trying to force his fingers to respond.

Move.

Nothing happened.

Get up.

His chest tightened.

He dragged in a shallow breath, and pain spread through his body. He swallowed against the metallic taste in his mouth, then reached for the sword.

His fingers closed around the hilt.

That was enough.

Using the weapon as support, he slowly pulled himself upright.

His knees threatened to buckle, and his vision swam, but he forced himself to remain standing.

The Blackthorne blessing still pulsed faintly through his veins, preserving what remained of his strength. Without it, he suspected he would already have been unable to rise.

He looked toward the distant summit.

Gideon was still advancing.

The Sword Saint had become a figure of living radiance. Golden light streamed from his body, and the spiritual sword dragged behind him, carving a glowing trail through the shattered stone.

His steps were uneven.

His movements had slowed.

But he continued forward.

Every moment brought him closer to death, yet he refused to stop.

Lucian tightened his grip on his sword.

He's going to die even if I do nothing.

The thought offered no comfort.

Gideon would not collapse before reaching him. The man had already sacrificed too much to turn back now, and whatever remained of his strength was enough to make him lethal.

Lucian glanced at the pendant.

Its surface had gone dull.

No teleportation.

No emergency escape.

No second miracle waiting to save him.

He had spent nearly everything he possessed, and the opponent approaching him had chosen to spend the rest of his life in exchange for one final chance to win.

For the first time that night, Lucian could see no clear path forward.

His sword arm trembled.

His legs felt distant, as though they belonged to someone else. Even the shadows around him had grown faint, their movements sluggish and unresponsive.

He had reached the end of his strength.

And Gideon was still coming.

So this is it.

Lucian lowered his gaze.

For a fleeting moment, he thought of his father.

The pendant against his chest had been a gift, a final safeguard left behind by someone who had known that the world would not show his son mercy. It had saved him once more, but even that protection had limits.

Everything had limits.

Including him.

Lucian closed his eyes.

Then something changed.

A faint light flickered behind his eyelids.

He opened them.

The world had lost its color.

The golden radiance surrounding Gideon had become a pale, almost translucent outline.

The black stone beneath Lucian's feet appeared silver-gray, while the shadows stretched across the battlefield with a clarity he had never experienced before.

Even the air seemed different.

Time slowed.

Droplets of moisture hung motionless above the shattered ground. Fragments of stone remained suspended in the air, each one outlined with impossible precision.

The sounds of the battlefield faded into the distance.

And before Lucian's eyes, a path appeared.

It stretched across the ruined summit in a narrow trail of darkness, its edges sharp and unwavering. It passed through the scattered debris, curved around the remnants of Gideon's attack, and led directly toward the Sword Saint.

Lucian stared.

He knew that path.

He had glimpsed it before, buried beneath the overwhelming demands of a technique he had never fully mastered.

The Tenth Form.

Sovereign's Finale.

His heart seemed to stop.

No.

This was different.

The path was clearer than anything he had ever seen. Every movement, every angle, every point of contact appeared connected to the next, forming a single, uninterrupted sequence.

It wasn't merely a stronger version of the technique.

It was the technique as it was meant to be.

The realization struck him with startling clarity.

So that's what I've been missing.

He had always tried to force his sword toward the result he wanted, relying on strength, speed, and control to overcome whatever stood in his way.

But this path demanded none of those things in isolation.

It required him to understand the entire movement as one.

The beginning.

The transition.

The end.

For one fleeting instant, the exhaustion weighing upon him seemed to recede.

His body moved before he consciously commanded it.

Lucian raised his sword.

A crimson-dark radiance gathered along its edge, mingling with the last remnants of his mana. The energy burned through his exhausted channels, sending a sharp wave of pain across his body, but he no longer tried to force it into a shape of his own choosing.

He followed the path.

One step.

Then another.

His blade aligned with the trail of darkness before him, its movement so precise that even the shadows seemed to fall into place around it.

Across the summit, Gideon raised his spiritual sword for the final time.

The golden radiance surrounding him had become almost unbearable. His body trembled beneath the strain, and his remaining strength was rapidly disappearing.

Yet he smiled.

At last, he had brought Lucian to the point where retreat was impossible.

"Die!"

Gideon brought his sword down.

Lucian stepped forward.

Their attacks met.

For an instant, the summit disappeared beneath a blinding eruption of light. Golden radiance tore across the night, swallowing the surrounding cliffs and illuminating the storm clouds above.

Then came silence.

The light collapsed inward.

Darkness spread across the battlefield, not like a wave consuming everything in its path, but like the final stroke of a brush completing a picture that had been waiting to exist.

The two figures stood motionless.

Gideon's spiritual sword remained raised above his head.

Lucian stood beyond him, his own blade extended at his side.

Neither spoke.

Then a faint line appeared across Gideon's neck.

His eyes widened.

Confusion crossed his face, followed by the quiet realization that the battle had ended.

The spiritual sword dissolved into golden motes.

Gideon's head fell, and his body collapsed onto the shattered stone an instant later.

The radiance surrounding him faded with his final breath.

The Sword Saint was dead.

For several seconds, Lucian remained standing.

Then his knees nearly gave way.

He caught himself against his sword, his breathing uneven as the last traces of the perfected technique faded from his body.

He had won.

But the realization brought no relief.

His body was breaking beneath him, and he could barely keep himself upright.

Whatever had allowed him to perceive the Tenth Form had vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving him with no understanding of how he had managed to execute it.

He glanced at the fallen Sword Saint.

I survived.

The thought felt strangely distant.

He couldn't afford to remain here.

The battle had produced too much noise and released too much mana. Other Hunters might already be moving toward Stormfall Ridge, and Lucian had neither the strength to fight them nor the means to escape through the pendant.

He reached into his subspace and retrieved a violet potion.

His hand shook as he uncorked the vial.

The bitter liquid burned as he swallowed it, but he forced himself to drink every last drop. Warmth spread through his chest, easing the worst of the pain without restoring the strength he had lost.

It would have to be enough.

Lucian slipped the empty vial away and looked toward the surrounding darkness.

He had no time to mourn, no time to examine what had happened, and no time to wonder what the Tenth Form meant for his future.

He needed to leave.

Now.

With a final effort, he summoned the shadows around him. They gathered sluggishly at first, responding to his weakened mana, before slowly rising to cover his body.

The pendant at his chest flickered.

Its violet light returned, faint but steady.

Lucian felt the familiar pull of its power as the shadows folded inward, concealing him from the ruined summit.

He glanced once toward Gideon's fallen form.

For a brief moment, their eyes seemed to meet, though the Sword Saint's gaze had already lost its light.

Then the darkness closed around Lucian.

The wind swept across Stormfall Ridge, carrying ash over the shattered stone and scattering the last traces of golden radiance into the night.

When the shadows finally receded, Lucian Blackthorne was gone.