Mervan's POV
"SUUUUUU!"
My scream tore through my throat as I watched Su's severed hand hit the ground with a sickening thud. Blood – there was so much blood. The arena floor was painted crimson where his body had skidded to a stop.
"Let me go!" I thrashed against Sheherazade's grip as she held me back. "He needs help! He's going to die! PLEASE!"
"Mervan, stop!" Her voice cracked with emotion, but her grip remained firm. "You'll only get yourself killed!"
In the arena below, Kilian approached Su's motionless form with predatory grace, that horrific green light from his mana core casting twisted shadows across the ground. Each step he took made the corruption in the air pulse stronger, and I could hear people in the crowd retching, some even fainting from the sheer malevolence of his power.
"Is this all you had?" Kilian's voice echoed through the arena.
I felt my knees buckle. "You promised," I whispered, tears streaming down my face. "You promised you wouldn't die..."
Su's POV
Darkness. Not the natural darkness of night, but something alive, something that seemed to writhe and pulse with ancient malevolence. The void stretched endlessly in all directions, a suffocating blanket of absolute nothingness that threatened to crush my very soul.
In this space between life and death, a familiar figure materialized – my shadow self from the Abyss. Its form was exactly as I remembered: my mirror image, yet wrong in ways that defied description. Its movements were too fluid, too unnatural, like a puppet being pulled by invisible strings. That twisted smile, stretching impossibly wide across its face, revealed teeth that seemed too sharp, too numerous.
"Still weak," it whispered with my voice, but distorted, as if speaking through water. "Still failing everyone who depends on you."
Then... another presence made itself known. Unlike my shadow's tangible form, this was something far more ancient, far more terrible. A voice that seemed to come from the darkness itself, each word dripping with an otherworldly calm that made my very essence recoil. It was the kind of voice that could shatter sanity – too smooth, too perfect, carrying undertones that spoke of eons spent in places where light had never touched.
"Lost child," the voice slithered through the darkness, each syllable like ice crystals forming in my blood. "Do you want it? The power to break the world itself?"
The shadow circled me, its movements jerky yet graceful, leaving trails of void in its wake. Its smile stretched even wider, threatening to split its face in two. "You were always meant for destruction."
"I..." My voice faltered as memories flooded back – my family's deaths, Mervan's brother, and now my own failure. The darkness seemed to pulse with each remembered pain.
"You don't even know why you're here, do you?" That ancient voice asked, its amusement carrying an edge that could flay souls. "In these Exiled Lands, fighting battles that fate has chosen for you?"
"I never understood," I admitted, the weight of truth crushing me. "How I ended up here, why I'm fighting... but..."
The voice cut through my thoughts like a poisoned blade, while my shadow self watched with that knowing, twisted grin. "Then why resist? Accept your destiny. Walk the path of destruction. Let me do it for you."
My shadow prowled closer, its movements now sharp and predatory. "You've already lost your father. Soon you'll lose everything else."
Through the suffocating void, Mervan's screams echoed distantly, mixing with memories of my sister's cries, the twins' laughter, my father's last words. The darkness seemed to drink in their voices, making them sound hollow and wrong.
"No." The word came out weak at first.
"You are a fool," the ancient voice hissed, its false calm cracking like ice in spring, revealing something far more terrifying beneath. "You are fated to walk the path of destruction. It is written in your very soul."
"NO!" This time my voice thundered through the void, making even my shadow step back. "I don't care about fate! I don't care why I'm here! Even if the whole world stands against me, I'll protect them! I'll protect them all!"
"FOOL!" The voice roared, its terrifying calm shattering into something primordial and raw. The darkness itself seemed to recoil from its fury.
Then, cutting through everything like a blade of light – Eldran's voice.
"GET UP!"
My shadow's form flickered, its certainty wavering for the first time.
"GET UP!"
The endless void cracked, golden light seeping through the fissures of reality.
"SU!"
At the sound of my name the third time, something ancient and primal awakened within me. All the rage, all the pain, all the memories of those I'd failed – they crystallized into a single moment of pure, unstoppable determination.
"SUTRAAAAAAAA!"
My roar shattered the void itself, the sound carrying all of my fury and unbreakable will. Golden flames erupted from my body with such force that the ground beneath me cracked. But these weren't ordinary flames – they were wrapped in black fire, the two colors dancing together in a violent, beautiful display of raw power. The golden flames reached toward the sky like pillars of divine wrath, while the black fire twisted around them like serpents of chaos.
The shadow screamed in defiance as it was consumed by the light. The ancient voice howled in fury, but its power over me was breaking. Each heartbeat sent new waves of power coursing through my veins, burning away the darkness that had tried to claim me. The air itself seemed to vibrate with the intensity of my rage, my determination, my absolute refusal to fail again.
The pain where my hand had been suddenly intensified, becoming a nexus of creative force. I watched in awe as golden light took shape there, defying the very laws of nature. Metal began forming from nothing, creating an armor that encased my regenerating hand. The armor was a masterwork of black and gold, ancient patterns shifting across its surface like living things. Long chains materialized, attached to the armor, each link inscribed with symbols that burned with inner light. They floated and moved as if they had a will of their own, responding to my very thoughts.
The transformation radiated outward, each wave of power pushing back the darkness. I could feel something fundamental changing within me, as if I was being reforged in the fires of my own determination.
My left eye, I knew without seeing that they had changed – burning now with the same golden fire that surrounded me, windows to the power that now coursed through my veins.
The terrifying voice spoke one last time, but now it sounded distant, almost afraid: "You cannot escape your destiny..."
But I was no longer listening. In the arena, I began to rise, the chains of fate themselves bending to my will.
The real battle was about to begin.
"AS IF I'M GOING TO LET YOU!" Kilian roared, his corrupted form blurring with speed as he charged.
But something had changed. My movements felt different – fluid, precise, as if I'd been fighting with these chains my entire life. In a single smooth motion, I vanished from Kilian's path, reappearing behind him. The chains responded to my thoughts, wrapping around his throat before he could react.
Where the chains touched his corrupted skin, they seared with golden fire. Kilian's flesh hissed and smoked, the corruption recoiling from the contact. His scream of pain and rage echoed through the arena.
I stood perfectly still, a calm washing over me that I'd never felt before. This wasn't the desperate fury of our earlier battle – this was something else entirely. Something older. More certain.
"ARITHURIA!" Kilian's mana core pulsed with sickly green light as he attempted to blast me point-blank.
My body moved on its own, dodging the explosion of corrupted energy with an almost casual grace. The chains floating from my armored hand danced in the air around me, leaving trails of golden light in their wake.
"Let's end this, Kilian," I said, my voice carrying a quiet certainty that seemed to make even the air grow still. "Once and for all."