The sickening sound of the blade tearing through flesh and bone seemed to echo across the veranda, amplifying in the sudden, horrifying silence that followed.
Noir scrambled backwards, hitting the glass doors with a harsh thud, his breath entirely caught in his throat. Time ground to an excruciating halt. The obsidian curse-blade, dripping with Fenice's rotting, corrupted magic, was buried hilt-deep in Solis's chest.
Solis looked down at the protrusion with a strange, detached sort of wonder, and then his silver-grey eyes rolled back. He collapsed heavily onto the polished wooden decking, a terrible, wet cough tearing from his throat. A spray of dark, corrupted blood splattered across the pristine floorboards.
As soon as Solis hit the ground, the jagged obsidian blade dissolved into a cloud of purplish-black miasma that instantly invaded his veins, ravaging his internal organs with lethal, corrosive speed.
