Kharveth tore through the cloud layer and crashed onto the crown of a mountain so high its peak lay buried beneath deep, wind-packed snow. The impact was catastrophic. The summit cratered under him, stone fracturing beneath obsidian greaves, and a violent shockwave rippled outward. Snow lifted in a white ring before cascading down the slopes in thick, rolling sheets, the beginning of an avalanche spilling into the valleys below.
He had not even fully risen—
Violet appeared above him.
Still wearing that vicious grin.
Her eyes shifted from cyan to silver mid-descent, her heel driving down toward his chest with executioner precision.
Kharveth rolled at the last possible instant. The stomp missed him by inches and struck the summit instead.
The mountain answered with a thunderous crack.
The peak split in branching fractures beneath her foot, stone plates shifting, snow erupting skyward in geysers of white. The tremor ran deep into the bedrock, dislodging entire shelves of ice that began tearing free from the mountainside.
Kharveth flowed from the roll into a rising kick, using the motion to propel himself upright in one seamless surge. As he planted, the massive bone greatsword was already drawn back, edge aligned, posture balanced low and centered despite the unstable ground.
"You aren't half-bad with those movements," Violet remarked lightly, silver eyes watching him through drifting snow.
He vanished.
To an ordinary eye, it would have looked like teleportation. In reality, it was raw acceleration—ten feet of armored colossus crossing the distance in a single explosive step. The greatsword was already at her throat when he reappeared in front of her.
Her eyes shifted from silver to brown.
The blade connected.
It did not cut.
The sensation that ran through the weapon was wrong—not flesh, not armor. It was like striking a slab of impossibly dense alloy hidden just beneath her skin. The edge stopped dead—
—but the force carried through.
Violet was launched sideways, cartwheeling through the air. The sound barrier shattered around her in a concussive boom as she tore across the summit and bounced once off the snow-covered slope, carving a trench hundreds of feet long.
Before she could pitch off the mountainside—
Her eyes flashed neon teal.
Lightning detonated from her body in branching arcs, spearing into the rock face and anchoring her in place. The electrical tethers tightened, snapping her momentum to zero in a violent jerk that spiderwebbed fresh cracks through the stone.
She straightened slowly, teal fading as she rolled her shoulders and reached up to rub her neck where the blade had struck.
"Wow," she muttered.
The grin was gone.
"You're strong. I actually felt that—even through my power." Her gaze sharpened. "You're definitely stronger than Ercale's generals. Maybe even stronger than Ercale himself. He had to use magic to hurt me." She tilted her head slightly. "You just did it with raw strength."
Internally, she exhaled.
*Just great. I knew he was strong, but I didn't think he'd be a threat. This is actually going to be a challenge.*
Across from her, Kharveth did not speak. His helm remained fixed on her as wind howled between them, snow spiraling through the air.
Then his gaze dipped briefly to his blade.
If he committed more force—if he pushed the weapon beyond its standard tolerance—perhaps he could overwhelm whatever defensive phenomenon corresponded to that brown-eyed state of hers.
Or perhaps the sword would fracture first.
*It's like fighting a High Human,* he assessed silently.
The skull of the hellbeast mounted on his shoulder began to glow, its empty sockets filling with a deep, pulsing red. Bone knit and extended from the air itself, forming a heavy, brutal-looking pistol in his left hand—thick-barreled, dense, engineered for devastation rather than elegance.
He raised the greatsword in his right.
The bone pistol leveled in his left.
And on the shattered, trembling summit of a dying mountain, the Knight Commander readied himself to continue the sudden duel.
Violet's right eye shifted to gold. Her left to silver.
Speed and strength ignited in the same instant.
They moved at the same time.
The summit exploded beneath their feet as both launched forward, snow and shattered stone blasting outward in twin shockwaves. The distance between them vanished instantly. To an outside observer, they would have appeared to blink from place to place—but this was not teleportation. It was acceleration pushed to its absolute limit.
Kharveth's greatsword came down in a vertical cleave meant to bisect her from crown to sternum. Violet slipped half a step off-line, the gold in her right eye glowing brighter as she let the blade shear past her shoulder by inches. The silver in her left eye shone as raw strength flooded her body, and she drove a straight punch into his chestplate.
The impact detonated like artillery.
The mountain beneath them fractured again, stone collapsing inward as a crater formed around Kharveth's planted feet. He slid back several yards, boots carving trenches through rock before he re-anchored himself.
He answered immediately.
The bone pistol in his left hand roared, the recoil violent enough to rupture the ground behind him. Violet's eyes flicked cyan for a fraction of a heartbeat—she vanished, reappearing above and behind him. Neon teal lightning poured off her body as she brought a descending kick toward the back of his helm.
Kharveth twisted mid-motion, raising his forearm just enough to catch the strike. Lightning crawled over obsidian armor, cracking the stone at his feet and launching both of them apart in a thunderclap.
They collided again before the echo faded.
Violet's eyes turned purple, and an invisible wave of force slammed into him, flattening the rubble between them. Kharveth leaned into it, armor groaning under pressure, and forced himself forward through the crushing field. The greatsword came around in a horizontal arc that split the air itself.
This time she didn't evade fully.
The silver in her eye burned brighter. She met the blade with her forearm reinforced by sheer strength. The collision blasted the remains of the summit outward in a ring of pulverized rock. Even so, the strike drove her sideways, boots digging furrows hundreds of feet long before she regained footing.
She came back hard.
The gold in her eye brightened again as wind gathered around her, redirecting her movement. She blurred forward, vanishing from one angle and reappearing at another, fists slamming into his flank, his shoulder, his helm. Each hit carried concussive power strong enough to shatter cliffs.
Kharveth absorbed it and countered in tight, economical motions. A knee drove upward and clipped her ribs, sending her airborne. He followed with a rising slash that barely missed her as she twisted mid-air, the brown in her eyes lighting instinctively as durability reinforced her body and she smashed through a ridge of rock instead of around it.
She hit the ground running.
Neon teal lightning erupted from her again, chaining into the earth and accelerating her like a railgun shot. She shoulder-checked him with that momentum. The impact split what remained of the peak entirely, the upper half of the mountain sliding away in a roaring collapse.
This time he staggered a full step.
Only one.
He planted, pivoted, and brought the pommel of his blade down like a falling star. It struck her collarbone. The brown in her eyes flared too late to fully blunt it. The force hurled her downward, through stone and into the base of the mountain as the entire upper mass gave way.
The peak finished dying above them.
By the time the avalanche settled, the mountain was barely recognizable—reduced to jagged ruin and drifting smoke where snow had flash-melted into steam.
Violet rose slowly from the base, brushing dust from her shoulder. Her breathing was steady, but her expression had sharpened.
Kharveth landed in front of her moments later, weight heavy enough to compress the fractured earth beneath him. The bone pistol remained steady in his left hand, greatsword low but ready in his right. Snow and debris continued to slide down around them.
"This is snowballing too far," Violet muttered, glancing at the devastation stretching in every direction. "I need to stop this before it gets worse."
Her gaze lifted back to him.
"Maybe… hmm."
Her eyes shifted to amber.
Kharveth stepped forward—
And the world changed.
The ruined mountain was still there.
But it wasn't.
The air thickened. The ground felt wrong beneath his feet. Shapes moved at the edge of perception—familiar silhouettes in impossible positions. The weight of presence pressed against him from directions that had not existed a moment ago.
The visions did not feel distant or dreamlike.
They felt immediate.
Real enough that his instincts reacted before his mind did.
And Violet stood before him, amber eyes steady, focusing as the Knight Commander came to a stop—caught in visions that carried the full weight of reality.