Kaela's blade shifted.
There was no wasted motion—no pause, no flourish. Mid-swing, the angle changed with surgical precision, the arc tightening as it redirected straight down toward Draven.
Too fast.
Draven saw it anyway.
The world narrowed to a silver edge cleaving rain, to the way the air screamed as the blade displaced it. His crouched body tensed on instinct alone, jaw clenching so hard his teeth ground together.
Dammit—
Too late.
There was no room to roll, no time to dive. His legs were already coiled, muscles screaming readiness with nowhere to go. He didn't try to dodge.
Instead, his other hand snapped upward.
Not to block—he knew better than that—but to meet it, to change something, anything, before steel found flesh.
But it never came.
The pressure vanished.
The killing intent slid past him like a blade missing skin by a hair's breadth.
Elliana was suddenly there.
Beside him—silent, impossible—a shadow among shadows. The movement was so abrupt it left him breathless.
Not stepping in.
Not moving through space.
Appearing.
One heartbeat she hovered above the mud, shadows roaring outward like a restrained tide.
The next, she stood beside Draven, close enough that the cold gravity of her presence pressed against his shoulder.
And directly in front of her—
A blade of pure mana slammed into existence.
Kaela.
Her true target all along.
The mana-forged edge screamed as it met Elliana's conjured defense, power detonating outward in a concussive shockwave that blasted the rain away in a perfect ring. Mud churned. The ground cracked beneath the force.
Draven was thrown backward, boots skidding as he barely kept his footing, heart hammering violently in his chest.
Kaela hadn't been trying to kill him.
She'd used him.
The realization struck harder than the shockwave.
The initial strike—too close, too fast—had been bait. A threat Elliana would never ignore. A line drawn so near Draven's life that intervention was inevitable.
And Elliana had taken it.
Kaela's eyes burned with focused intensity as she pressed forward, mana surging along her blade in brilliant, lethal currents. Every movement was liquid precision, ruthless and calculated—not for victory, but for extraction.
Elliana's silver gaze finally shifted to her.
Not in surprise.
In recognition.
"So," Elliana said calmly, shadows thickening around her like a living mantle, "this is how you choose to test me."
Kaela said nothing.
She didn't need to.
The rain screamed as power clashed again—shadow and mana colliding in a blinding fracture of force.
And Draven, scrambling backward, spirit stone clenched tight in his fist, understood one terrifying truth all at once:
This wasn't just judgment anymore.
This was a line being crossed.
Elliana understood.
Not slowly.
Not after consideration.
Instantly.
Kaela's blade pressed. Her mana flared—not wild, not hostile in the way Cedric's lightning had been, but directed. Focused. Reaching.
Trying to get close.
Trying to test.
Trying to touch.
Elliana's silver eyes narrowed—not in anger, but in something colder.
Understanding sharpened into certainty.
Elliana spoke quietly, her voice carrying through the storm without effort, cutting cleanly through the clash of power.
"You wished to reach me."
The shadows around her feet stilled.
Then tightened.
"But you chose," Elliana continued, eyes locking onto Kaela's, "to do so by placing your blade at my son's throat."
The air dropped.
Mana surged—not erupting outward, but collapsing inward toward Elliana, as though the world itself were being pulled into her gravity. The rain faltered mid-fall, droplets hanging for a fraction of a heartbeat before smashing into the ground all at once.
"You speak of intention," Elliana said softly.
Her gaze hardened.
"I do not care."
The shadows exploded.
Elliana vanished.
Not moved—erased.
The space she had occupied folded inward as darkness swallowed it whole, leaving only churned mud and a sudden, suffocating absence.
Then—
She was everywhere.
Shadows tore free from the ground, the trees, the rain itself—splintering into multiple forms, each one Elliana, each one real enough to kill. They lunged simultaneously, converging on Kaela from every angle: above, below, behind, through the very ground beneath her feet.
Assassin's precision.
Executioner's intent.
No warning.
No hesitation.
No mercy.
Each shadow-copy struck with lethal purpose—blades of condensed darkness, hands that crushed space itself, tendrils seeking joints, arteries, breath. The storm howled as if recoiling from the sudden violence, thunder cracking late, afraid to interrupt.
Elliana's true voice echoed from everywhere at once.
"You do not endanger my child," it said calmly, inexorably,
"to reach me."
Draven barely had time to process what he was seeing.
One moment Kaela stood poised, flawless, blade humming with mana.
The next, she was engulfed in converging death—forced on the defensive by an opponent who was no longer fighting.
She was correcting an error.
Elliana emerged from the shadows a heartbeat later, directly in front of Kaela, silver eyes blazing brighter than the lightning overhead.
"You wished to reach me," Elliana said.
Her hand closed.
The shadows obeyed.
"Then here I am."
And the night itself moved to carry out her will.
They collided.
Not with spectacle—but with skill.
Elliana and her shadows struck as one, moving in perfect, merciless coordination. Daggers of condensed darkness flashed in tight arcs, aimed for tendons, joints, the spaces armor could not cover. Low leg strikes came first—meant to unbalance, to steal footing—followed by precise thrusts that would have ended lesser fighters before they realized the fight had begun.
Elliana never stopped moving.
She flowed with her shadows, stepping through them, trading places mid-strike, vanishing and reappearing in the space of a blink. One moment she was low, sweeping at Kaela's knee—
the next, above her shoulder, dagger descending toward her spine.
Kaela met it all.
Her blade moved in clean, disciplined lines, mana reinforcing every parry, every block. Steel rang against shadow, sparks and dark motes scattering into the rain. She twisted with lethal efficiency, turning defense into counterstrike in the same breath—slashes meant to sever, thrusts meant to punish overextension.
She took wounds.
A shadow dagger raked across her arm.
A leg strike bit into her thigh, drawing blood.
Another blade slipped past her guard and carved a shallow line across her ribs.
Kaela did not falter.
She adapted.
One by one, she dismantled the shadow copies—timing their rhythm, sensing the fractional delay that marked them as not quite real. A sweeping arc of mana erased one. A precise thrust dispersed another into smoke. A brutal elbow followed by a point-blank slash shattered a third.
She was patient.
Waiting.
Then—
Elliana's true form appeared.
Just for an instant.
Kaela moved.
She launched forward with everything she had, blade screaming as mana surged along its length, compressing into a single, devastating line meant to end the fight now.
The strike cleaved Elliana in half.
Shadow spilled instead of blood.
The severed form dissolved mid-fall, unraveling into nothing as the rain passed straight through it.
Kaela's eyes widened—
Too late.
Elliana reappeared directly in front of Draven.
Her back to him.
Her breath came heavy—controlled, but strained. Shadows clung to her like a second skin, their movements slower now, less fluid.
Blood dripped from her side, dark against the rain-soaked ground.
A cut—deep enough to matter.
She hadn't fully evaded the strike.
Draven froze.
His heart slammed painfully against his ribs as he stared at the crimson streak spreading along her hip, proof that Kaela had reached her—just enough.
Elliana did not turn.
Her shoulders rose and fell once, steadying.
Her gaze remained locked forward—sharp, unwavering—as her remaining shadow copies continued to engage Kaela, blades flashing, legs striking, forcing her to keep moving, to keep defending.
Elliana's voice came low and even, despite the blood, despite the exhaustion.
"Honey," she said calmly.
The shadows obeyed without question.
"It's time to leave."
She shifted her stance—subtle, protective—placing herself squarely between Kaela and Draven.