The forest did not survive the first exchange.
Roric moved first.
He did not charge. He did not roar. He simply stepped forward, and the ground decided it had always intended to split for him. The earth fractured in a straight line toward Jax and Torvin as if compelled by loyalty. Trees along that path bowed, bark peeling away in strips as though ashamed to stand upright before him.
"I don't care which one of you dies first," Roric said, rolling his shoulders. "But I'd rather not have to chase."
Torvin vanished.
Not through speed—through acceleration. He seized the inertia in his own muscles and multiplied it mid-stride. Air detonated where he had been. He reappeared above Roric, blade descending in a guillotine arc, velocity compressed into the edge.
Roric lifted his axe lazily.
The weapons met—and the collision did not behave.
Instead of a shockwave, the force diverted. The impact that should have shattered the forest redirected into the bond between attacker and defender. The metaphysical relationship between Torvin and Jax trembled, a shared past tugged taut like wire.
Jax staggered.
Pain bloomed along his arm where no strike had landed.
Roric smiled. "You two are still tied together. That's convenient."
Jax inhaled slowly, spear rising. The air around him softened. Sound dulled. The forest dimmed not physically but perceptually. He wove a dream through the lattice of reality—not illusion, but suggestion. The idea of fatigue. The whisper of drowsiness.
Roric blinked once.
Then the drowsiness leapt to Torvin instead.
Torvin's knees buckled for half a heartbeat before he snarled and bit through his tongue, blood spraying. He seized the deceleration of his own collapse and reversed it, converting the stalled fall into explosive forward momentum. He blurred past Jax toward SK, who was hobbling as fast as he could go.
"Bloody hell!" SK wheezed, flinging a disk behind him. It unfolded into a lattice of rotating blades.
"Fuck this—!"
Torvin sliced through the lattice by accelerating the blades past their structural tolerance. They shattered like brittle glass. He did not slow.
Roric stepped again.
The space between himself and Jax compressed unnaturally as he accelerated. His axe appeared at Jax's ribs without the courtesy of travel.
Jax twisted, spear intercepting. The clash rang like cathedral bells. He felt the bond strain again—Roric tugging at history, at shared grief, at Raizelle's memory like a hooked chain.
"Oh? You still dream about my wife huh? As her husband I dont think I'm too pleased about that," Roric observed.
Jax's voice was calm, but there was strain beneath it.
"You don't understand."
"I understand that your blood must be spilled for my daughters safety."
Roric pulled at his threads.
The forest answered. Branches whipped toward Jax as if resentful of his presence. The very oxygen thickened, loyal to Roric's authority and refused to bond to the lungs of his opponents. Jax pushed back—not with force, but with fantasy. He overlaid reality with a counter-dream: the idea that bonds could rest. That gravity could forget.
For a fraction of a second, Roric's axe felt heavier in his own hand.
Torvin reappeared beside them, fury in his wake. He had reached SK—had nearly caught him—but turned back the instant he sensed Roric's axe decend on his neck.
"You're not taking him!" Jax shouted as he tried to intercept.
"You're not stopping me!" Torvin snapped, redirecting the inertia of Roric's downward swing sideways. The axe veered, cleaving a hundred-year oak instead of Torvin's skull. The tree did not fall; it disintegrated from the torsion.
Roric laughed.
"You're holding back against your friend," he told Torvin.
Torvin's veins darkened beneath his skin.
"Shut up."
He pivoted, and this time he targeted Jax—not lethally. The disc blade in his hand spun, humming with stored velocity. He hurled it with murderous precision.
Jax spun hi spear and deflected.
Torvin accelerated the deflection itself. The redirected blade multiplied its spin midair and curved back in, slicing across Jax's shoulder. Blood sprayed.
Jax hissed but remained steady. "You're letting the corruption manipulate you."
Torvin's eyes flicked to SK again.
"I told you to shut up!"
Roric surged between them, axe sweeping horizontally.
Jax ducked.
Torvin seized the inertia of the swing and inverted it, forcing the blade upward. The redirected force tore through the canopy. Leaves ignited from friction.
The Storm of Three Saints moved as one violent organism now, chasing SK's staggering form through the forest. Every clash birthed collateral ruin. Shockwaves flattened undergrowth. Soil vaporized. The air itself seemed bruised.
SK hurled a bead behind him. It erupted into adhesive foam.
"Shit—slow them down, slow them down—"
Torvin accelerated through it. The foam combusted from stress.
Roric stomped; the bond between Torvin and the ground tightened until the earth clutched him, rooting him in place. Torvin threw a disk which missed SK's head by mere centimeters.
"Piss off!" SK screamed and detonated a concussive charge at his own feet, blasting them all back.
Jax who was closest to the blast was blown away. As he flew through the air he thrust his spear. The tip pierced nothing in particular but a ripple of somnolence spread outward. The trees sagged. The wind quieted. Even Roric's next step slowed.
Torvin felt it too. His rage wavered, softening into memory.
Roric snarled and slashed across Torvin's exposed abdomen.
Steel met flesh.
Torvin's body arched as the blade carved horizontally through muscle. Blood fountained. The smell of iron overwhelmed the forest.
He did not fall. Instead, a compulsion ignited and the brand behind his neck burned.
Torvin roared and hurled his disc blade with everything he had left. Roric braced. The axe met the disc midair.
Roric blocked it but the aim was not for the cause.
The aim was the effect.
The impact embedded in the clash bloomed inside Roric's own torso. A hole exploded through his side. He staggered back, dropping to one knee. Blood poured from his mouth in thick clots.
Torvin swayed, abdomen spilling red. His veins pulsed violently but he powered through the pain and straightened, holding his entrails in with his hands.
A laugh echoed and Lyle stepped from the trees.
White hair, a pale face and blue eyes that shimmered with manic delight. Veins—black and swollen—crawled across his skin like living ink.
Roric's breath hitched.
He had sensed the boy earlier but dismissed him, believing he could end the bigger fish first then later end the small fry. Now he realised he had grossly underestimated him.
"Who are you?" Roric demanded, voice thick with blood.
Lyle tilted his head. He looked down and nudged a pebble with his foot.
The pebble did not move.
Roric did.
He launched into the air as if struck by a giant's fist.
Lyle bent, picked up the stone delicately, and slammed it into the ground.
Roric's body mirrored the action, crashing down hard enough to crater the earth.
"I'm Lyle Lukas," the boy said cheerfully.
Roric's eyes widened at the surname.
'Lukas...'
Lyle began crushing branches underfoot. Each snapped twig translated into shattered bones on Roric's frame. Fruits burst in his hands; bruises blossomed across Roric's flesh. He kicked stones around and Roric moved accordingly, slamming into trees and earth.
He laughed—high, enjoying the torment he was inflicting.
"Why do you look like her, you know," Roric rasped.
"Why do you have the same features as Raizelle...?"
Lyle beamed.
"Hmm? Oh yeah, this is our first time formally meeting. Uncle."
'Uncle?'
He tapped the beads around his neck.
"These Trait amplifier are quite the lovely little things. Makes me almost… Saint-tier."
Almost.
The truth lay beneath: Roric was weakened. His authority spent from monsters and from this battle. Under normal conditions, Lyle's interference even if he had the aplification of artifacts and corruption would have met resistance.
Now it overwhelmed him.
Torvin reappered holding his abdomen in one hand and dragging SK's hair with the other. SK's legs hung useless—broken.
He threw the old man at Lyle's feet.
Lyle glanced down, smiling faintly. His gaze shifted to a cluster of fruit nearby.
"Torvin," he said pleasantly. "Fetch those."
Torvin moved towards the fruits and he reached out to take them.
Then froze.
His other hand snapped up, gripping his wrist mid-motion. His face contorted and blood blowed from his wound and his mouth.
Lyle's smile widened.
The brand at the back of Torvin's neck ignited.
"Pick them up," Lyle whispered.
Torvin screamed silently as his body obeyed. He bent. He gathered the fruit.
"Now crush."
His hands clenched.
The fruit burst.
So did his skull.
Blood and bone sprayed the clearing.
Roric stared in horror.
"Why would you—"
"Oh shut up, Uncle," Lyle snapped lightly.
"You were going to kill him anyway. Why are you sudeenly concerened?"
He turned his attention to the old man and squatted in front of him.
SK looked up, dazed.
Lyle laughed, spreading his arms.
"Look at this. The target has been acquired. The Dishonored Knights have been eliminated. And the wretch who seduced a princess of Nordhelm....?" His grin sharpened and he glanced at Roric.
"Maybe I'll go finish off my dear cousin too."
Roric groaned. "No—"
"Don't you dare touch the kid you mad fuck!" SK screamed.
"Oh no, I'm so scared." Lyle feigned in mock fear then he leaned close with a smirk.
"And what are you going to do about it?"
SK bit down, shattering a glass tooth then quickly spat its content.
Corrosive liquid splashed across Lyle's cheek. Flesh sizzled.
Lyle's expression shattered.
"Ah damn you!"
He kicked SK's face sideways and lifted him by the throat rising to his feet.
Orange nergy pooled around his fist—thick, luminous.
Jax, bleeding and shaken, took advantage of this and lunged from behind, spear aimed for Lyle's spine.
The world fluttered. Then suddenlyobes whispered through the air.
A hand caught Lyle's fist effortlessly.
A fingernail stopped Jax's spear.
Then silence fell like a curtain.