The brother reacted instantly. The moment Ronan stepped forward through the smoke, sword burning bright enough to peel his shadow from the walls, the man lunged for his sister's arm and yanked her back toward him.
"Move," he snapped.
Darkness surged outward from his body, folding in on itself, thickening, trying to swallow them both. A collapsing curtain meant to erase their outlines and pull them out of sight.
But the flames didn't retreat.
Ronan's fire crawled along the shadow as if it had found its prey. It clung to the darkness, burning it from the edges inward, tearing glowing seams through the black. Where the shadows recoiled, fire followed, snapping and hissing, refusing to be smothered.
Jiang felt it from where he stood, breath still rough in his chest.
Fire doesn't clash with it, he realized. It burns right through.
Ronan didn't advance wildly. He didn't shout. He didn't flare his mana. He simply stepped forward once, sword angled low, flames flowing along the blade like an extension of his intent.
So this is the manifestation of his mana, Jiang thought grimly. Its quite powerful.
The sister tore free.
She slipped out of her brother's grasp in a blur, accelerating so suddenly that the air cracked where she'd been. Light flared around her limbs, thin and sharp, and then she was gone.
She reappeared at Ronan's flank.
A flash-step impact, fast, shallow, precise.
Ronan twisted, sword catching the strike just in time. Sparks of light and flame scattered across the floor.
She didn't stop.
She was gone again, reappearing behind him, then to his left, then above, each movement leaving a faint afterimage that burned out a heartbeat later. Her attacks weren't heavy. They didn't need to be. They were meant to land fast and to overwhelm through sheer speed.
Jiang's eyes widened despite himself.
This is the first time I've seen light magic be used that way.
She struck again, palm glowing as it slammed into Ronan's shoulder. He slid half a step back, boots scraping stone, cloak flaring.
No wonder they were legendary in my time, with more training they would become forces of nature.
Her breathing sharpened as she moved. Jiang caught it between flashes, the hitch after each burst, the fractional delay before the next acceleration. The speed was incredible, but it wasn't free. Each step burned something out of her.
Ronan didn't chase her.
He planted his feet.
His sword moved first.
Flames followed the blade, not erupting wildly, not flooding the space, but flowing with precision, forming arcs and walls of heat that carved the battlefield into controlled lanes. Every swing forced the sister to disengage, to break off her angle and retreat before the fire could catch her fully.
She was fast.
Ronan was exact.
She struck again, trying to slip inside his guard. The sword turned, flame roaring along its edge, and she was forced to twist away mid-step, barely avoiding having her leg scorched.
She landed hard, breath audible now, and smiled thinly as if it didn't matter.
Behind her, the brother's expression darkened.
His gaze shifted.
Locked onto Jiang.
The darkness around the walls pulsed.
Jiang felt it a split second before it hit.
The shadows condensed into a spear, dense, heavy, focused, and slammed into his side. He was driven into the floor with a grunt, the impact knocking the air from his lungs. Darkness wrapped around his torso and limbs, pinning him down like a crushing weight.
He didn't feel pain, only pressure, a cold, suffocating pressure that pressed in from all sides.
Jiang clenched his teeth, muscles screaming as he fought for breath. The shadows didn't cut or burn. They simply held him in place.
The brother didn't even look at him after that.
His attention snapped back to Ronan.
Jiang forced his fingers to move. Inch by inch, he dragged himself forward, darkness tearing reluctantly from his body as he reached for his gunblade. His vision swam, but he got his grip.
He didn't aim for the siblings.
He aimed for the shadows.
The gun cracked once. Then again.
Rubber rounds punched into the dark seams where shadow met stone, where the brother's control was stretched thin. The impacts didn't destroy the darkness, but they disrupted it, breaking cohesion, forcing the shadows to reform.
The pressure on Jiang eased.
He rolled to his feet and fired again, this time angling shots to cut off pathways, to collapse the spaces the sister had been using to reposition.
The brother snarled under his breath.
His control slipped, just enough.
The darkness thinned, fire biting deeper, and the sister found herself forced back toward Ronan's range. Her next flash-step came slower, her landing less precise.
"Enough," the brother growled.
He drew the darkness inward.
It didn't surge outward this time. It compressed, coiling around his arm, thickening until it took on a solid shape. A weapon formed, long, brutal, edged with writhing shadow that bled into the air around it.
"Now," he said.
The sister moved with him.
Shadow and light overlapped for a heartbeat, darkness shaping space while light pierced through it, and then they released it together.
The wave exploded outward.
Heat, pressure, light, shadow, everything slammed forward in a violent rush that forced knights back and sent loose debris skittering across the floor. Ronan braced, sword driven into the ground as flames roared around him, holding the line.
The siblings pressed in behind the wave, fighting as one.
The brother's weapon carved heavy arcs, each swing dragging darkness through the air like a tearing cloth. The sister slipped through the gaps he created, striking where Ronan's guard shifted, forcing him to respond to both power and speed at once.
They were even more dangerous together.
Jiang could see it clearly now, the way the brother shaped the field, the way the sister exploited it. The timing. The trust.
But it cost themenergy they didn't have to maintain it.
The sister stumbled after a burst, one hand bracing against the wall, light flickering weakly around her fingers. Her breathing was ragged now, her movements sharp but strained.
The brother's chest heaved as well, darkness pulsing unevenly around his arm.
This wasn't sustainable.
Ronan stepped forward into the pressure, flames flaring brighter, sword carving a clean line through the overlapping shadow and light. The siblings were forced back a step, then another.
Jiang tightened his grip on the gunblade, heart pounding.
The fight was only escalating.
And something in the air was about to break.
It wasn't mana.
Jiang felt it like a pressure drop, like the world itself had inhaled and forgotten how to breathe. The heat from Ronan's flames stuttered, as if acknowledging something heavier had entered the space.
His chest tightened.
That presence…
The brother felt it too.
His expression changed instantly. The irritation vanished, replaced by something sharp and decisive. He didn't look toward the entrance. He didn't need to.
"Tch," he clicked his tongue, already moving.
He tore the cloak from his shoulders and flung it around his sister, darkness pouring from his body in a violent surge. It wrapped around her without hesitation, thick and absolute.
"Go," he said.
She opened her mouth, just for a moment, then she stopped they didnt have time to argue about this.
The darkness folded inward, collapsing in on itself like a dying star, and she was gone, ripped out of the space so cleanly it left a ringing void behind.
The brother turned to face this new opponent.
Ren Ning stepped through the fractured entrance beside Ronan, his presence hitting like a hammer. There was no dramatic announcement, no flare of aura. Just a man walking into his home with judgment in his eyes.
The brother raised his weapon, darkness surging desperately to meet them.
It shattered.
Ronan struck first, flame-laced steel crashing down in a brutal arc that burned through shadow and forced the man off balance.
Ren Ning followed.
He didn't swing wide. He didn't rush.
He stepped in and drove his blade straight through the collapsing darkness, the impact detonating against stone as the brother was slammed into the wall hard enough to crack it. The air boomed.
The darkness unraveled.
The weapon dissolved.
The man slid down the stone and went still.
Alive.
Unconscious.
Silence rushed in to fill the void.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Ronan turned immediately, crossing the space in three long strides to Jiang's side. He knelt, one hand already steadying Jiang's shoulder, eyes sharp and assessing.
"Can you stand?" Ronan asked.
Jiang nodded once, breath still uneven. "Yeah. Took a hit."
Ren Ning was there a second later, his gaze sweeping over Jiang with a fury he didn't bother hiding. It wasn't wild. It was cold. Contained. The kind that promised consequences.
"You're hurt," he said.
"Not badly," Jiang replied. "I'm still moving."
Ren Ning exhaled through his nose, once. Then he turned away.
"Secure him," he ordered.
Knights surged in, hauling the unconscious intruder to his feet and binding him without ceremony. The shadows lingering in the corners recoiled further, retreating from the lingering heat of Ronan's flames.
As the captive was dragged away, Jiang felt the faint flicker of the system interface surface and fade.
[Mission Complete.]
He noted it distantly. Glad it worked. Too tired to care.
Burn marks slowly dimmed along the walls. The oppressive darkness bled away, leaving only scorched stone and the echo of violence behind.
Something irreversible had begun.
And the estate would never feel quite the same again.