Sayaka's face was slick with sweat as she knelt on the ground, her breathing heavy, each exhale forming fog in the frigid air as if she had been running for hours, though that was not the case.
The cave floor was damp and cold, as if it had never known the sun's warmth, never felt its touch. Water trickled down the jagged walls, droplets falling in a slow, rhythmic pulse, a cycle that had continued for hundreds of years, indifferent to the world outside.
Her hand was bleeding. Blood flowed from the wound, trailing down her fingers and making its slow, deliberate way toward the magic circle.
Before her lay a circle, orange as fire, glowing brighter with each passing second like a newborn sun. "Come forth." Her voice was raw, a command carved from desperation.
Words written in blood upon the cave walls began to lift, floating through the air toward the magic circle. Words that Sayaka had never known, never heard in her entire life, yet somehow they felt familiar, materializing in her memory the night the crest had appeared.
The crest on her right hand, shaped like a sun, began to glow before sinking into her flesh, vanishing from sight as if it had never been there at all.
The circle blazed so brightly that Sayaka was momentarily blinded. When the light faded, a wave of warmth washed over her, the heat of the sun, though outside, the night was cold and a lunar eclipse veiled the moon.
"Are you the one, child, who summoned me?" A deep voice echoed through the cavern. "Answer me."
Sayaka looked up. Before her sat a man upon a throne woven from dark red flames, the kind of fire that would reduce a person to ashes before they could even touch it. Yet these flames did not burn her.
Sayaka rose, her legs trembling like jelly, bracing herself against the cold cave wall.
"Yes," she breathed out. "I am your summoner." Her eyes held a firm resolve.
The man—the spirit—rose from his throne and walked toward her. Each step he took melted the ground beneath him like plastic, leaving trails of molten rock in his wake. His red hair flowed as if carried by wind, though the cave was utterly still.
His orange, sun-like eyes pierced through Sayaka, as if gazing into her very soul, sending shivers down her spine, not from the cave's cold, but from the sheer weight of his presence. He towered over her; she barely reached his shoulders.
"I am Valkrath Draconia. Lancer-class. The Dragon King who destroyed the entire world, turning civilizations into graveyards of souls." He spoke, looking down at her with sharp pupils. "And now I am being ordered by a mere child, the kind I killed without guilt or remorse."
Sayaka held her ground, meeting his gaze with unwavering firmness. The firmness of a girl who had lost everything. "That's right. I am your master, and you are my servant. The one who will help me achieve my goal."
"I am merely a result of the Eclipse," he said, slowly crouching down. "Seven spirits. Seven summoners. One wish. Only the last pair standing will claim it. These are the rules." He placed his knee on the ground, the stone beneath him turning to molten slag.
Sayaka had not known these rules, yet somehow they felt familiar, like faint echoes of a past one forgets yet still remembers, if only in fragments.
"That doesn't matter, because we will claim it. Together," Sayaka said. "I want to get back everything I have lost in the last six months."
"The War of Eclipse is not something to be taken lightly. Your life will be at constant risk—the risk of being erased from the very fabric of reality itself."
"I know that," she said, though she did not know how. She extended her hand toward Valkrath. "Come with me, and together we will face everything."
Valkrath's lips curved into a smile of amusement. He took her hand with his much larger one and rose to his feet.
"I may not have the power to help you win the War of Eclipse," he said, "but I can make sure of one thing: I will not let any threat get close to you."
The moment Valkrath finished speaking, the cave shook violently. The entrance exploded inward, sending shards of rock hurtling through the air. Sayaka whipped around toward the source.
A man in his forties stood at the shattered entrance, a smile on his lips. His hair was black as the eclipse itself, and his calm smile did not reach his eyes, eyes that were empty, like voids.
"I remember you from last time," he said, his voice smooth and unhurried. "Buried in the very place you now stand upon." He wore a coat over a fiber shirt and brown pants.
Behind him loomed a massive shadow. Its footsteps shook the ground with each ponderous step.
Sayaka stared at the man. She did not remember him, yet somewhere in her memory, he felt familiar, as if she had seen him before, had died by his hand.
Valkrath stepped in front of Sayaka, his massive frame completely hiding her from view. A colossal figure emerged behind the man, easily thirteen feet tall, its entire body slick with blood. It had no skin. Black cloth hung around its waist. Massive canine teeth jutted from its jaws, teeth made for tearing flesh without resistance.
"Berserker," Valkrath informed her. "I will handle it. Get somewhere safe."
Sayaka nodded and ran deeper into the cave, toward the passage she had used before.
The man smiled as the Berserker lunged toward Sayaka with impossible speed for something so massive.
Before the Berserker could pass him, Valkrath moved. With no visible sign of effort, he blew the monster away, sending it flying hundreds of meters through the air.
Valkrath turned his cold gaze upon the man. "Who are you?"
The man regarded him calmly. "I am Darion, the summoner of the spirit Kartalan, of the Berserker-class in the War of Eclipse."
"I could tell that much just by looking at you." Valkrath raised his hand, and without any visible movement, beams of fire shot toward the summoner. Before they could connect, the Berserker interposed its massive body, absorbing the attack. The flames left little damage, and the monster's body grew slightly larger.
"I see," Valkrath murmured.
The Berserker lunged again, but Valkrath blasted it back once more, this time following after it.
The Berserker grinned. Dark energy gathered in its hand, and instead of attacking Valkrath, it hurled the dark mass toward the mountain where the cave was carved.
Valkrath launched a beam of fire to intercept. The two attacks collided, creating a cataclysmic explosion that vaporized half the mountain, yet miraculously left the cave untouched.
---
Sayaka had already fled far from the cave, hiding behind a massive boulder, watching the half-destroyed mountain in disbelief.
"Thank goodness I ran far enough," she breathed, a sigh of relief escaping her lips. Her eyes tracked the explosions tearing across the sky, where Valkrath and the Berserker clashed. A bead of sweat rolled from her brow to the ground. "Please don't die."
---
In the air, Valkrath hurled wave after wave of fire at Kartalan. The Berserker simply absorbed the attacks, its size swelling with each strike. Now it stood at eighteen feet.
It grows faster and stronger with every blow, Valkrath thought, dodging a wild swing from the Berserker.
The Berserker flew at him. Valkrath drove his fist into its abdomen, but the creature only grinned, absorbing the impact before punching Valkrath with full force. Valkrath's armor—Aurata—responded, summoning a shield that absorbed the blow.
Valkrath conjured two massive hands of flame, seizing the Berserker and hurling it toward the ground. A barrage of blazing attacks rained down upon it, creating an explosion that spanned hundreds of meters.
As the smoke cleared, the Berserker rose to its feet. A wide grin split its face as it spoke its first words since the battle began.
"So weak."
Its body swelled further. Now it stood twenty-six feet tall.
"I see," Valkrath said, his gaze turning cold as ice. He raised his hand to the sky. Flames erupted in his palm, coalescing into a spear. It was golden, with a ring circling the blade, smaller rings within that sang with each subtle movement.
"Ira Solis."