The cavern roared.

Stone split in jagged veins as if the earth itself shuddered at their meeting. Shadows lashed outward from Lindarion's blade, wild, hungry, clawing across the ground like a pack of wolves unleashed. The air twisted, torches shrieking as their flames went out one by one until only the pallid glow of Maeven's aura lit the chamber.

Maeven didn't flinch. He stepped into the storm like a man walking into rain. His cloak barely shifted. The pale fire bleeding from his body hissed where it touched the shadows, eating holes in the black tendrils.

The humans staggered under the pressure. Shields dropped, swords rattled in loose grips. Some fell to their knees, choking on the weight of power pressing them flat to the stone. Their screams blurred with the screech of mutants still surging around them, all reduced to background noise in the space between the two.

Maeven's smile widened.

"Good. At last you stop crawling."

Lindarion's breath came in ragged bursts. His ribs ground together like broken glass inside him, blood filling his mouth until it spilled over his lip. But he kept his eyes fixed forward, unblinking, red glare locked on Maeven.

The sword in his hand vibrated. Shadows writhed along its length, the metal warping with hunger.

[System Alert: Neurological coherence failing. Probability of total collapse—91%.]

The voice pressed like a knife behind his ear.

He spat blood on the stone. "Silence."

Maeven tilted his head, pale hair glimmering in the false light. "Still fighting both your enemies at once. The sword will eat you alive. I can already taste the rot crawling through you." His hand stretched outward, fingers pale as bone. "Give it here. I will show you what it was meant for."

The blade pulsed again, harder. Lindarion's grip whitened on the hilt. For a heartbeat, he felt it almost slip, not from weakness but from betrayal, the sword tugging against him, eager to leap into Maeven's hand.

Nysha's voice lashed through the storm.

"Don't listen!"

Her shadows coiled tighter around his chest, anchoring him like chains. He felt her presence like a needle in his blood, raw and desperate, trying to keep his soul from spilling out of him.

Her red eyes burned through the dark. "It's yours. Not his. Not anyone's. Yours."

Maeven's eyes flicked to her again, that smile curdling colder. "Still clinging to a corpse-to-be. How quaint."

Something snapped in Lindarion then. Not bone, rage. A thread wound too tight.

He stepped forward. His legs almost collapsed beneath him, but shadows surged up, hardening under his feet, lifting him like stepping on solid midnight.

His voice tore through the chamber, rough, bloodied, unyielding.

"Enough."

He lunged.

Shadows shrieked with him, spearing outward in a dozen blades that split the stone floor as they rushed Maeven. Each strike was jagged, unrefined, born from pain as much as will.

Maeven's hand flicked once. White fire erupted.

The first shadow-blade disintegrated. Then the second. The third shattered with a sound like cracking bone. By the fourth, Maeven's smile returned.

"Sloppy."

But the fifth cut through.

Maeven's eyes widened slightly as one tendril of black hissed across his cheek, leaving a burning line that smoked against his pale flesh. He raised his hand to it, touched the blood, black, not red. He stared at it, then looked up again with something sharper in his eyes.

"…Better."

Lindarion's chest heaved. His ribs screamed. Blood poured from his teeth. But he smiled, raw, broken, a flash of teeth in the dark.

"Bleed with me."

Maeven blurred. One instant across the chamber, the next directly in front of him. Too fast, faster than any mortal thing should move. His pale hand clamped around Lindarion's wrist, the one holding the sword.

The impact of his aura alone nearly drove Lindarion to his knees.

[System Alert: Bone density failing. Force exceeds threshold. Suggestion—yield control immediately.]

"Yield," Maeven hissed, breath cold against his face. His other hand pressed against Lindarion's chest. White fire surged point-blank, eating into flesh, burning through shadow.

Lindarion roared. Shadows erupted outward, screaming against the fire, struggling, clawing, wrapping his own body in armor made of midnight teeth. The two forces clashed in his chest, burning and freezing at once. He felt skin split, ribs buckle, organs quiver like glass under hammer blows.

Nysha screamed his name. Her shadows leapt to wrap around him too, reinforcing his own.

Maeven snarled, pressing harder. "She cannot save you!"

And then—

Lindarion twisted the sword. Not toward Maeven. Into himself.

The blade plunged through his own side, ripping shadow deeper into his body. His own blood spilled down its length, and the sword sang.

Shadows exploded outward, doubling, tripling, the cavern shaking under the sudden surge. Maeven was thrown back, sliding across stone, cloak aflame with black fire.

Lindarion staggered forward, blade still through his own ribs, eyes blazing like twin furnaces. His voice was barely human.

"You want it? Then choke on it."

The cavern collapsed in sound.

Shadows and pale fire collided in a storm that consumed everything, stone, steel, screams. Humans were hurled back, mutants torn apart in the crossfire. The commander shouted something, voice lost to the chaos.

Nysha dropped to her knees, her shadows anchoring Lindarion to herself, keeping him tethered in the torrent he had unleashed. Ashwing screeched, wings flaring, scales sparking as he braced against the shockwave.

Maeven laughed through the storm. "Yes! That's it!" His voice was wild, sharp with hunger. "Break yourself for me!"

Their power clashed again, the cavern trembling closer to collapse with every heartbeat.

And Lindarion stepped forward once more.

—

The cavern was breaking.

Each step cracked stone like brittle bone, every breath tore his lungs open anew, but Lindarion still moved. Shadows clung to him like carrion birds, shrieking at his command, his skin flayed raw beneath their grip. Blood poured freely now, from his ribs, his mouth, his ears, but his eyes did not close. They burned.

Maeven stood wreathed in pale fire, chest heaving, body split with black gashes where shadows had torn into him. He should have been crawling. He should have been broken. Instead he laughed. A raw, animal sound that echoed like teeth on glass.

"More!" he roared. "Give me more!"

The mutants howled with him, their twisted voices joining the din. Their bodies writhed and shifted under his aura, claws snapping, eyes boiling, flesh warping into things that no longer bore names. They surged, not at the humans cowering in the far corners, but toward the source of the storm, Lindarion.

Shadows tore them apart before they reached him. Each strike shredded flesh, ripped bone from sockets, scattered viscera across stone. But for each one that fell, two more writhed forward, driven mad by the feast of power between their masters.

The human commander staggered to his feet, blood streaking his brow. His voice barely carried above the storm: "Pull back! Pull back underground!"

No one listened. They couldn't hear him. The clash at the cavern's center drowned out thought, drowned out reason, drowned out everything but survival.

Lindarion's shadow stepped before him, dragging his body along with it. He swung, not elegant, not measured, just raw force. The sword carved through air, and shadows followed like wolves on the hunt.

Maeven met him head-on. White fire flooded the cavern, each flare searing holes into the dark. His movements were fluid, almost effortless, like a man dancing through a storm.

Their blades weren't steel anymore, they were will. Hunger against hunger.

[System Alert: Cellular rupture accelerating. Probability of vessel integrity collapse—97%.]

He ignored it.

Maeven slammed his palm against the flat of the sword. The impact buckled Lindarion's arm, bones shrieking under strain. Fire surged down the length of the blade, trying to tear it from his grasp.

Lindarion roared and drove his forehead forward, smashing it into Maeven's face. Bone cracked. Blood sprayed.

Maeven staggered one step, but his grin split wider, crimson dripping from his lips. "Yes."

Shadows whipped forward, binding his legs. He tore them apart. Pale fire seared across Lindarion's chest, skin splitting open as flesh bubbled and burned.

He didn't stop. He couldn't.

Nysha's voice rang out again, desperate, raw: "Lindarion!"

Her shadows surged to reinforce his, weaving into the torrent, trying to knit the bleeding edges of his aura before they unraveled completely. Her hands shook violently, her body trembling as she poured herself into him.

Maeven's gaze flicked toward her.

Something sharp cut through his grin.

"Ah," he murmured, almost tender. "That's why you're still standing. You've found an anchor."

His hand swept outward, white fire spearing across the cavern toward her.

Lindarion's body moved before thought. He threw himself between the blast and Nysha. Shadows screamed up around him, taking the brunt, but the fire still seared into his side, eating through flesh, boiling blood.

He fell to one knee.

Maeven chuckled low, teeth flashing. "Protecting her? How sweet. How fragile."

Nysha's voice broke, furious through the tears: "Shut up!"

Her shadows lashed out, dozens of black tendrils whipping toward Maeven. He barely blinked. White fire erupted in a ring around him, incinerating each strike before it touched.

But for the first time, Lindarion saw the strain twitch across his features.

He rose again, staggering, leaning on the blade like a broken crutch. His own blood dripped down its length, feeding the shadow that screamed for more.

'Not hers. Not yours. Mine.'

The cavern floor split as he lunged.

Their auras met again in an explosion that tore the ground apart. Humans screamed as they were hurled back, crushed beneath falling stone. Mutants disintegrated in the shockwave, shredded by stray fragments of fire and shadow.

Ashwing screeched, his lizard-form bursting upward into a blur of scaled wings. He dove, colliding into the wall of mutants that had surged toward Nysha, tearing through them with fang and claw. His scales sparked with raw affinity, his growls vibrating through the collapsing cavern.

Maeven and Lindarion didn't break apart. Their foreheads pressed together, blood mingling, eyes locked.

Maeven's voice was a whisper, intimate amidst the chaos. "You're burning away everything for this fight. When you're ash, I'll take the blade from your corpse. That girl can weep over what's left."

Lindarion snarled through bloodied teeth. "Try."

He wrenched the blade upward.