The collision is deafening, a crack that splits the silence like the toll of a bell for the damned. Darkness and claws meet, power against power, and the room quakes beneath the force of it. The shadows writhe and scream, clawing at the walls, while Malric’s strike sends sparks of blood-red energy into the void.
“You always were too eager,” Galen growls, his voice low and laced with malice. The shadows respond, surging up Malric’s arm like serpents, twisting as they pull him back while he fights against their grip.
“You’ll die for this,” Malric spits.
His crimson eyes burn brighter as he lashes out, his claws tearing through the inky tendrils. His movements are wild now, frantic, like a beast cornered. The air shatters with the sound of their struggle, each blow reverberating like the pounding of war drums.
Galen steps forward, deliberate, unhurried.
He doesn’t need speed.
“You taught me power isn’t about strength. It’s about control, Malric. I’ve spent centuries perfecting mine.”
The allies have become enemies in the time it took for my heart to beat. Malric straightens, his composure shattered under Galen’s unrelenting gaze. For the first time, the smirk fades entirely, replaced by something more primal. More devastating. More honest.
Fear.
“Step aside,” Galen commands, his voice like the edge of a blade slicing through the tension. It is not a request. His evil surges forward, swallowing any light that dares to stand in its way.
Malric doesn’t move out of Galen’s way and his claw-like fingers twitch at his sides. He growls, his defiance cutting through the oppressive silence.
“You forget, Galen,” he sneers, “I know you. Your strength. Your weaknesses.”
Galen’s eyes narrow. “Then you should also know you won’t win.”
The darkness deepens again, pulsing like a livingextension of Galen’s wrath, and the shadows surge towards Malric. They strike with precision, binding his arms and legs as though the air itself has turned into his enemy. Malric howls, the sound torn from deep within his chest, his claws scraping uselessly at the ground as the tendrils pull him down.
“You’ve lost already, Malric,” Galen states, his tone devoid of pity. He raises a hand, palm out, and the darkness intensifies, pressing Malric to the floor. “And I don’t forgive betrayal.”
Malric snarls and surges upward with a burst of raw and desperate power, his claws slicing through the darkness in an explosion of crimson magic. The tendrils recoil, shrieking as though they’re hurt. Malric springs forward, faster than a striking viper, slamming into Galen with a force that sends shockwaves rippling through the air.
The two collide like titans, their powers clashing in a maelstrom of shadows and blood-red light. Each strike shatters the surrounding air, the ground beneath them cracking under the weight of their fury.
Galen’s movements are precise, every step and blow calculated. Malric, by contrast, is a storm of wild, unpredictable violence. Their battle becomes a blur of energy and force, the chamber shuddering under their rage. The sound is deafening, like the earth itself is cracking in half under their fury.
The shadows summoned by Galen writhe like serpents, darting in to strike Malric only to be met with bursts of crimson light that sear them into nothingness. Malric counters with frenzied blows, his claws glowing with unholy energy, slashing at Galen and the darkness that surrounds him.
I try to draw a breath, but the suffocating pressure of the storm seizes my chest. My body is stiff, suspended in the air by the ropes, the burning sting of the bindings cutting into myskin. Every twist and turn of their battle sends jolts of fear and anticipation down my spine.
My breath catches in my throat as the chaos unfolds. The acrid stench of burning magic fills the air, and my vision blurs from the heat and smoke rising around me.
Galen’s eyes flash as he steps forward, moving with terrifying speed, his hand slicing through the air toward Malric. A pulse of darkness erupts from his palm, tearing through the stone floor like a blade. Malric leaps to the side, narrowly avoiding the strike, but the room buckles under the impact, throwing debris in every direction.
I flinch, but I can’t look away.
“You think you’re stronger than me?” Malric snarls, his claws raking across Galen’s shoulder, drawing blood that gleams like liquid shadows.
“I don’t think,” Galen spits through clenched teeth, shoving Malric back with a wave of force that nearly buckles the walls. “I know.”
The shadows rise again, darker and sharper this time, slicing through the air with deadly intent. One lashes out—wild, uncontrolled—and grazes the ropes binding me.
I stifle my scream as the hemp cord snaps, sending me plummeting to the ground. I close my eyes, preparing for the inevitable collision, but when I open them again, the world shifts. A flash of motion, a cry, and a scream pierces the air.
Galen’s shadows explode outward, consuming the room in blackness so complete that even Malric’s crimson glow vanishes. The sound that follows is inhuman. It’s a deep guttural roar of pain intertwined with a sickening crack, as if a hurricane were tearing through the world with no remorse. I feel the evil more than I see it, the oppressive force of Galen’s power pressing into my chest as it squeezes and tears the air from my lungs and hope from my soul.
When the light returns, it’s over.
Malric’s body crumples to the floor, lifeless, his once-burning eyes extinguished. The only scarlet is the growing pool of liquid his corpse is lying in, and the blood seeps across the floor like cracks in a shattered mirror, finding every crevice as if eager to stain the entire chamber.
I gasp for air, my body trembling as I struggle to push myself upright from where I’ve fallen. My wrists throb where the ropes bit into my skin, but the pain is nothing compared to the weight of Galen’s gaze.
He turns to me, his eyes dark and fathomless, like twin voids that threaten to pull me into their depths. The precision of his movements is gone, replaced with something more dangerous, more unhinged.
“I killed for you, Zara,” he says, crouching down. “I tore him apart because he thought he could have you.”
His hand reaches for me, and though I flinch, I’m too slow to move away. His touch is ice against my fevered skin, a mockery of comfort that makes my body recoil with revulsion.
“And now,” he murmurs, his fingers brushing my face like a lover’s caress, “there’s no one left to stand between us.”
