The challenge came in the form of a bloodletter rune nailed to the front door of Malik's safehouse.
Crude. Messy. A relic of older dueling traditions—used when someone wanted to provoke a public conflict, especially one meant to humiliate or dismantle.
Naomi found it first.
She stared at it for a long moment, then peeled it off and handed it to Malik without a word.
He read it once.
Then again.
Then dropped it on the table and walked away.
"That's it?" Naomi asked. "You're not going to say anything?"
"There's no need," Malik replied.
Elaris stepped out from the kitchen, casually tossing a blade in her hand. "Let me guess. Guild-backed?"
"Worse," Malik said. "Independent. Rogue cultivator. Someone trying to build a name off mine."
Anacaona appeared by the window, gaze locked on the horizon. "He won't come alone."
"Of course not," Malik said. "He wants to win the crowd."
Naomi frowned. "Are you actually going to accept the challenge?"
Malik turned to her, face calm, eyes cold.
"I'm not going to fight him."
Her eyes widened. "You're not?"
"I'm going to end him."
The duel was scheduled at dusk, in the Echo Pit behind the Guildwreck Arena—an old combat zone abandoned after the southern collapse.
Word spread fast. Too fast.
By the time Malik arrived, the stands were filled with scavengers, guildburned wanderers, ex-summoners, and Reaper trainees looking for a show.
They didn't get a show.
They got a lesson.
The challenger was a man named Cassian Korr—formerly Gold-ranked, now disgraced after a scandal involving soulstone theft and a collapsed expedition in the Salted Bluffs. He'd vanished for two years. Rumor said he'd trained in the ruins of Wraithspire.
He came armored in bone and flame, flanked by two shadow hounds and a floating sigil drone that tracked every move for potential post-match monetization.
He spoke loudly. Too loudly.
"I'll make it quick, Graves," he shouted across the pit. "They say you're a shadow. Let's see if a shadow bleeds."
Malik didn't respond.
Didn't twitch.
Didn't blink.
He stepped into the pit with the kind of silence that made hearts beat harder—not because of what they heard, but because of what they didn't.
Naomi stood at the edge of the ring, arms folded.
"He's loud," she muttered.
Elaris stood beside her. "He won't be for long."
Cassian summoned first.
Two spirit-tethered blade golems erupted from the ground, twisting into humanoid forms lined with red runes.
The crowd roared.
Cassian pointed at Malik. "You die silent, or you scream. Either way, you fall."
Malik looked at the golems.
Then at Cassian.
Then calmly raised one hand.
He didn't shout.
He didn't pose.
He simply whispered, "Elaris."
She appeared instantly—no flash, no flames, just motion and intent.
She moved faster than anyone watching could track.
One golem fell apart in midair. The other tried to cast a defense glyph and was beheaded before the sequence could complete.
Cassian took a step back.
But it was too late.
Obsidian emerged next—jaw wide, fire leaking from its ribs.
The hound charged, not at the caster… but his shadow.
Cassian's spells collapsed before they left his mouth.
Malik walked forward as if he were merely changing lanes on a quiet street.
Cassian threw a dagger etched with nullifying glyphs.
It melted mid-air.
"STOP!" he yelled. "YOU—YOU CAN'T JUST—"
Malik stood five feet away now.
He looked up. Calm.
"You made this loud," he said. "I'll end it quiet."
He moved once.
Cassian collapsed.
Not bleeding.
Not burned.
Just broken.
One precise palm to the chest had disrupted the Echo center of his being—something only a necrosage or combat-tier spiritwalker should even know how to do.
He fell, convulsing.
Malik turned and walked away.
The crowd didn't cheer.
They stood in stunned silence.
Someone at the far end muttered, "He didn't even summon them fully."
Another replied, "He didn't need to."
And somewhere, someone else whispered, "That wasn't a duel. That was a message."
By midnight, three things had happened.
Cassian Korr was declared spiritually mute—unable to channel Echo again for the rest of his life.
A formal complaint was filed by a Western Guild handler.
Two dozen anonymous posts went live warning others not to "challenge the Gravewalker unless you have a death wish."
Naomi found him in the same alley where it all started—the one where he'd first heard the name Obsidian.
"You didn't flinch," she said.
"I didn't need to," he answered.
"You didn't hesitate."
"Hesitation gets people killed."
She studied him for a long moment. "You're changing."
He turned to her.
"I'm remembering."
She exhaled. "Yeah. I can see that."
They stood together for a while, silence stretching.
Then she asked the question that had been clawing at the back of her mind.
"Does it scare you?"
"What?"
"That you're becoming what people fear?"
He looked at her. Calm. Focused.
"No," he said. "It scares me that it's necessary."
Far away, in a tower built on the bones of old gods, a council of Guildmasters met beneath false stars.
They reviewed footage.
They read transcripts.
They summoned archivists and soulreaders.
And when they reached consensus, they issued a quiet classification:
"Malik Graves is no longer to be tracked as a minor threat."
"He is to be studied."
"And when possible… recruited or eliminated."
Malik, unaware of the meeting but sensing the shift in the air, closed his eyes that night and sat beneath the bones of a tree long dead.
He lit no fire.
Summoned no echoes.
He simply spoke.
"To whoever's watching," he said, "come now."
"I won't run."
Somewhere deep in the world, a door opened.
And something ancient stepped through.