The world had narrowed to a circle of cracked stone and drifting ash.
Every footstep echoed unnaturally, as if the air itself was holding its breath.
Wong's fingers tightened around his staff, knuckles white. The Soul Link pulsed painfully — the Blood Hound's essence flickering but not gone.
Malrik stood at the far end of the circle, one hand on his glaive, the other resting lazily behind his back.
He looked more like a patient teacher than an enemy, but the white fire rippling along his scars told another story.
---
"You fight like the dead already claim you," Malrik said, tilting his head.
"Your sister… she fought differently. She fought to protect."
The words were bait. Wong knew it. But they still cut.
"What have you done to her?"
Malrik smiled without warmth. "Nothing… yet."
---
The first clash came without warning.
Wong's skeletal chains shot forward, black and smoking, but Malrik swept them aside with a single twist of his glaive.
The force of the counterstrike cracked the stone at Wong's feet, throwing shards into the air.
He answered with a summoning — a wall of bone rising between them, each skull carved with the sigil of his magic.
Malrik's glaive burst through it like paper.
The commander's strikes weren't just strong — they carried an erasing quality, burning away anything they touched, living or dead.
---
Wong's chest ached from the strain of reinforcing his summons.
The Soul Link flared again, and the Blood Hound materialized at his side, its eyes burning brighter than before.
This time, Wong didn't just command it — he gave it will.
Hunt.
The hound leapt, not for Malrik's body, but for the shaft of the glaive.
The impact threw Malrik slightly off balance, and Wong seized the moment, channeling pure necrotic force through his staff.
---
The blast hit Malrik square in the chest.
For the first time, the commander staggered — his white fire flickering.
He straightened slowly, brushing ash from his robes.
"Better," he said. "But you're still holding back."
Wong gritted his teeth. "I'm not here to impress you."
"Then stop fighting like you're afraid of the flames," Malrik replied, his tone sharpening. "Because they will take her if you do."
---
In the next heartbeat, Malrik's glaive flared — and the ground beneath Wong cracked open, spilling out pale fire.
The ash-filled air began to spiral upward, forming a vortex.
It wasn't just a duel anymore. Malrik was turning the battlefield into something else entirely.
---