Ophelia kept fighting. Her breathing was short, uneven, burning. Every inhale tore through her chest, every exhale escaped like a spark from a furnace. Sir James advanced slowly in front of her, utterly unhurried, that twisted smile still fixed across his pale, scarred face. He no longer had any reason to be cautious. Naty was down. The boys were fighting on the other side of the chamber. And Ophelia was alone.
— « Now that it's just you… things are much easier, don't you think? » Sir James murmured, his voice thick with satisfaction.
He avoided her first attack without even stepping back, merely twisting his torso aside. Ophelia's dagger passed within centimeters of his throat. Before she could follow through, his fist slammed into her ribs. Not hard enough to kill her. Just hard enough to hurt. Ophelia slid across the webbed floor, barely caught her footing, and was already under attack again. Sir James struck with almost insulting precision, deliberately targeting places that caused pain without completely disabling her. A cut across the shoulder. A sharp blow to the thigh. A violent slap that made her jaw crack.
He laughed.
— « See? I could end this right now… but where would the fun be in that? »
Ophelia clenched her teeth and attacked again, faster and harder, her daggers carving red and orange arcs through the air. This time Sir James was forced backward, surprised enough to raise his arms and properly defend himself. The heat around Ophelia was rising. It was no illusion. The air itself trembled around her. Every wound she received seemed to disappear almost as quickly as it formed, her skin closing beneath a burning glow that left her feeling as though a furnace had been lit inside her.
Sir James frowned slightly. He had already noticed the pattern. The more she was injured, the faster she healed. The faster she healed, the quicker she became. Stronger. More dangerous.
The rhythm of the battle changed completely. Ophelia was no longer defending. She attacked relentlessly, forcing Sir James to retreat, block, and genuinely evade. The webbed floor tore beneath their movements, impacts reverberating through the chamber. Her daggers struck with a violence they had not possessed earlier, every blow carrying heat, every movement leaving a faint incandescent trail behind it.
Sir James grunted as one blade cut into his side.
Blood ran down his body.
— « Interesting… » he breathed, his smile widening despite the pain.
He struck harder. Faster. But Ophelia kept up. She anticipated him, redirected attacks, and retaliated immediately. She had become at least twice as fast and powerful as she had been at the beginning of the fight. Every second spent injuring her only made her more dangerous.
Sir James understood too late.
By trying to amuse himself, he had been feeding the fire.
But that fire came at a price.
Ophelia was panting now. Her breathing had become chaotic. Her movements were still explosive, but their precision was beginning to deteriorate. The heat pouring from her had become almost unbearable. She was burning from within. Her body was forcing itself far beyond what it could sustain.
Sir James saw it.
So he slowed down.
And waited.
When he attacked again, it was no longer to kill her, but to wear her down. One strike. Two. Three. Ophelia dodged, then stumbled. A fraction of a second. That was all. Her body simply refused to respond. She tried to raise her daggers.
Too slow.
Sir James drew back for the final blow.
Ophelia could not dodge.
Could not redirect it.
Could not endure it.
She was finished.
She expected nothing else. Their fight had reached its inevitable conclusion. There was no longer any room for intervention or error. Her body was on the verge of collapse, her skin burning, her breath broken, and Sir James had already begun the strike that would end it.
The world seemed to freeze around them.
Then something tore through the air.
A deep, heavy whistle, nothing like the sound of a dagger or any other light weapon. It was not sharp, but low and violent, carrying restrained force within it.
The impact came immediately afterward.
Brutal.
The webbed floor shuddered as Sir James's attack was knocked off course by a sudden, crushing force.
An weapon stood embedded in the ground between them.
Ophelia blinked, unable to process what she was seeing.
At first glance, it looked like a spear. Its length and balance immediately suggested one. But something about it was wrong. The blade was far too broad, too massive, almost absurdly oversized for an ordinary spear.
It had not been designed to thrust.
It had been designed to cut.
The first thing that drew the eye was the blade itself. Broad. Curved. Imposing. The metal was a deep, almost matte black, seeming to absorb the light around it. Only the edge broke that darkness: a clean golden line following the curve of the blade with unnatural precision. That single streak of gold gave the weapon an overwhelming presence, as though it had been forged to be seen just as much as it had been forged to kill.
Beneath the blade, a thick reinforced metal fitting joined it to the shaft. Nothing fragile. Nothing decorative. Every part of the weapon spoke of deliberate violence, contained power, repeated impact.
The shaft extended straight and long, preserving the silhouette of a spear. Black and white sections alternated along its length in regular, almost ritualistic bands, guiding the eye toward the lower end, which was completely white and stood in stark contrast to the darkness of the blade.
A familiar shape.
A deceptive one.
A weapon that lied about what it truly was.
Sir James stepped back, genuinely surprised.
Ophelia dropped to her knees, gasping for air.
Still alive.
Silence fell heavily over the chamber.
Then a figure appeared.
Kenzo.
He approached with an uneven stride, his gaze cold almost empty his body covered in the marks of his battle against the Unstable Void Creature.
But he was standing.
He seized the shaft with one hand and tore the weapon from the floor in a sharp motion, retrieving it as though its weight meant nothing to him. The metal vibrated for a brief moment before settling in his grip.
Kenzo stepped in front of Ophelia without saying a word.
Their eyes met.
And she understood immediately.
Kenzo had entered the fight.
And Sir James had just lost control of the situation.