"It wasn't enough…?"

The elf stumbled, taking several steps back, almost losing his balance. He fell to his knees when he tried to hold on to his cane, which snapped in two as soon as it tried to bear the weight of its owner.

Surrounded by lines of steam from the waters that were returning to their normal temperature, Severus was breathing heavily. He did his best not to give in to the agonizing pain of his damaged limbs, his right arm completely covered in severe burns. Worst of all, his soul was suffering the consequences of having expended all his magical ability, manifesting as internal injuries that expelled blood from every available orifice.

It was a miracle the blood elf was still conscious in such a deteriorated, unstable state.

"Severus... Not even with that dangerous spell..." Tristessa thought, having hoped that perhaps such raw power, indiscriminate between ally and foe, had been able to finish off the Dullahan.

The dark knightess had been forced back several steps in the midst of the attack. Unnatural darkness had embraced her, healing her internal wounds, parts of her body made of solid shadows that her armor had failed to protect. The dark steel plates still retained high temperatures and marks of Bloodflame imprinted on their surfaces. Like her sword, which she had used as a shield, her only resource available.

All to keep her weak point away from damage: her severed head, intact and protected not only by her helmet, but surrounded by Discord. The essence of Darkness, functioning as a spherical shield which had not allowed the Bloodflame to pass through.

"Y-your personal demon is... a tough nut to crack, Tessa," she heard Severus say, who let out a weak, resigned chuckle. "But... I'm still breathing here!"

He pulled a flask of vitality potion from his other pocket—which fizzed with the high temperatures it had been subjected to—and swallowed the contents, squeezing his tear-filled eyes shut as the boiling liquid traveled down his esophagus, leaving burns and blisters in its wake.

The effect was almost instantaneous, and the blood elf rose to his feet, albeit with great effort on his part. The burns and excessive fatigue he had subjected his body to couldn't be cured that fast with only a vitality potion.

"What the...?!"

Without warning, the Dullahan became one with the shadows and materialized in front of Severus, closing the distance in the blink of an eye. He could barely raise his arms to protect himself from the powerful and violent kick the dark knightess delivered to his chest, sending the elf backward.

"Severus!" Tristessa screamed and made an inhuman effort to fight against that extreme exhaustion to separate herself from the support provided by the stone pillar and try to assist the elf, who had fallen on his back next to her. "Severus, oh Severus…!"

"Ugh…ugh… What a pathetic image I'm showing, huh?" the elf said, laughing and then choking on the blood that was trying to escape from the bottom of his throat him as Tristessa tried to help him straighten his head and upper torso. Blood flowed at a steady pace from his wounds opened below charred skin, diluting with the layer of water. "Damn… Did that greedy bastard really stand me up?"

Tristessa didn't notice what he said. She was trying to lift him so that at least the elf could lean against her and face the Darkness that closed in on them together.

The Dullahan's shadow was imposing, her figure a titan that blocked the faint blue lights of the reservoir, stopping in front of them. Severus and Tristessa were forced into silence as their pursuer extended her arm and presented her head to them, which then began to speak from the shadows, addressing the girl:

"The longer you delay our confrontation, the more powerful I become, while you become weaker. You will not be able to escape your fate; not even daylight will keep you away from me forever… I am inevitable."

Severus understood nothing and suffered both from the lack of knowledge and the ghostly chill emanating from the Dullahan. Unlike Tristessa, who heard those words that acted like sharp knives slicing into her soul. Understanding that there was no escape.

"…Why? Why me?!" Tristessa bellowed, her spirit desperate and abandoned, left at the mercy of the turbulent tides of the dark ocean of Life and Death. "WHY?!"

She was trapped and condemned to face the Dullahan, a battle impossible to win. The Gods laughed at her fate… Vel'Moran rejoiced alongside his servants and guardians of the In-Between. By making her pay the price for using the [Divinity of Death and Resurrection], without mediation, without question, without any chance for discussion.

The cruel fate that had befallen her had just arrived, brandishing its sword and ready to kill her.

"If you do not defeat me, you will only know Darkness and despair," her Nemesis warned her, and raised her sword, ready to end her life.

That sword, as dark as the void between the stars, where Endrel and Margules had conceived their daughter.

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"So... Greedy bastard you said, talentless elf?" said a voice behind them, masculine and echoing throughout the dimly lit cistern. "Indeed. You're Gods-damn right."

Before Tristessa, with her heart in her mouth, could turn around, the sound of a firearm being fired deafened her. And then the Dullahan let out a supernatural howl, interrupting her own attack as the metal that made up the top of her helmet was pierced by a bullet.

Two more shots hit the daughter of angels in her chest armor, right where the temperatures from the application of bloodflame were still high. The metal got pierced and fragmented, threatening to shatter completely.

The fourth shot forced the Dullahan to blend into the shadows and dodge. She moved backward in that cloud of gaseous darkness, gaining distance.

"Armor-piercing ammo is expensive, I'll add it to your bill," warned the newcomer, addressing them both. "Are you two more alive than dead? Unfortunately, the dead don't pay."

Footsteps on the water, and the smell of burnt gunpowder in the air. Tristessa and Severus looked back and saw a man wearing an open jacket over a vest and shirt with a tie, black trousers, and boots. On his head, he wore a hat with slight lifts on the sides and a pull-down around the eyes to cast a shadow over them. On his belt, he carried two revolver holsters, one empty, as he held that sacred weapon for any Gunslinger in his right hand.

But in a sweet twist of irony, it was the black handkerchief covering half of his face, from the nose down, what betrayed his identity.

"AURON!" Tristessa cried, her eyes alight with the utter joy that washed over her like a stormy downpour in the vilest of deserts, more than welcome.

"You took your sweet time, gunslinger!"

Severus was grinning and coughing as his voice strained. He raised his trembling, burned, skinless hand, dripping with his own blood, to reveal a small, rhombohedron-shaped crystal that glowed crimson. A soul-shard, which vibrated with excitement at the presence of its sister, enclosed within Auron's free hand.

"You're the one who was taking too long. I was getting tired of waiting for you at the entrance to your workshop… My time runs on SJs, you know?" the gunslinger complained, then tossed the crystal to its owner. "But I admit you were very clever with the idea of ​​giving me a soul-shard of your own. Quite useful."

"I know. I'm paying you for your services, aren't I? At the very least, you should protect those who will be feeding you."

"Yes, yes…"

The soul-shard fell right into Severus's palm, evidence of Auron's very good aim. The near-zero distance between the two crystals caused them to vibrate so much that they self-destructed in a miniature shower of dust, having fulfilled their goal.

"And what about you, lady?" the gunslinger asked Tristessa. "Your courtesan attire doesn't match the aesthetics of the underground. And… Did someone beat you up?"

"It's a long story… I'm so glad to see you, Auron!" she let him know, unable to contain her smile full of weakness.

Turning to her, Auron offered his hand, his calculating gaze and furrowed brow letting her know he perfectly remembered everything that had happened the night before.

"Come on, let's get out of here before… Shit!"

In a flash, Auron draw his other revolver and passed by Severus and Tristessa, covering them and starting to shoot at the Dullahan: their foe had materialized mounted on her shadow steed, and was moving between the pillars of the reservoir, near the roof and trying to dodge the projectiles of this new opponent.

"Move, quickly!" Auron exclaimed, having fired the last bullet from his right revolver. "I don't think I'll be able to do much more against this monster!"

He tossed the other revolver up and reached inside his jacket to extract six bullets, which he inserted into the revolver's empty cylinder with perfect technique, even in the near darkness. He spun the cylinder and then grabbed the other revolver that gravity returned to him to continue firing.

The gunslinger's directive prompted Tristessa to make a final effort to help Severus up. Thanks to the effect of the vitality potion, he was able to recover faster from the dark knightess' kick, and it also helped them both stay upright, supporting each other.

"Auron! Don't you have anything in your pockets that generates a lot of light?!" the elf asked. "That will help!"

"Yes, I do!"

Auron Casimir, still firing at the Dullahan, stepped back and had to holster his left revolver to help Tristessa move more quickly.

"Come on, the way to get back to the surface is back there, to the left!" he instructed them. After holstering his revolver, he inexplicably held a small clay ball that fit in his palm, as if he had pulled it out of nowhere itself. "Severus, tell me you have any fire-starting magic left!"

"You're asking that to the worst thaumaturge in Entrana?!"

"There's no time to think, just do it!"

Auron threw the ball toward the Dullahan, who was plunging straight toward them in the form of a wave of darkness that covered the entire area, and Severus pointed his burned hand in that direction and shouted:

"Firan!"

The glyph of elemental fire that emerged made Severus vomit blood. As it collapsed into a ball of fire that headed straight for the clay ball, the three of them ran as fast as they could in the opposite direction, toward the next cistern, which split into three small tunnels, one of which Auron had come through.

A blinding light came from behind her. The light of a flashbang grenade that lingered, filling that part of the cistern with a false impression of daylight and, in Tristessa, the first glimmer of tranquility.

Of peace, of knowing that escape was possible, when just minutes ago she had surrendered to Death.

"…you, lady! What are you doing?!" she heard Auron shout, his voice growing ever more distant. "Stay awake!"

"Tessa!" And Severus, in a condition a thousand times worse than hers, called out to her as well. "Tessa!"

But she didn't respond. She had reached the limit. The Dullahan had stolen the essence of her being to the point where she couldn't tell if, when she closed her eyes, she would fall asleep or die.

Darkness took over the vision granted by her healthy eye, taking with it the saving light and the screams of the two men.

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