Nessa's boots slid across the curved railing of the broken platform as another crimson lash snapped toward her ribs. She twisted, spun, and answered with a downward cleave, her runic blade carving a silver arc through the web of sorcery. Sparks flew. The tendril recoiled, frayed at the edge but not broken.

She had faced beasts terrorizing villages, sorcerers who had violated the Six Codes, and the occasional street ruffian. None of them moved or fought like the blood sorcerer before her. This was the hardest fight of her life. More difficult than the trial against Captain Kalavan for the title of royal knight.

Back then, she hadn't been a knight. Just another candidate. One of three who passed the first two phases of the Trials. Only three were chosen to attempt the final trial: single combat against the Captain of the Royal Knights. Those who bested or gained Captain Kalavans approval would earn their title, while those who failed could try again in a decade.

Though she had passed the Trials and became a royal knight, she had never bested Captain Kalavan in battle. Nessa had heard from Sir Geroth himself that, though Kalavan had been Captain of the Royal Knights for seventeen years, no one had come close to defeating him in the Trials. Well, all but one have done the deed, and that was before she was a knight herself.

Nessa snapped out of her trance when blood rained around her in arcs and slashes as the sorcerer struck again and again. The top of the lighthouse groaned under their movements. With a grim twist of his hand, the blood sorcerer summoned ten threads at once, creating a sort of fishing net.

She switched to river stance; her blade moved like water as she activated the air rune's second charge. A rush of wind surged at her back. She twirled through the web, hair fluttering like the wing of a falcon. One tendril missed by inches. Another clipped her shoulder, slicing the trim. She dove through a gap, landed, and whipped her sword in a wide arc at the sorcerer's chest.

Instead of feeling her blade cut through soft flesh, a clang reverberated. Nessa's eyes widened slightly to see the symbols on the man's overcoat concentrated to where the heart was. The symbols glowed crimson, shifting into a grotesque shell of blood.

"If I am not mistaken, it was you hiding within the carriage," said the blood sorcerer. "I do wonder how that woman hadn't caught you earlier when she took a peek inside."

Nessa didn't answer the man. She leaped back and landed on the steps a level below the beacon room. She did a quick check for any injuries, glancing around and feeling for any open wounds. It would've been bad if those threads had nicked her. If a drop of her own blood or an open wound were to appear, the blood sorcerer would finish the fight immediately. All she could do now was dodge and strike until Fiona and the Lockhart were out of harm's way.

A sudden chime echoed through the air. Lithero's voice rang above the sorcerer.

"They're safe!" he called. "The others made it down! Your squishy friends are officially clear of harm!"

"Good!" she barked, smiling. "Then get your glittering wings back up here! I could use some cover!"

"As you wish, Master!" the fairy replied, zipping forward in a burst of green.

Nessa breathed in relief now that there was one less concern to worry about. Those two would handle evacuation while she handled the blood sorcerer. The only reason she had Lithero transport everyone to the shores because it was the only safe place out of harms way.

The forest worried her; she couldn't risk them getting lost or separated. Besides, she had no idea where the blood sorcerer's accomplice was. It was unsettling that the dark sorcerer was nowhere to be found, hadn't even come to their partner's aid.

My reserves are about fifty-nine percent. I might be able to endure a little more until help arrives, but that's if Sic used my back up communication tool.

Regarding her reserves, her mental count never wavered. Conjuration required discipline. It was easy to overdraw, especially in prolonged duels like this. But she'd been trained in restraint. Unlike elemental sorcerers who could ride the flow of battle recklessly, conjurers had to balance every summon, every channel, every rune.

"I can see the fear plastered on your face" the blood sorcerer sneered. "You're calculating, aren't you? Gauging how long you can hold out. But it won't matter. Summon all the spirits you can, little dog. In a battle of endurance, I cannot be beaten."

The man moved in a blur. Ten blood-like whips twirled around, slashing around like a vortex. What little structure remained of the lighthouses' top half was rendered to dust, sending blocks of stone tumbling straight toward the bottom.

Nessa's eyes widened. "Lithy! Bottom floor!"

Nessa plummeted through two floors, flipping mid-air. She activated the last charge of her air rune, slowing her descent. She landed with a roll, narrowly missing a beam of falling debris. Nessa turned sharply and spotted the tube, still intact but barely, wedged between separate sections of the stairwell that had been slashed.

Sprinting to it, she braced it with both hands. The corruption hummed against her palms like a living thing. She needed to move it, but where?

"Sthito preserve us. If this breaks and spreads—"

Lithero flashed into view and summoned a wall of stone to form a ceiling above Nessa. Debris from above crashed against it with deafening force, sending tremors through the floor. Dust poured through the cracks as chunks of rock pelted the conjured barrier, but the stone held. Lithero grunted, floating beside her with a furrowed brow and flickering wings.

"What's the plan, master?" he grumbled. "We can't be on the defensive most of the time!"

"See this tube of corrupted mana? We need to move it somewhere safe so that it doesn't escape. Can you bury it underground, Lithy?"

Before the spirit could answer, another wave of blood tendrils came flying from above. The stone wall shattered under their whip-like precision, splintering into dust and rubble. Nessa dove into a sideways roll just before a slab of ceiling crashed where she'd been.

In the meantime, Lithero raised his arms. The ground rumbled, and thick slabs of stone rose from the floor, forming a curved shelter over the corrupted tube. The earth beneath the tube cracked, then began to split open like a beasts maw. But before he could even begin to bury it, the blood sorcerer landed on the sheltered tube and unleashed his barrage.

Nessa leapt away, finally exiting the now ruined lighthouse and into the crisp night air. "Come to me, Velasra!"

The wind howled. A silver blur descended from the sky, carving through the moonlight with sleek precision. The air grew thin, pressure dropping in an instant as Velasra emerged from the clouds in a spiral of whipping gusts and shimmer. Her feathers twinkled like polished steel wrapped in moonlight, wings slicing the air with such speed they whistled like drawn blades. Velasra's pale sapphire eyes locked on the enemy as it hovered over the battlefield in circles.

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The sorcerer scoffed as it stepped out of the rubble-filled lighthouse. "Another spirit will do you no good. Your reserves will be drained by the time you summon another one. The longer you fight, the lower your chance of victory will be. Well, as if you had a chance to begin with, dog."

Velasra didn't wait for orders. The spirit dove. Wind screamed as it tucked its gleaming wings and became a lance of silver light. The blood sorcerer twisted his hands, conjuring a lattice of blood-threads in the air to block the attack, but Velasra veered at the last second. A flash of motion, then an explosive gust tore the web apart like silk under blades. The sorcerer staggered, his mask cracking at the edge from the force of the spirit's passage.

Nessa launched forward, seizing the opportunity. Her runic blade crackled to life, not with air, which she had already exhausted, but with fire. She swiped her finger across the hilt's embedded rune, activating the medium-ranked fire spell Flamebrand. The blade ignited in a curtain of white-orange flame.

Her strike came swift and precise. The blood sorcerer brought up a cloak of blood to defend, but the flame blade chewed through it, spraying embers and black gore. The sorcerer jerked backward with a hiss, retreating behind as his blood threads hissed and popped, vaporizing in fiery ribbons.

"Lithy! Rotate!" she barked.

The small earth spirit zipped from beneath the cliffside, flanking the sorcerer. Lithero raised both palms and shouted. Twin pillars of stone erupted beneath the blood mage's feet, throwing him off balance. One clipped his knee while the other created a deep gash across his thigh. He stumbled, and Nessa was already there.

She aimed for his exposed side, but this time he reacted faster. A burst of ice shot up between them, jagged and raw, forming a thin shield. Her blade clanged against the frozen spire, sending shards flying. The barrier held long enough for him to retreat again, limping now, blood leaking from his damaged leg. The blood sorcerer's eyes narrowed beneath the cracked mask. He extended his hand and flicked a finger. From the blood-slicked ground, a net of barbed crimson lines surged upward in a sudden trap, trying to entangle her legs.

Nessa leapt over the trap, slashing across the fire rune on her weapon as she moved, activating Blazing Shutter. The previous spell extinguished, and a ring of fire motes erupted outward from her position. The blood net shriveled under the expanding heat, vanishing in a hiss of steam and black smoke.

The sorcerer shielded his face from the burst, staggering sideways. "How many tricks left do you have under your sleeve, mutt?"

"Enough to burn down the filth you're hiding," Nessa snapped. Her finger brushed on the earth rune.

A wall of rock burst forth and surged horizontally, a moving barrier meant to force the sorcerer toward Lithero's position. The blood mage cursed and retaliated with a swipe; a crescent wave of pressurized water hurled forward. It struck the stone wall and carved a groove through its center, spraying debris in every direction. Still, the wall's momentum carried it far enough to box him in to three others.

Now that he was trapped inside a cube, Lithero and Velasra flew over the imprisoned blood sorcerer and unleashed their own attacks. Lithero thrust spears of stone erupted from the earth and fired into the enclosure like ballistae. At the same time, Velasra beat its wings once, then again—each stroke sending out a flurry of razor-thin gusts that spun into crescents of compressed wind.

The interior of the cube filled with smoke, dust, and shrieking air currents. Explosions of shattered stone and crimson mist burst from within as the blood sorcerer's grunts echoed against the stone walls. For a moment, he was completely engulfed.

Suddenly, a vortex of blood and icy mist burst outward, tearing through one wall of the cube and sending shards flying. Lithero raised an arm to shield himself, skidding back. Velasra banked hard to avoid a lance of blood-ice that shot up like a stalagmite.

The sorcerer emerged, wounded but furious, his cracked mask barely clinging to one side of his face. Blood trickled freely from his leg and ribs, his breaths ragged. Most of his overcoat was tattered, except for bits where his blood armor protected his vital organs.

This scum sure is resilient. I must end this quickly before the other one intervenes!

Her finger brushed along the earth rune again. The second-to-last charge flared. With a stomp, she channeled it; a series of lances erupted in a ring around the blood sorcerer, hemming him in tighter. Cracks webbed beneath his feet as the earth churned, unstable and hungry to collapse.

But the blood sorcerer's patience had finally snapped. His arms spread wide, a wicked grin smeared across his face. At that moment, that was when Nessa knew she had messed up.

The blood-soaked ground pulsed. A deep rumble vibrated outward as every drop of blood he'd spilled began to boil. The temperature dropped sharply, moisture condensing into frost-laced vapor. Then the ground itself erupted. A tidal burst of crimson ice, wide as a crashing wave, tore out from the epicenter in a full-circle blizzard of sub-zero winds forged with blood and water.

Velasra screeched from above, wings flaring wide. She shot down at Nessa, caught her mid-dash with its talons, and carried her skyward as Lithero raised a hasty stone shield to ward himself and Nessa.

The crimson blizzard slammed into the defenses below. The roar of frost and shredding ice drowned out every other sound. Stone splintered. Trees nearby cracked under the pressure and collapsed. Crimson sleet rained down; ice-laced wind clawed at her legs, numbing the nerves. The wind spirit cried out and ascended higher, banking away from the epicenter just as the last tremors faded.

"That would've been bad If I stayed," Nessa muttered. "Thank you for the save, Vela."

Velasra gave an impatient coo, shaking its head. Nessa smiled, her eyes taking in the ruined field, crisscrossed by harsh red frost and shattered stone.

The blood sorcerer knelt in the crater's heart, frost steaming from his limbs. He gripped a spike of frozen blood buried into the earth for balance.

Nessa landed hard as Velasra released her. Her boots cracked over frost-lined stone, knees buckling. Before he could adjust, she was already moving. She dashed in a zigzag, evading a desperate whip of blood. Lithero erupted from behind the sorcerer's flank, launching boulder-sized chunks of earth to drive him off balance. The sorcerer blocked with both arms, blood whips crossing over his body to absorb the strike.

Nessa closed the distance in seconds. The blood sorcerer, like anyone else, didn't possess infinite mana or an endless supply of blood. His body trembled under the strain. His control had dulled. The recoil of Lithero's barrage left him staggering on one knee, the whips faltering for a blink too long.

She pivoted on her heel, dragging the blades edge toward his exposed chest. But then, with no flash, no chant, not even a shift of mana, her body froze mid-swing. A swift chill that spread from her boots upward. Something tightened around her; her shadow writhed, and a hand emerged from it.

"What—?" she gasped, and that hesitation was fatal.

A shape rose directly from the ground behind her, pulled upward like smoke forming flesh. The blade struck before she could fully turn. Nessa screamed as a wide slash carved a deep path from shoulder to hip. Her momentum shattered, and she tripped face-first onto a puddle of blood. Her locket snapped in half and fell next to her face.

"M-Master!" Lithero screamed.

From behind, the blood sorcerers ally finally appeared. The ghostly woman stepped forward in full view at last, straight from Nessa's shadow. Her obsidian blade was already raised again, her boots not even making sound on the frostbitten earth.

Velasra screeched in fury, diving from above with talons outstretched. The shadow woman didn't flinch. She flicked her wrist, and in a heartbeat, spikes exploded from within Velasra's body. Two struck Lithero before he could release a spell, one embedding deep into his throat. Both spirits burst into radiant fragments, recalled violently back to Nessa's Sorcerer Plane.

Nessa lay motionless, blood spreading in a halo beneath her. Her breath hitched as she tried to push herself up, one arm trembling, the other dead at her side. The pain from her wound screamed with every heartbeat. Her fingers slipped in the puddle, staining her gloves deeper red.

The blood sorcerer's boots crunched with slow steps as he walked past her, unfazed by her struggle. The jagged gash across his shoulder knitted shut with sickening ease, tendons threading themselves together beneath pale skin as steam lifted from the wound.

"You were watching all this time," he said, voice laced with amusement and contempt. "Letting me bleed while you lounged in her shadow?"

"I was merely biding my time, Valroth," his ally answered. "I deemed it necessary to wait until the knight had exhausted her resources. When the time was ripe, I sapped away her remaining mana. That, and..."

Another pool of shadows appeared, and climbing out of it was another figure, though Nessa was having trouble discerning who it was through her now blurry vision.

"Ah, I see where this is going," Valroth said. 'Leader would be pleased with your plan. However, do you think this will work against him? That man can see through most tricks.'

His ally pressed a finger against her lips. "Only time will tell. For now, we must act now before the other arrives. When there is one knight, another lurks elsewhere. If it fails, it will be of no loss to Leader."

"What about the corrupted mana we've gathered?" Valroth asked.

Nessa's vision was beginning to turn black, voices now becoming distant. She tries to rise but her body continued to disobey. There was no energy left, her body now a useless slab of meat.

Just before the colors and view around her faded, she heard the sound of rock shattering in the direction of the lighthouse and an ominous feeling creeping toward her.

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