Chapter 3

The sky remained torn, bleeding in thin, silver streaks through the yawning black fissures overhead.
No wind howled.
No stars bore witness.
Only silence remained—a silence so profound it seemed to drink the soul from the world, one breath at a time.

Ercolash stood amidst the ruins, his breath ragged, his hands dripping with blood—blood that no longer belonged to him.
At his feet, the body of Miren—the so-called "Blessed Child of Destiny"—was growing cold, her wide, lifeless eyes still frozen in the final terror of her last moment.

Above, the shattered heavens wept invisible tears.

Ercolash felt it then—a change.
Not the roaring fire of victory, nor the sweet rot of revenge fulfilled.
No.
What he felt was colder, emptier.
It was as if something ancient and unseen had turned its gaze upon him, stretching out a hand he could neither see nor resist.

A gentle breeze stirred the air, carrying the heavy, cloying scent of blood—and with it, a new presence walked the line between the broken night and the cursed earth.

From afar, footsteps echoed.
Slow. Steady.
Each step marking time like the measured ticking of a clock counting down to inevitable death.

Ercolash lifted his head.

Amidst the rubble, a figure emerged—a slender silhouette, small yet wrapped in a pressure so suffocating that the very air seemed to shudder under its weight.

She wore broken silver armor, stained and dulled, her long, snow-white hair drifting like specters in the breeze.
At her waist, a massive sword rested quietly in its sheath—but it was not the sword that made the earth tremble.
It was the scabbard, as if it alone held back an apocalyptic force yearning to be unleashed.

Her gaze locked onto Ercolash—clear as the dead of winter, but burning deep within with a fire that would never be extinguished.

When she stopped only a few steps away, Ercolash could hear it—
Not her breathing, but the pounding drum of his own fate, beating from deep within his bones.

The girl spoke, her voice a blade drawn across ice:

"You killed Miren?"

Ercolash did not answer.
He tightened his grip around the hilt of his sword, his stare unwavering before the girl who seemed carved from sorrow itself.

The air between them froze.

"...And if I did?" he rasped.

For a fleeting moment, a smile curved the girl's lips—not a smile of joy, nor hatred—
but a grim, hollow thing, born from some abyss that knew no light.

"Then I will erase your existence," she said.

Her words, light as drifting ash, struck the earth with such weight that the ground beneath Ercolash's feet cracked, ever so slightly.

He had known hatred.
He had stared into the eyes of those who wished for his death a thousand times over.
But this was not hatred.
What he felt from her was colder.
Regret.
A chilling regret, as though she had come not merely to kill him—
but to erase something more.

He drew a breath through clenched teeth, the sound of steel rasping against worn flesh.

"Who are you?" he asked, voice barely more than a whisper against the death-thick air.

The girl drew her sword.

The sound—the slow, dreadful sound of the blade sliding free from its chains—
was like the groan of a dying world.

No flash of light.
No blaze of holy fire.
Only darkness—thick, sharp, suffocating—spilled from the blade like a black tide eager to consume all things.

"Alisa," she said simply.
"The one fated to kill Miren."

Reality itself seemed to shudder under her words.

A bitter smile tugged at Ercolash’s mouth.
A tired thing, frayed by battles fought too long.

"A failed executioner," he murmured, "come to correct her mistake by killing her replacement."

Alisa did not deny it.
She stepped forward—just once—and the ground cracked in protest beneath her, unable to bear the terrible weight she carried.

"You will not leave this place," she said—not as a threat, but as a truth, a law already carved into the marrow of the world.

Ercolash raised his sword.
His stance was loose, almost languid, yet in his eyes, an old fire reignited—not the fire of hope, but the primal hunger for battle that had never truly died within him.

"Then come," he whispered, a breath of death on the cold air.

The wind stirred—sharp enough to cut flesh.

And then they clashed—two lost souls colliding in a shattered world where only ruin, steel, and broken dreams remained.

In that moment, there was no right.
No wrong.
No salvation.
No damnation.

Only existence—
and destruction.

Only existence—and destruction.

The world held its breath as their blades clashed again and again, each collision ringing out like the tolling of a great, broken bell.  Ercolash moved with desperation, instinct guiding him where reason faltered.  Alisa moved with the inevitability of a falling star, each strike aimed not merely at his body, but at the very core of his being.

For a fleeting moment, it seemed equal.

Until she stopped.

Alisa’s eyes narrowed, the faintest flicker of disappointment crossing her face—as if she realized that to truly erase him, she would need to abandon restraint.

Her hand shifted slightly on the sword's hilt.

And then—

The world screamed.

It was not a sound heard with the ears, but felt within the bones, within the soul itself.  A titanic pressure exploded outward from Alisa's sword, and for a heartbeat, the sky and earth seemed to warp around her.

Ercolash barely had time to react.

Instinct howled inside him, pulling his body aside with desperate violence.

And in the space where he had stood—space itself split apart.

Not just the ground.

Not just the air.

A massive, yawning wound tore through the very fabric of existence, as if an unseen scythe had carved through reality.  The edges of the rift bled shadow, and for a breathless instant, it seemed that the world might simply fall into that endless darkness.

Where her blade passed, nothing remained.

Not stone.  Not light.  Not sound.

Only void.

Ercolash landed harshly on the fractured ground, his heart hammering against his ribs.  He stared at the gash in the world, the abyss it revealed, and for the first time, he understood: this was not simply a battle of mortals.

This was the struggle of something far more ancient and terrifying.

Alisa took a step forward, her sword humming with unspeakable violence.  The air around her distorted, pulled by the sheer hatred contained within her silent fury.

Each swing now carries the weight of annihilation.

One strike tore a trench the size of a fortress across the ruins.

Another ripped the skeleton of a shattered tower in two, as easily as cutting silk.

Each blow was a death sentence.  Each breath a borrowed gift.

Ercolash dodged and twisted, muscles screaming, mind aflame with survival instinct.  He could not block these strikes.  To be touched by that blade was not to bleed, but to cease.

In one desperate lunge, he tried to close the distance—only to feel the world tilt sickeningly beneath him.

Suddenly—

He was weightless.

As if the ground itself had been severed from reality, he felt his body lift, helpless, a puppet with its strings cut.

Then—

A brutal impact.

His body hit the shattered earth with a sickening thud, the air knocked from his lungs.  Before he could even draw breath, a hand seized him—cold, unyielding, fingers digging into his scalp.

He was dragged upright, forced to meet the gaze of the one who had defeated him.

Alisa stared into his eyes.

Not with rage.

Not with triumph.

But with the grim stillness of a grave that had already been dug.

“You have lost,” she said simply.

And in her voice, the world itself seemed to agree.