Cole kept firing off the Deceiver’s Blessing, flinging phantoms like shed skins in a gust, then slipping a few solid afterimages among them like knives in silk.
Lucimia’s nerves wound tight as a bowstring before every blink, then she forced herself to pick which shadow would truly cut.
Round after round, the Deceiver’s Blessing got to her like dripping water on stone, sharpening her focus till it frayed, and a careless moment left a fresh line on her calf.
Meanwhile, with every sacrifice, Cole darkened like ink spilled in water, blue rings bloomed across his skin, and black miasma steamed off his face like smoke from wet coal.
Why drag this into a war of attrition, not rush like before? The doubt stung like grit in the eye.
He’s stalling for time? Why? The thought flickered like lightning, then almost formed—wait.
She split off a sliver of focus like splitting a hair, swept the field, and the oddity surfaced like a fish in shadowed water.
Seven octopi had slipped Whirlwind Dance and hid like stones in tall grass; now they crept out.
They’d patched the altar like ants fixing a mound, huddled in a ring, each perched on a Magic Array, channeling something as the black fog thickened like a storm front.
They’re trying to finish the Sacrificial Ritual in secret?!
Doesn’t the ritual need a Deceiver?
So Cole’s current state is also feeding the rite?!
Damn it. Deceivers are vile—cunning like thorny vines.
So many little schemes—almost like Lucimia’s own, she thought, wry as bitter tea.
He’d replaced the city’s hero long ago like a mask slipped on; during their fight he slashed her with aura while freeing himself from the mire in the same breath.
Now he feints at her face while finishing the ritual in the shadows like a fox circling a coop.
No. I can’t let them succeed. The resolve bit down like teeth on her lip.
Turtling is a dead end; only flipping defense into offense, like Cole did last round, will break the tide.
Ha— She drew a breath like winter into her lungs, shut her eyes, then stepped forward as if into cold water.
Boom—!
Pure mana burst off her like a wave hitting a cliff, the surge racing outward with a knife-edged screech.
Cole yanked his blade up like a shield, but the force swatted him like a leaf, slammed him into the wall, and dust boiled up as rubble rained to bury him.
Every lingering afterimage touched that tide and went to ashes like moths in flame.
The octopi around the altar shrieked once and powdered like brittle shells; the altar shattered to a ruin, broken as a fallen idol.
Even Ritch, sprawled on the ground, flipped like a fish on a dock, hacked twice, then went limp again.
…
That kind of pure overflow burned mana like a bonfire, eating a third of Lucimia’s pool in a breath.
She’d pulled the same trick in the first cycle, when the fake Desty backstabbed her, to run like a stag through fog.
It’s an emergency lever, she told herself, a last key under the mat—never to be thrown around.
She didn’t stop. As Cole skidded away, she gathered ice like night dew, and an Ice Lance bloomed in her grip, bright as cold moonlight.
Press the advantage.
Whoosh—!
The Ice Lance left her hand like a comet, arrowing for the rubble pile.
Not done. Her right hand closed on air, and the stones burying Cole began to slump and melt like wax into mire.
He’d just shoved the slab off his brow when he saw the Ice Lance screaming in, and he clawed at the debris—his fingers sank into something viscous.
He looked down. It was the same mire that had disgusted him before, thick as cold tar and hungry as a bog.
The more he struggled, the deeper it bit, like a fly stuck in amber.
This time even his hands were bound; without a swing, he couldn’t call that Shadowrend bladework.
That should land. It has to.
Still, unease pricked her like a thorn.
To keep him from duping her like the first time with the Deceiver’s Blessing, Lucimia shaped more Ice Lances and let them fly like a winter squall.
She thought a beat, and it still felt thin.
She snapped out more spells—Water Bolt, Wind Blade, Earth Spikes—every stripe she could think of, thrown like stones into a black river.
Let’s see you slip this time.
Fortune finally quit toying with her; the spells hammered Cole like hailstones on a drum.
Ice Lance and the rest struck his body, one by one, with the surety of falling stars.
The enchantments triggered true.
His left hand, hit by an Ice Lance, began to dissolve like frost in sunlight; his left knee, tagged by the Water Bolt, went to slurry like clay in rain.
“Ahhh!” Cole’s scream tore out of him like a ripped sail.
By rights, he should burst and die next, and Lucimia could breathe and plan her next moves like laying stones across a stream.
But the world kept its fangs in.
The dissolved left hand sprouted anew, and a thick octopus tentacle punched out from the severed joint like a nightmare root; his left leg followed suit.
Lucimia reeled, eyes wide as full moons, disbelief ringing like brass.
Is Cole an octopus, not a Deceiver?
No. He is a Deceiver. This wasn’t a skin melting off to reveal a beast, like the others—they were different beasts under torn masks.
This was more like a lost limb regrowing, only the new growth was tentacle, not human flesh, like the sea rewriting his body.
“Raaagh!” Cole’s eyes burned red, his roar raw as scraped iron.
The tentacle hammered the mire, flinging it off in clots like flung mud, and he surged up, his remaining human hand snatching the fallen blade like snatching a snake.
The blade was stubborn as bone; after Lucimia’s barrage it hadn’t snapped, only bent a touch like a reed in wind.
“You! You!” he rasped, voice torn like gravel. “Twice you broke my ritual. You want death so badly? I’ll oblige you!”
He panted like a bellows, spun the great blade in his grip like a wheeling star, and barked, “Blade of Shadowrend!”
Then he drove off with one leg and one tentacle, launching at Lucimia like a spear thrown by a catapult.
Lucimia didn’t panic; calm fell over her like a cool veil, and she cast again, opening pits along his path like traps in dry earth.
This time he didn’t eat it; he used his tentacle as a left hand, stomped the ground like a springboard, and skipped past the collapsing soil.
“Shatter!”
Her spell punched another hole like a bite out of bread.
“Raa!”
He kicked and skittered clear like a spider.
They repeated, several exchanges like drumbeats, and Cole closed the distance like a tide creeping up a shore.
No choice. Lucimia invoked the Flight Spell and rose, light as thistledown on a breeze.
“Die! Shadowrend!!” Cole leveled the blade at her heart and thrust like lightning.
Lucimia tilted, slid left like a swallow on the wind, and the straight thrust hissed past.
Clang—! The great blade missed her flesh and punched through the wall behind her like an iron nail.
Perfect dodge, right? The world disagreed.
Splat—!
Blood sprayed from Lucimia’s shoulder like red petals torn by wind.
“What… is happening?!” Her eyes snapped to Cole, shock ringing her skull like a bell.
His blade was sunk in the wall, solid as a stake.
So why was she hurt?
Wait.
She looked again. In the faint light, her shadow was cast on the wall like ink brushed thin, and Cole’s blade pinned that shadow clean through.
“Shadowrend… Shadowrend… so it cuts the shadow itself?!” Lucimia’s voice trembled, stunned as if waking from a dream.
“Hahaha!” Cole laughed once, harsh as broken glass, and twisted the blade.
“Ah—ss…” Pain like a hot needle bored through Lucimia’s shoulder, bright and cold as winter stars.
