Not the Hero, Not the Villain — Just the One Who Wins

The battlefield steamed beneath the torn sky, the scorched terrain still pulsing with the aftermath of the Phoenix's wrath. Molten cracks glowed faintly beneath the shattered soil, and stray cinders floated like haunted stars in the mist. No one spoke. The air was too thick with the scent of burnt magic and the weight of what they had all just survived.

But everyone moved.

Five remained on the field from the core leadership of both factions.

Ashen. Layla. Rayne. Rin. Nyx.

And the war was not over.

Layla tightened her grip on her twin sabers, the frost-runes on their blades glowing with a faint, cold light. Her breath came in shallow, ragged gasps, but her gaze never wavered. She looked across the field where Rayne stood like a looming monolith, his tattered cloak fluttering in the breeze stirred by his own volatile magic. His glaive glinted in the fading light, his form a silhouette of blood and wind.

"You know it ends here," Layla said, her voice clear and steady, a sliver of ice in the smoldering air.

Rayne's eyes narrowed. "Then let's finish it."

In an instant, the two blurred into motion—twin streaks of silver and blue colliding in the heart of the battlefield with a sound like cracking glaciers.

Steel rang like thunder.

Wind and frost exploded in every direction, carving new trenches and craters into the ravaged earth as the two clashed with no restraint. Layla moved like a dancer with blades of ice, spinning, flipping, and dodging with a cold, surgical elegance. Rayne answered with towering, brutal strikes, his glaive spinning in wide arcs of compressed air that cut trees in half with each furious sweep. Their duel quickly pulled into the distance—a storm of speed and skill that was a war in itself.

I didn't watch them. My focus was elsewhere.

I turned toward Nyx and Rin.

They stood side by side, scarred but unyielding. Rin's body shimmered faintly with the ethereal blue glow of his newfound Divinity—the Tidesoul Ascension—and water, alive and sentient, swirled around his arms like liquid blades. Nyx, by contrast, looked like death incarnate. Her void aura pulsed with a raw, terrifying instability, her pupils now sharp and vertical like a predator's, her curved daggers crackling with a dark, corrosive energy.

I wiped a trickle of blood from my mouth with the back of my glove and raised my blade, the shadow-forged steel humming with a hungry energy.

"Two on one?" I muttered, a humorless smirk touching my lips. "Fair."

"You're already dying, Ashen," Nyx replied, her voice a low, melodic purr that was more menacing than any shout. "We're just delivering it gently."

I smirked. "Come try."

Rin was the first to move, surging forward in a blur of motion, the very water in the air seeming to propel him. He struck low with a tidal punch, a fist encased in a vortex of high-pressure water, forcing me to leap backward—only to be met by Nyx, who was falling from the sky like a shadow comet, her daggers aimed for my heart.

I barely had time to raise a shield of solidified shadows before her blades dug in with a sickening crunch.

The impact launched me sideways. I crashed through a chunk of petrified stone, rolled twice across the jagged ground, and sprang back to my feet just in time to catch Rin's next attack.

A spinning kick, his leg encased in a swirling water vortex.

I blocked it with both forearms, the force of the blow sending a jarring shock through my entire body. I was sent flying again, my body slamming into the dirt and skidding until I came to a halt near the edge of a smoldering crater, my breath ragged, my vision swimming.

"Okay," I said, pushing myself to my feet, a wild grin spreading across my face. "You're serious."

Nyx descended like lightning, her daggers a blur of motion that was almost impossible to track—left, right, a feint to the throat, a stab to the ribs. I deflected each strike with my blade, my left hand conjuring shadowy tendrils to slow her down, to disrupt her perfect rhythm. One snared her ankle. I twisted, attempting to slam her into the ground.

She cut herself free midair with a flick of her dagger, her movements fluid and impossibly fast.

But I had already leaped backward, creating a precious few feet of distance. I landed on a steep, rocky slope, my breath shallow, my eyes flashing with a desperate, calculating light.

Rin raised both hands, the water in the air coalescing around him, spiraling into two sharp, deadly lances. He fired them like divine spears. I dodged the first, the projectile hissing past my ear. I blocked the second with a hastily summoned shadow wall, the impact shattering it into a million pieces. But the third clipped my thigh, a searing, cold pain that made my leg buckle.

I winced, gritting my teeth against the pain. I responded by extending my arm, launching a wave of sharpened, solidified darkness toward Rin.

He simply stepped to the side, raising a whirlpool of water to absorb the attack, his expression one of calm, almost bored, superiority.

"Come on, Ashen!" Nyx called out, her voice laced with a mocking disappointment. "Where's that god-slayer fire now?"

I didn't answer. Instead, I moved—faster than either of them expected.

In a blink, I was beside Nyx, not attacking, but casting. I touched her shadow—just once.

It burst outward, a shockwave of my own suppression magic slamming into her nervous system, dulling her perception, clouding her senses. Her form shimmered, staggered, her connection to the void momentarily severed.

Rin, seeing her vulnerability, lunged to protect her.

I whirled, my blade singing through the air. Our weapons met—my shadow-forged steel against his water-infused blade.

We clashed in a blinding whirlwind of parries and counters. Rin's fluid, graceful strikes, enhanced by his newfound divinity, flowed like a relentless river. My own counters, laced with the raw, untamed power of my shadow and blood magic, were jagged, brutal, and desperate.

But Rin was gaining ground. His power was purer, more stable.

He punched forward, and a geyser of super-pressurized water erupted from the ground beneath me, throwing me upward, helpless, into the air. Nyx, having recovered, vanished and reappeared midair, her dagger slamming toward my heart.

I twisted my body, a desperate, agonizing movement. The dagger, meant for my heart, pierced my shoulder instead, the pain a white-hot explosion that stole the breath from my lungs.

I didn't scream.

I grabbed her wrist mid-strike, my grip like a vice.

"You've already lost," I whispered, my voice a ragged, bloody rasp.

Nyx tried to blink away, to vanish into the void, but she couldn't. My Shadow Tether spell, a nasty little trick I'd been saving, had locked her in place. Her eyes widened in a panic.

I flipped her, using her own momentum against her, and slammed her down toward the ground. A glyph I had placed earlier ignited beneath her.

The elimination rune surged with a blinding, white light.

"No—!" Rin shouted, hurling a massive wave of water to stop it.

Too late.

My blade tapped the ground, a final, quiet command.

Nyx vanished in a flicker of light, her scream cut short.

Eliminated.

I dropped to one knee, coughing up a mouthful of blood. I stared down at my palm—it was shaking uncontrollably.

"Two left," I murmured, my voice hoarse.

I looked up. Spot an error? Visit the original post on M&VLEMPY&R.

Rin stood across the field, his face pale, his fists clenched, the water around him pulsing like a gathering storm.

On the far side of the battlefield, Layla and Rayne had paused their own duel, their attention drawn by the sudden, dramatic elimination.

Rayne smirked faintly, a flicker of dark amusement in his eyes.

Layla's brows furrowed, her expression a mixture of shock and a dawning, unwilling respect. "He did it," she breathed.

I turned to face Rin again, my body screaming in protest.

"You don't have to do this," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

Rin took a single, deliberate step forward. "Yes," he said, his voice filled with a cold, hard resolve. "I do."

My blade rose, heavy as lead in my hand.

So did Rin's waters.

And across the battlefield, the final, desperate war raged on.

The battlefield steamed in an eerie silence, the very soil broken, burned, and carved by spells that no longer lingered. All around, the skeletal remains of trees leaned like wounded sentinels, their bark blackened, their branches scorched bare. Nothing moved—except four shadows, four survivors of a war that had consumed all others.

I stood on one side of the battlefield, my shoulders rising and falling with every shallow, painful breath. My body trembled from the sheer weight of my last battles, my own shadow flickering at my feet as if it, too, were exhausted. The crimson insignia on my shoulder was faded and burned through, and the grip of my shadow-forged blade was slick with blood—my own.

Across from me stood Rin. The Tidesoul.

A subtle, ethereal blue divinity shimmered along his skin, terrifying in its quiet clarity. The ancient runes running down his arms pulsed with a watery resonance. His breathing was calm, measured—far more stable than my own—but he wasn't unscathed. His left gauntlet was shattered, and blood seeped from a deep cut across his ribs, a testament to the ferocity of our earlier clashes.

Between us, the very air seemed to bend and warp under the weight of our lingering magic.

"You could walk away," I said, my voice hoarse but steady.

"I could," Rin replied, tightening his stance, his gaze unwavering. "But I won't."

There were no further words. The time for talk was over.

The storm resumed.

Rin surged forward first, water forming beneath his boots, propelling him across the broken ground like a missile. He twisted in midair, a torrent of water forming around his leg, and dropped a hammering kick down toward my head.

I stepped aside, a clumsy, last-second movement, feeling the air split beside my face.

I responded with a slash of pure shadow, the arc of my blade extending like a crescent of darkness. Rin countered with a tidal shield that absorbed the strike and then rebounded with a spinning lunge of a water-formed trident.

I ducked under it and responded with three sharp, desperate strikes. Each was faster than the last.

The first, Rin parried with an almost casual ease.

The second grazed his thigh, tearing through his tunic.

The third pierced his shoulder, but just barely, the tip of my blade grating against bone.

Rin retaliated with a punch to my gut, a fist encased in a blast of compressed water. I flew backward, my body bouncing twice against the rocky ground before coming to a halt in a crumpled heap.

I coughed violently, a fresh wave of crimson pooling at my lips, but I forced myself to rise again, my body screaming in protest.

The shadow around me pulsed—erratic, unstable.

"You're reaching your limit," Rin said, his voice devoid of its usual warmth, now cold and clinical. "End this, Ashen."

"I did," I whispered, my voice ragged, a wild, desperate grin spreading across my face. "The moment I decided to keep fighting."

With a snarl, I thrust my palm into the earth. A complex glyph of shadow bloomed beneath Rin's feet, black tendrils snaking upward to bind him.

Rin exploded with energy, his divine aura flaring. A ring of water burst outward in a ten-meter radius, vaporizing the tendrils—but it had been a feint.

I appeared behind him, my body a blur of shadow, already mid-strike.

My shadowblade drove forward, stabbing into his shoulder—not deep enough to maim, but enough to anchor him, to hold him in place for a precious second.

From the blade, threads of dark, corrosive mana surged into Rin's body, clouding his mana channels, disrupting his connection to his divine power.

Rin screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated pain, and staggered, but he managed to sweep backward with a crashing tide of water. I was flung once more, my body crashing into a broken monolith with a sickening grunt.

Both of us paused, breathless, our bodies pushed to their absolute limits.

Our visors, the holographic displays of our safety suits, flickered.

My mana bar was flashing a desperate, critical red.

Rin's divine aura had dimmed to a faint, pathetic glow.

Still, we stood.

Rin stepped forward, the water around his arms coalescing once more, a final, desperate gambit.

I pushed myself to my feet, my legs trembling, my vision blurring at the edges.

I didn't speak this time.

I ran.

Rin mirrored my movement, and the two of us clashed like dying titans in the center of the ruined field. Shadow collided with tide—blades struck with a blinding, desperate speed, magic detonating with every brutal strike.

Rin slammed me into the earth with a rising surge of water—but I blinked mid-fall, a final, desperate teleport, reappearing behind him.

A shadow spike launched upward from the ground—Rin, reacting on pure instinct, turned, slashing it in half with a spiral of water—but he didn't see the real attack.

I appeared above him, my body spinning, a meteor of shadow and desperation.

With a final, ragged roar, I dropped the flat of my blade against Rin's back—triggering a hidden, complex rune I had engraved on the blade's edge.

A shockwave of pure, concussive shadow pulsed outward.

The glyph beneath Rin, the one I had placed at the very beginning of our final clash, ignited.

A faint buzz echoed from our bracelets as the field's system confirmed the conditions for elimination.

I stood, my shoulders slumped, my blade lowered, my body a symphony of pain.

Rin collapsed to one knee, his eyes blinking rapidly, his body trembling. "You… you used… all your reserves on that…"

I nodded, my own vision beginning to fade. "That was the point."

The elimination glyph activated, its white light a gentle, almost merciful glow.

Rin looked up, his mouth parting as if to say something, and then he vanished into a shower of white light.

Eliminated.

I stood alone.

Barely.

My vision blurred, the world dissolving into a swirl of color and light. My legs trembled, and then gave out.

From the far end of the battlefield, Layla turned sharply at the fading glow of Rin's exit.

She saw my staggering figure.

And in that moment, her mask of cold composure finally cracked.

I was falling.

"Ashen!" she cried, her voice a sharp note of alarm.

I looked toward her, a faint, tired smile touching my lips.

Then, I stumbled to one knee, catching myself with my blade, the shadow-forged steel the only thing keeping me upright.

My bracelet pulsed violently, its light a frantic, desperate red.

Warning: Mana core at 0%. Shadow conduit collapsed. Emergency override imminent. Vital signs failing. Automatic elimination in progress.

I glanced at the flickering glyph that was forming under my feet.

I reached up, my hand trembling, and pulled off my half-shredded mask. I looked at Layla, my gaze steady, my expression calm.

"This fight's yours now," I said, my voice a quiet whisper that still carried across the silent battlefield.

She took one, desperate step forward.

"Don't," I said gently. "Win. That's all that matters."

The glyph surged beneath me, its light a brilliant, blinding halo.

I smiled one last time.

And vanished.

Eliminated.

On the other side of the field, Rayne adjusted his grip on his glaive, his expression unreadable.

He'd watched everything.

Layla exhaled slowly, her breath a white cloud in the chilled air, and raised both her blades.

Only two remained now.

And the sky felt colder than ever.

The war had come to its final duel.