Reyana pushed herself upright and immediately regretted it.

  Pain spiked through her left side like someone had driven hot pokers between each rib. Her ribs were definitely broken… at least three, possibly four. Maybe a punctured lung, based on the wet rattling in her chest that made breathing feel like drowning on dry land. Blood soaked through her armor in spreading patches.

  Nourma was relentless and ferocious in its attacks.

  “An Underlord indeed.” Reyana sighed.

  She had used her Darkness affinity and the [Through Shadows] spell to extract Rudy from the impact zone. They'd fallen through shadow-space and emerged on the twentieth floor just in time to escape from the blast.

  But Nourma had decided not to let them out of his sight. The Underlord simply jumped after them and dropped through the massive hole in the ceiling its attack created.

  Fortunately, Jin's traps and preparations had taken Nourma's immediate attention. She'd cast another spell [Shadow Clones] while it was distracted by various talismans and exploding runes. Her spell created six duplicates, which she scattered in different directions with the sole purpose of annoying and stalling Nourma.

  She could hear angry thumps and roars getting closer. Louder.

  For now, though, her clones and Jin's traps were keeping it busy, buying her valuable seconds to rest and recover.

  Reyana pulled a health potion from her spatial storage and tipped it down her throat. The liquid burned going down, and she felt the lifeforce from the potion restoring her wounds and injuries.

  Her whisperlink buzzed.

  "Just a couple more minutes, guys," Jin's voice came through, slightly breathless, like he'd been running. "I'm almost…”

  "Jin, your shields can't tank shit!" Reyana interrupted, casting a glance at Rudy sprawled on the floor beside her. He was breathing heavily, each breath a visible struggle. "Rudy and I almost died up there!"

  “How bad?”

  Rudy looked like he'd been fed through a meat grinder and somehow crawled back out the other end. Cauterized wound in his gut that still wept blood around the edges. The shattered arm hanging at an angle, the bones were definitely not designed to achieve. Blood leaking from everywhere… nose, mouth, ears, eyes.

  “All in all, Rudy’s is in absolutely shit condition,” she said.

  But despite that… despite looking like a corpse that refused to stop moving, Reyana had to give it to him. Younger than her by years, he'd gone against an Underlord toe-to-toe, dealing devastating damage that had actually injured an Underlord. There weren’t many, or even any, in the capital who could claim they had done something similar.

  Now she understood why her father thought so highly of Rudy. She chuckled, remembering when she'd asked Salvatore about Jin. Her father had said, "He's a young snake. Cute, but deadly. Don't underestimate his innocent looks—it's often the last thing you see before venom finds your veins."

  The link buzzed, pulling her attention back. "I'm sorry, guys. The shield components were untested prototypes. It seems ORDER IV power simply overwhelms the threshold parameters by raw force multiplication. This is... not good."

  "Rey—" Rudy started, trying to push himself upright.

  "Shh." Reyana knelt beside him, one hand pressing him back down while the other rifled through her spatial storage. "You need to meditate and focus on not dying. That's your job now. Only job!"

  She pulled two potions: greater healing and stamina restoration, both glowing with concentrated essence that cast red-gold light across Rudy's face. "And yeah, Jin. The situation is really not good."

  She uncorked both vials with her teeth and pressed them to Rudy's lips. He drank without protest, grumbling only about the taste being like "burnt metal."

  “I'm almost done setting the final floor. Do you think you can fight or not?"

  "Rudy dealt decent damage… maybe a quarter of its total health pool in one very big attack." She watched color return to Rudy's face as the potions worked their magic. "Nourma is wounded. But Rudy's out of combat for now. Minimum ten minutes before he's at combat efficiency, and that's being optimistic."

  "I see, which floor are you on exactly?"

  Reyana looked around, finding the floor number etched into the lobby wall in faded paint. "Eighteenth floor."

  "That's good… I think."

  "You think?" Reyana's eyebrow rose dangerously.

  "Yeah, there are traps and talismans on that floor, but nothing with raw damage output. What you should do is engage in hit-and-run tactics."

  "Use the floors. Leverage vertical space. Make Nourma descend. If you can force the berserker transformation, we've essentially won. If not, I've prepared a burial ground on floor five. Lead him down floor by floor."

  "That's asking a lot." Reyana sighed, flexing her shoulders. The potions she'd taken earlier had mostly fixed the dislocation, but pain lingered like a stubborn houseguest who didn't know when to leave. "But I suppose I can manage. However—" She paused meaningfully. "You'll have to fix the aftermath with my Mantle."

  There was a silence on the line and then, quietly: "I understand."

  The weight of what that meant hung between them. Jin would have to use his Harvest ability to help contain her death essence before it killed her.

  "Do your best," Jin said finally. "Do not die on me, Reyana."

  She chuckled, "You are years too early to be worrying about me, Jin."

  The line went dead, and Reyana turned to help Rudy to his feet. It took several moments and most of her patience, but eventually she was confident he wouldn't immediately collapse. Only then did she let go.

  Above them, the sounds were getting louder.

  Roars shook dust from the ceiling tiles and made the structural supports groan.

  "Seems like Nourma's patience has run thin." Reyana rolled her neck, feeling vertebrae pop. "As for you, Rudy… you're retreating from the fight now."

  She saw a protest forming on his face, and she glared.

  Rudy stopped saying whatever he was about to and looked down at himself. At the mangled arm. The cauterized gut wound. The blood stained everything. His armor was cracked and leaking essence.

  He quietly shut up.

  "Understood," he said finally, the word clearly costing him. "I'll try to retrieve my weapons and heal up while you engage."

  "Good." Reyana nodded in approval.

  "Reyana,” Rudy said, grabbing her attention, “Nourma hits like a truck. Be vigilant of his skill activations. There's a tell… he goes completely still for half a heartbeat before the big moves."

  Reyana filed that information away in the part of her brain dedicated to not dying. "Thanks. And don't keep me and Jin waiting."

  "I won't," Rudy said.

  Just as he crossed the threshold, the ceiling exploded.

  Reyana dodged into the shadows on pure instinct… her body dissolving into darkness as Nourma dropped through the hole with devastating force.

  The underlord hit landed on the floor with an explosive impact, cracking concrete floors and sending shockwaves racing outward.

  Seeing Reyana disappear into the shadows, Nourma roared and slammed his bone-white sledgehammer into the floor the moment he landed.

  The explosion cracked support pillars, the smell of dust and burning flesh filling the air as debris screamed outwards. The shockwave forced Reyana out of her shadows; her technique disrupted by the force.

  She materialized twenty feet away, rolling with the impact.

  "YOU RUN A LOT, MORTALS." Nourma's deep voice echoed through the ruined lobby, underlaid with something that might have been amusement. Those empty charcoal eye sockets somehow conveyed entertainment. "LIKE PREY THAT KNOWS THE HUNT HAS ALREADY ENDED."

  Shadows coalesced directly behind Nourma, and from it, Reyana appeared with her blade already in motion.

  Her longsword carved a deep line across Nourma's back.

  She disappeared back into the shadows before the bone sledgehammer screamed through the space where she'd been standing; the weapon moving with a speed that defied its massive size.

  Reyana appeared and vanished in rapid succession, while striking from the left and dissolving back before the counterstrike came.

  Shadows rose, and she manifested above Nourma, her sword moving in a downward slash at the shoulder joint.

  Her barrage of attacks continued, adding more and more cuts and heaping more pain on Nourma.

  Death by a thousand cuts.

  "ENOUGH!" Nourma's roar shook the building hard enough that Reyana felt it in her bones. The underlord slammed his weapon into the floor, and she recognized one of the skills activating.

  She fell into her shadow without hesitation, dropping through shadow-space to land one floor below just as the eighteenth floor exploded above her.

  The shockwave tore through the massive hole, its force echoing in the air as it struck her. Reyana rolled away using the impact, employing the force to put space between her and the collapsing ceiling, which sent down chunks of rock and dust like a violent storm.

  Through the settling dust and smoke, she heard an odd sound.

  The rustling of papers.

  Talismans! She realized.

  Dozens of talismans activated in sequence. The sound multiplied and echoed, creating an almost musical quality, like a shuffling deck played by an orchestra of madness.

  Jin's traps were triggering.

  Nourma's roar carried genuine frustration this time, the veneer of calm cracking to reveal something raw underneath. "WHAT MANNER OF COWARD'S TRICKS—"

  The underlord’s complaint cut off as more talismans activated, and Reyana used that distraction to make a decision she'd been dreading.

  She took a deep breath, steeling her resolve.

  Then she removed her gloves.

  The moment her bare skin was revealed, an intense pressure descended.

  Dense waves of Death essence poured from her exposed hands like water from a broken dam… thick, cold, and absolutely inevitable. The temperature dropped, and frost crawled across nearby surfaces in delicate fractal patterns.

  Reyana grunted, gritting her teeth against the sensation of her own power trying to eat her alive from the inside out. She pushed through the discomfort and unhooked her cloak.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  o______________o

  SHROUD OF PALE BINDING

  Type: Cloak (Suppression Artifact)

  Rarity: 3-Star Rare

  Part of the Void's Shadow Set (1/6)

  A heavy cloak woven with suppression runes designed to contain death essence leakage. When worn with other set pieces, creates layered containment fields that allow the wearer to maintain control over volatile Mantle manifestations.

  Effect: Reduces passive death essence emission by 35%. When worn with full set, total suppression reaches 88%.

  o______________o

  The cloak fell away, and the pressure doubled.

  "Just this much won't be enough," Reyana muttered, already reaching for the next layer.

  She yanked off her padded shirt. The suppression runes embroidered into the fabric flickered and died as she peeled the garment away, revealing the chainmail vest beneath.

  o______________o

  WEAVE OF HOLLOW STILLNESS

  Type: Undershirt (Suppression Artifact)

  Rarity: 3-Star Rare

  Part of the Void's Shadow Set (2/6)

  Reinforced fabric inscribed with essence-dampening arrays. The threads themselves are woven from nullsteel fibers that actively absorb and contain death affinity manifestations.

  Effect: Reduces active death essence output by 40%. Prevents accidental decay of touched objects.

  o______________o

  Now clad only in her chainmail vest, pants, and boots… the three remaining pieces of the Void's Shadow Set… Reyana took quick, shallow breaths.

  Control above everything. You've done this before. You know the limits.

  The reminder helped. Barely.

  She'd never used armor. Not really. Everything she owned that looked like protection was actually a prison… enchanted suppression gear working overtime to lock her Mantle behind so many layers of containment that she could function in society without accidentally killing everyone around her.

  Now she'd removed half that suppression.

  Which put her on a timer.

  Twenty minutes, maybe thirty if she was lucky, before the accumulated death essence started damaging her own body from the inside out.

  She wouldn't have risked this if they didn't have Jin on hand. His Harvest ability was the only thing that could safely drain excess death essence before it killed her.

  Desperate times call for desperate measures.

  Reyana's smile was sharp as broken glass.

  Her aura exploded outward… not the carefully controlled whisper she usually maintained, but a tidal wave of decay that crashed through the space like a tsunami.

  Colors muted within ten meters of her position, bleeding toward monotone as her Mantle imposed itself on reality. Dark veins crawled up her arms from her heart, spreading like ink through water… visible death racing through her system to claim her.

  Her violet eyes deepened to something that resembled the space between stars.

  Nourma descended through the hole in the ceiling and immediately grunted as he entered her aura's effective range.

  For the first time since the fight began, the Underlord wavered as its flesh visibly withered. Skin pulling tight over the bone exoskeleton.

  "WHAT... IS THIS?" Genuine discomfort colored Nourma's tone. The warrior's calm cracking at the edges. "THIS POWER... IT RESEMBLES—"

  "Death," Reyana said simply. "In its purest form."

  She raised both hands. The restless shimmer of her aura drew inward with deliberate control, settling like a predator going still before the strike. As it concentrated, two runes surfaced on the backs of her hands… dark and symmetrical lotus patterns, unfolding like closed petals waiting to bloom.

  Seven petals on each hand.

  Reyana's voice dropped to a whisper that somehow carried through the space like a funeral dirge:

  "By pale hands, silence falls."

  A pure white longsword adorned with silver runes appeared in her grip, and with its appearance, every ounce of her externalized aura retracted, flowing like liquid shadow back toward her center before diverting into the blade itself.

  The sword drank it greedily, runes lighting up along its length until the weapon resonated with hunger to bring absolute silence to all things.

  o_______________________o

  ? VELARIUM OF PALE SILENCE ?

  ? RARITY: Epic Soulbound.

  ? TYPE: Weapon [Longsword]

  ? MANUFACTURER: Unknown | Pre-Collapse Null Forge, designation lost

  ? [ATTRIBUTES] ?

  ? Essence Conduction [TIER V]: Perfectly channels essence through the blade with zero loss.

  ? Wither Affinity [TIER V]: Strikes inflict progressive decay rather than immediate trauma. Damage bypasses conventional regeneration and accelerates physical failure over time.

  ? Durability [TIER VI]: Increased durability. Can withstand catastrophic stress.

  ? Self-Repair [TIER VI]: Given sufficient time and essence, restores all damage to structural integrity.

  ? Silent Core [PASSIVE]: The weapon emits no sound during movement or impact.

  ? [ABILITIES] ?

  ? Overcharge: Channel your affinities into the blade, dealing bonus damage that periodically ignores all defenses.

  ? Mark of Pale Death: Attacks apply a stacking [PALE DEATH] debuff. Every ten stacks detonate, inflicting heavy wither damage and movement degradation.

  ? Silence Absolute: Consecutive uninterrupted hits progressively mute the target—reducing spellcasting speed, reaction time, and sensory perception. At maximum stacks, brief paralysis occurs. Duration: 6 seconds at full effect.

  ? [TECHNICAL DETAILS] ?

  ? Weight: 3.2 kg

  ? Length: 125 cm (full), 95 cm (blade)

  ? Material: Umbral alloy core, Vidrà edge, shadow-essence lattice, pale spira leather grip

  The blade does not kill quickly. It convinces the body that it has already died.

  o_______________________o

  Nourma's empty eye sockets tracked the weapon's appearance, and for the first time, something like wariness entered the underlord’s posture.

  "INTERESTING," Nourma said. "THAT BLADE... AND THAT POWER. YOU CARRY DEATH LIKE A CROWN, YOUNG MORTAL."

  Reyana said nothing, settling into her combat stance.

  "MASTER WOULD TREASURE ONE SUCH AS YOU."

  Nourma tilted its head, and despite lacking proper facial features, somehow managed to convey genuine interest.

  "SHE SEEKS THOSE WHO WALK THE PATHS OF DEEPER TRUTHS. THOSE UNAFRAID TO EMBRACE WHAT OTHERS FLEE FROM."

  "Your master can rot," Reyana said flatly.

  "YOU WOULD REFUSE POWER? KNOWLEDGE? A PLACE AMONG THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU TRULY ARE?"

  Nourma's tone carried something approaching confusion, like the concept of rejection was foreign.

  "WE ARE NOT SO DIFFERENT, YOU AND I. BOTH TOUCHED BY FORCES BEYOND MORTAL COMPREHENSION. BOTH—"

  "We are nothing alike," Reyana interrupted, and her voice carried absolute certainty. "I didn't choose this power. But I choose what I do with it. And I choose to stand with my companions against monsters like you."

  Nourma laughed… a dry, rasping sound that held genuine amusement."A WISE CHOICE, YOUNG MORTAL."

  Reyana frowned, thrown by the response. "What?"

  "LOYALTY IS A KEY FUNDAMENTAL FOR A WARRIOR," Nourma said. "IF YOU WOULD BETRAY YOUR FAMILY AND COMPANIONS FOR OFFERED POWER, THEN HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TRUST YOUR WORD? THOSE ARE MY MASTER'S TEACHINGS. SHE VALUES LOYALTY ABOVE ALL ELSE."

  Reyana gave Nourma an assessing gaze, seeing the underlord in a different light. "Wise words for a monster."

  Nourma shook his head… a surprisingly human gesture.

  "WHAT THE FLESH WEARS IS NOT A PRISON FOR THE SOUL, YOUNG MORTAL. YOU SHOULD LOOK AT PEOPLE'S ESSENCE, NOT THEIR FORM. MONSTERS WEAR MANY FACES. SOME BEAUTIFUL. SOME TERRIBLE. BUT IT IS THE CHOICES THEY MAKE THAT DEFINE THEM."

  Before Reyana could respond, Nourma's posture shifted, and they both blurred into motion.

  One moment, she stood twenty feet away. Next, her blade whispered through the gap in Nourma's guard, carving a precise line across the underlord’s abdomen.

  Now drawing more power from her Mantle, Reyana was stronger, faster, and more dangerous than she'd been at any point in the fight. Her enhanced state brought her almost to parity with the Underlord's speed.

  She saw everything in muted colors. The world rendered in shades of gray and black and the pale white of death essence. She blinked across distance, appearing in Nourma's blind spots, evading and dodging and occasionally deflecting attacks with minimal movement.

  Her aura devoured Nourma's aura skill, and her presence further withered Nourma's physical form. Nourma might be immune to most afflictions, but its body was not. Flesh could still decay. Bone could still weaken.

  With every attack she landed… big or small, Reyana left visible patches of darkened, necrotic tissue that the Underlord's enhanced vitality fought desperately to repair.

  She noticed Nourma's fighting style favored offense over everything else. Heavy hits. Overwhelming force. But recovery was slow, and speed was merely adequate for its rank.

  Perfect.

  Reyana conjured six shadow clones… each one a perfect duplicate, pulling substance from the darkness around her. They scattered immediately, mixing among the real Reyana as all seven figures dashed and blinked around the lobby in coordinated chaos.

  Nourma's attack passed straight through one clone. It dissipated into smoke.

  But another clone appeared on his flank, blade slicing across ribs before vanishing.

  Then, a third struck from above, cutting through shoulder armor.

  The real Reyana emerged from the shadows directly behind Nourma. Her blade kissed its lower back, right where spine met pelvis. The wither effect activated, and she felt the underlord’s regeneration stutter as death essence invaded the wound.

  All six clones radiated her aura equally… her death essence channeling through shadows that were extensions of her own being.

  Which one was real? Nourma couldn't tell. Every clone could attack. Every clone could inflict her decay.

  Nourma roared and pivoted, trying to track multiple targets simultaneously.

  Two clones rushed from opposite sides. Nourma's sledgehammer swept horizontally and passed through one clone, dissipating it, but the second leaned back, and the weapon sailed overhead. That clone's blade flickered upward in three precise cuts: throat, shoulder, wrist.

  Each bite pierced just enough to draw blood, as the wound’s edges turned gray.

  As wounds accumulated across Nourma's body, dozens of cuts, each one small but persistent.

  On Reyana's hands, the lotus tattoos were blooming. One petal for every ten strikes that landed.

  "IMPRESSIVE." Nourma's voice carried genuine approval even as pain registered in his movements. "BUT INSUFFICIENT TO…"

  A clone materialized at Nourma's feet, blade driving upward toward the gap in his chest armor.

  But Nourma ignored the clone, and its fist lashed out in a brutal hook aimed at seemingly empty air to his left.

  The real Reyana rose from the shadows in exactly that spot, blade positioned for a killing thrust.

  Her eyes widened a fraction. How did he…

  She leaned back, spine bending at an impossible angle. The fist barely passed from her chest. To her horror, the fist stopped.

  Nourma's face split into something approximating a grin… empty eye sockets somehow conveying dark amusement.

  The fist reversed direction and caught Reyana before she could retreat fully into shadow.

  She barely managed to pull up the hilt of her sword in a desperate guard.

  The impact rang through her arms.

  Even though her blade absorbed most of the force, Reyana was sent flying.

  Nourma appeared above her with an impossible burst of speed, its weapon raised in an overhead slam.

  The bone sledgehammer fell like a guillotine blade.

  Shadows erupted and yanked Reyana away a split-second before impact.

  Nourma's attack landed on the floor where she'd been a heartbeat before. The floor exploded… a cataclysmic wave of destruction rippling outward.

  The shockwave continued downward, and she heard the thunderous collapse of the entire floor giving way. A significant portion of the exterior wall collapsed outward, rubble tumbling into the streets below.

  Reyana materialised behind Nourma, twenty feet away, breathing hard. Her sword arm extended, blade held in a perfectly horizontal line parallel to the ground.

  "I name your sins in silence.

  I number them in flesh.

  At ten, the pale comes due."

  The weapon ability [Mark of Pale Death] triggered.

  White thorned vines erupted from the wounds covering Nourma's body, manifesting directly from the accumulated death essence. They wrapped around the underlord like living chains, tightening with each movement.

  The more Nourma struggled, the tighter the thorns bit. The more they drew blood. Patches and chunks of flesh sloughed off. Parts of the bone exoskeleton cracked and fell to the ground, clattering across rubble.

  Not letting the opportunity pass, Reyana made complex hand signs… fingers moving through forms she'd practiced thousands of times.

  Finally, she crossed the index and middle fingers of both hands together.

  Her death aura surged.

  Power flooded outward from her, and her aura shifted from dark gray to muted white.

  Underneath Nourma, essence burned itself into the floor, taking the shape of a lotus. Slowly, deliberately, one by one, petals bloomed beneath the struggling enemy.

  Nourma realized what was happening… the surge of power and the ominous shape forming under him. It thrashed, dark flames rising to combat the muted white light. The underlord roared, trying to break free through raw force.

  But the vines pulsed and triggered the other effect of Velarium: [Silence Absolute].

  Nourma’s world muted.

  Its roar abruptly faded, the sound vanishing into the silence. All its skills went dormant, suppressed by Reyana’s weapon. Its senses, powers, and regeneration slowed to a crawl as the silence imposed itself on every aspect of its existence.

  The ability had a duration of six seconds at full effect. Reyana was certain an Underlord would break free in one or two seconds through sheer force of will.

  But that was enough.

  As each petal bloomed beneath Nourma, one disappeared from the dark runic tattoo on Reyana's hands. Each hand bore seven petals, fourteen in total. One by one, they traded places, manifesting in the physical world as the technique reached completion.

  The moment the final petal bloomed, Reyana's voice cut through the silence:

  "Bloom."

  The petals erupted in full glory.

  A pillar of muted white light pierced upward from beneath Nourma, consuming his figure entirely. The pillar continued skyward, destroying anything in its path, concrete, steel, rebar… all of it rapidly decaying to ash and dust.

  The technique burned through the eighteenth floor. Through the nineteenth. Through the twentieth and beyond, punching a hole straight through the rooftop to spear into the sky.

  When the pillar finally receded, Reyana dropped to one knee.

  That... took more out of me than expected. Reyana coughed up blood as she forced herself to stand back up.

  Through the fading white, she saw Nourma's silhouette.

  True to being a damn Underlord, it wasn't turned to dust as she had hoped. But the attack had dealt massive damage. Easily another quarter of its health pool in one devastating strike.

  Combined with Rudy's earlier assault, Nourma should be well under half health now.

  But the attack wasn't over.

  Even though the lotus manifestation had faded, for each wound Nourma suffered, ghostly petals unfurled, translucent white lotus blossoms that seemed carved from moonlight and death itself. They bloomed outward from Nourma's body like flowers growing in time-lapse, each petal a spreading zone of accelerated entropy.

  The effect was beautiful.

  And utterly devastating.

  Everywhere a petal touched, flesh withered. Bone cracked. Nourma's body was eating itself from dozens of points simultaneously.

  "AGHHH!"

  Nourma's roar shook the building.

  Then its head snapped toward Reyana.

  She matched his gaze coldly, not backing down despite exhaustion making her limbs heavy.

  Empty eye sockets burned with dark flames that flickered brighter and darker with each labored breath. Nourma raised one arm upward… a gesture that seemed almost casual.

  "YOU… ARE… STRONG." Nourma growled each word with terrible emphasis. "BUT, THIS ENDS NOW!"

  The arm fell.

  Reyana frowned and then froze, Rudy's warning echoing in her mind: "He goes completely still for half a heartbeat before the big moves."

  She'd been so focused on landing attacks that she hadn't noticed that Nourma's weapon was missing. The bone sledgehammer that had been constantly in its hands had vanished.

  When? Where?

  Then she remembered. Earlier, when [Mark of Pale Death] had triggered. There'd been sounds of something heavy cutting through the air and more than usual dust falling from the ceiling above. She'd dismissed it at the time, too focused on capitalizing on the opening.

  Oh no.

  She looked up.

  Her senses screamed a warning as she felt Nourma's weapon above her… high in the sky.

  And now, the weapon was coming down like a meteor, and she was standing exactly at ground zero.

  Oh, you clever bastard.

  ~~~

  A/N: Our Reyana is also awesome!

  PS: Psst~ Psst~ Advanced chapters are already up on patreon. It would be awesome if you guys, you know...

  ? ? ?