Chapter 196: The Witch of Death

The kinetic energy of the strike simply ceased to exist. Vane had funneled the usurped gravity of the Event Horizon and the crushing dual mass of Samsara into the star steel blade. It was a strike calculated to pierce the hardened necrotic core of a Mid Justiciar. It was a strike that should have shattered the crypt.

Instead, it ended in absolute silence.

Vane hung suspended in the follow through of his thrust. His boots were planted in the pulverized stone of the flooded corridor. His right shoulder burned with the exertion of the blow. The Silver Fang was locked perfectly in place. The matte silver blade, glowing with the heavy grey light of absolute severance, was pinched between the thumb and forefinger of a pale hand.

Vane looked past the tip of his weapon.

The woman standing in the black water was an anomaly of existence. The gloom of the lower levels seemed to recoil from her skin. She possessed a voluptuous and regal figure, draped in a sleek midnight blue dress that swallowed the ambient light. Her hair was a cascade of light blue silk that drifted around her shoulders, entirely untouched by the damp and freezing air.

Her eyes were a luminescent violet. They did not hold the mechanical indifference of the Grave Warden. They held an ancient, crushing amusement.

Vane tried to pull the spear back. He engaged the muscles in his back and shoulder, applying leverage to wrench the star steel free. The weapon did not move a single millimeter. It felt as though the blade had been welded to the conceptual fabric of the universe itself.

He recognized the disparity instantly. There was no need for a tactical analysis. The gap between them was not a matter of ranks or output. It was the difference between a falling leaf and the ground it struck.

Vane released his grip on the Silver Fang.

He stepped back and let his right arm drop to his side. His left arm hung useless, the bone fractured from catching Kavor’s shovel. He breathed through his teeth, tasting the copper of his own blood.

Behind the woman, the Grave Warden fell to its knees. The massive iron construct bowed its rusted head until the blue slit of its mask nearly touched the stagnant water. It was a gesture of absolute, terrifying submission.

“Such a heavy strike for a fragile mortal frame,” the woman said.

Her voice was velvet wrapping a blade. It echoed through the stone chamber, carrying a frequency that vibrated directly against Vane’s ribs.

She twirled the Silver Fang effortlessly between her pale fingers. The heavy star steel spear spun like a wooden toy.

“You carry the weight of others,” she observed, her violet eyes narrowing as she studied Vane’s face. “The gravity of a star and the duality of a grave. How fascinating. You are a mirror, little vanguard. Or perhaps a thief.”

Vane did not answer. He kept his breathing shallow. He shifted his stance, placing his body directly between the woman and Isole. It was a useless gesture against a being of her magnitude, but his logic dictated the absolute necessity of shielding his vanguard.

The woman smiled. Her lips were a stark, perfect red against her pale skin.

“Do not look so grim,” she said. She lowered the spear, resting the star steel tip against the flooded floor. “If I intended to bury you here, you would already be dirt. I am merely inspecting the weeds that broke my gardener.”

She glanced back at Kavor. The Grave Warden shuddered under her gaze. Black sludge continued to leak from the massive puncture wound Vane had carved into its chest.

“Malphas spoke of a boy with silver eyes in the Iron Groves,” the woman said casually.

The name hit Vane like a physical blow. He had survived Malphas by a razor thin margin, relying entirely on Valerica’s breakthrough to escape.

“He said the boy was incredibly fragile, yet he refused to shatter,” the woman continued. She stepped closer. The black water did not ripple around her ankles. It simply parted, making way for her presence. “My summon is not prone to exaggeration. I see now what he meant. Your power is crude, but the foundation is unusual.”

She stopped three feet away from Vane. The scent of ozone and crushed lilacs filled the freezing air, suffocating the smell of rot and old blood.

“You did well to entertain him,” she whispered.

Vane held her gaze. He forced his heart rate to remain steady. “Are you going to kill us?”

The witch laughed. It was a soft, musical sound that made the ancient masonry of the crypt groan in protest.

“Kill you?” she repeated, genuinely amused. “Why would I destroy such entertaining anomalies? The board is dreadfully boring lately. You are the most interesting variables I have seen in centuries.”

She turned her violet eyes away from Vane and looked past his shoulder. She looked at Isole.

The High Elf was still kneeling in the black water. Her silk robes were ruined and stained with muck. The grey aura of her dual affinity had faded, but the residual heavy mana still clung to her dark green hair. She was staring at the witch, paralyzed by the sheer, crushing pressure radiating from the woman’s frame.

“And you,” the witch said softly.

She took a step forward. Vane did not move. The woman did not push him aside. She simply bypassed his physical presence entirely, appearing directly in front of Isole as if space itself had folded to accommodate her stride.

Isole flinched, but she did not lower her eyes. The cold rationalism of her mind fought against the biological terror in her blood.

The witch reached out a pale hand and tilted Isole’s chin upward.

“A Sylvaris who weaves the grave with the sun,” the witch murmured, her violet eyes shining with dark delight. “How utterly scandalous. Your elders would burn you at the stake for such a beautiful blasphemy. They are fools who fear the very soil they walk upon.”

Isole swallowed hard. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Who are you?”

The witch smiled again. She released Isole’s chin and stood up to her full, imposing height.

“A patron of the lost arts,” she said. “And the owner of this particular crypt. You have made a terrible mess of my basement, little Moon. But I will forgive the intrusion. The display was worth the damage.”

She turned back to Vane. She held out her hand, offering him the Silver Fang.

Vane stared at the weapon for a long moment. He reached out and wrapped his right hand around the star steel shaft. The moment his fingers touched the metal, the witch released it.

“Keep your spear, little vanguard,” she said.

Vane gripped the weapon tightly. He felt the silver mana pooling in his core, exhausted and thin. “What do you want?”

“I want to salvage my gardener,” she said, gesturing to the kneeling Grave Warden. “And I want to see what you two anomalies become when the real fire starts falling from the sky. It would be a tragic waste to let you drown in the dark today.”

She raised her pale right hand. Her slender fingers snapped together. The sound was not loud, but it possessed a sharp, cutting finality that severed the laws of physics.

The world inverted.

Vane did not feel acceleration. He did not feel movement. The freezing black water of the lower crypt simply vanished. The suffocating smell of rot and the heavy, crushing pressure of the ancient stone disappeared in the space of a single heartbeat.

A blinding flash of grey light overwhelmed his vision. The temperature plummeted from freezing to absolute, biting winter cold.

Vane hit the ground hard.

He was no longer standing in stagnant water. He was lying on a bed of packed, frozen snow. The howling wind of Mourn-Hold whipped across his face, carrying the sharp sting of ice crystals. The sky above him was a flat, bruised purple, heavy with unfallen snow.

The transition was too sudden for his ruined body to process. The usurped gravity of the Event Horizon evaporated from his muscles. The conceptual, heavy mass of Samsara drained from his silver circuits.

Without the borrowed absolutes holding him together, the reality of his physical condition crashed into him like a falling mountain.

The pain in his left arm was a white hot flare of agony. The jagged edge of his fractured bone ground against torn muscle. His sealed right lung burned with every frantic gasp of the freezing mountain air. The blood loss made the grey sky spin wildly above him.

Vane rolled onto his side. He gripped the Silver Fang tightly, using the cold metal to anchor his fading consciousness.

A few feet away, Isole lay crumpled in the snow. Her ruined silk robes offered no protection against the biting wind. Her silver white hair was fanned out across the white ground. She was entirely motionless, her chest rising and falling in shallow, ragged breaths. The absolute physical toll of breaking her limits and wielding the perfect duality had emptied her core completely.

Vane tried to call her name. The sound died in his ruined throat. He tasted blood and snow.

He looked around. The massive, shattered stone doors of the Old Crypts loomed behind them, silent and dark. The witch was gone. The heavy, necrotic Echo that had plagued the village was completely absent. The mountain was quiet, save for the howling wind.

They had survived. They had stared into the abyss, and the abyss had simply smiled and thrown them back out.

Vane dragged himself a few inches through the snow, reaching his hand toward Isole. His fingers brushed the cold, wet fabric of her sleeve. He felt the faint, steady pulse of her magic beneath the surface. She was alive.

He let out a long, shuddering exhale. His chin rested against the frozen mud. The edges of his vision darkened, closing in rapidly as the adrenaline finally left his system. The howling wind faded into a dull, rushing roar. Vane closed his eyes, and let the cold pull him under.

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