Shattered Glass (4)

Lance snapped his fingers and the rapier of darkness reformed in his hand, sleek and jagged with a curved edge like a talon. He met Ren's charge head-on, parrying the strike in a flash of black sparks. Lance twisted his body smoothly, caught Ren's blade mid-swing with his bare hand, then drove a brutal kick into Ren's gut. The impact hurled him back across the stone floor.

Ren skidded to a stop, sword trembling in his grip. He wiped blood from his mouth and narrowed his eyes. Lance didn't even flinch.

"Magic," Lance said, raising one hand to the crumbling ceiling, "is all one language. One system. You just have to know how to break past the rules."

Cracks shot across the walls. Chunks of the ground tore upward. Segments of the ceiling buckled and dropped with loud groans, drifting unnaturally into the air as if gravity had been reversed. Debris began to twist and spiral in place, slowly combining into a jagged mass.

Arthur raised his hand, moonlit sparks gathering at his fingertips. "I'm not letting that spell go off."

He fired a line of magic, slicing toward Lance's exposed side.

But Lance didn't even look.

A barrier of condensed darkness exploded from his shoulder, catching the strike mid-air and devouring it.

"Please," Lance muttered. "That was barely a whisper."

He spread his arms.

"The strongest casters forget something simple. Magic doesn't have to be elegant to be devastating."

The floating debris spiraled faster, clumping into a monstrous mass of steel, stone, and shattered glass. It curled inward into a makeshift meteor, thick with unstable mana. Lance thrust his hand forward, and the meteor launched with a roar.

Rin stepped forward, her hand engulfed in black fire. She slashed across the air. A wave of cursed flame carved upward, clashing against the projectile—but it only slowed the descent. The meteor crashed into the center of the room, detonating into a shockwave of force and debris.

Lyra dropped beside Isabelle and Elowen, a curved barrier of rose-colored mana sprouting from her palm. It wrapped around them like a dome, tanking the brunt of the impact. Cracks webbed across it, but it held.

"You two stay here. Move and I'll kill you myself," she muttered. "And don't touch anything."

Ren emerged from the smoke first, blood streaking down his temple. He charged Lance again, ice coiling up his arms and along the edge of his blade.

"No one else is going to die." he said to himself.

He slammed his sword down. A shockwave of frost shattered the stone beneath Lance, freezing everything in a burst of white.

But Lance was already behind him.

"You're reckless," Lance said, his voice brushing against Ren's ear like a whisper.

Ren turned—too late.

Lance struck.

The dark rapier pierced Ren's side cleanly, slipping between his ribs with surgical precision.

Ren choked. His eyes went wide.

The blade twisted.

Ren clutched the rapier, frost creeping along its blade as he locked it into his wound. The ice hissed where it met blood.

Lance snarled and yanked at the weapon. It wouldn't move.

A silver arc lit the air.

Moonlight split the battlefield as Arthur's slash tore forward, crashing into Lance like a blade of judgment. The wave sliced through his right arm with a burst of light and bone. Lance flew backward, crashing into the twisted wreckage of shattered machinery. Sparks danced across his back as he hit, metal whining beneath his weight.

He staggered up, one hand clutching the scorched, severed limb. Blood spilled down his side and painted the floor.

Arthur glanced to Rin, panting. "My mana's nearly gone. I'll take Ren. The rest is on you, Sakurai."

Rin nodded, silent.

Then her eyes locked on Lance.

She stepped forward.

Her black flames answered the call, rising around her legs and drifting like smoke from her fingertips. Not wild or frantic. Focused. Patient. A predator's breath.

Lance met her gaze, and for a brief second, the grin returned.

"I see," he muttered, voice breathless. "They sent the reaper."

The ground between them cracked.

Lance raised his remaining arm. Shadows coiled along the floor, birthing two warped clones. They weren't like the others—misshapen and incomplete, as if rushed. Still, they moved fast, blades dripping with the same mana as their master.

Rin didn't wait. Her black fire spun around her and burst outward in a controlled pulse. It scorched the floor in a precise spiral, tracing mana from the ground as it went. Her hand flicked, a flame darting toward the first clone like a living serpent.

It dodged.

But not fast enough.

The flame didn't aim for its body—it struck its shadow.

The clone stumbled, its legs buckling as mana siphoned from its core. It collapsed in seconds, fading to dust as its own magic betrayed it.

The second came in from behind.

Rin ducked low and twisted, dragging her heel through the ashes. A ribbon of black fire followed her motion, trailing her momentum and arcing up like a whip. It snapped through the clone's torso and drank the life out of it mid-swing.

Lance watched, unmoving.

"You're patient," he said softly. "You burn slow. I wonder if it's because you're afraid of burning out."

Rin said nothing. Her flames flickered higher in answer.

Lance stepped forward. His missing arm crackled with mana, raw and wild, trying to replace what was lost. The process made his steps unstable, but he compensated—flickers of shadow kept him upright, forming footholds beneath his feet.

He closed the distance in a blink.

His blade met hers.

Rin caught the strike on her forearm, the dark flames coating her skin like armor. The contact hissed. Her eyes narrowed.

"You're leaking," she said.

Mana poured from Lance's wound, his casting unstable. Rin swept her hand sideways, sending a stream of black fire in a horizontal arc. Lance leapt back, but a tendril lashed from the flame mid-air and clipped his leg.

The mana it touched drained like breath from lungs.

He winced, more out of irritation than pain.

"You're not strong enough to beat me," Lance said.

"No," Rin replied quietly. "But I don't have to be."

She pressed forward.

Each step layered black fire onto the field. Traps. Trails. Hooks. The ground behind her became a cursed grid, drinking in the residual mana like soil thirsting for rain.

Lance summoned another clone. It rushed her from the side, but Rin vanished in a blink, reappearing beside it. Her flame surged outward—not as an attack, but as a pulse. The clone's body distorted, mana draining in waves until its limbs withered and turned to dust.

She faced Lance again.

His breath quickened.

He charged.

The two collided. Blade met fist. Spell met fire. The entire chamber shook as black flames coiled around Lance's form and began to suffocate his shadow magic.

Lance roared and threw a wave of darkness upward. It twisted into jagged lances and rained down like spears.

Rin's hand flicked.

A dome of flame swallowed her whole—shifting, swirling, alive. The spears struck it and melted into nothing. She burst through the other side and dragged a flame-coated heel across the floor. Her black fire curved upward in a slicing wave and clipped Lance across the chest.

Rin landed a second later and snapped her fingers.

The flames across his body pulsed—and drained.

Lance dropped to a knee.

The lights in the chamber flickered. Pipes burst. The structure whined.

Rin approached again, her breathing heavier now, sweat trailing her brow. "You made a mistake keeping me alive this long."

Lance gritted his teeth. "This body… isn't done yet."

He plunged his remaining arm into the floor.

The shadows screamed. Dozens of clones rose from the ground—but they were flickering, unstable, their forms incomplete. Rin's flames had drained too much. He couldn't sustain them.

She didn't wait.

Her arms stretched outward. The black fire rose high behind her—then surged forward like a crashing tide. It ripped through the failing army, eating magic, shattering bones of light, consuming it all.

Lance stood at the eye of the storm.

Her fire reached him.

His body resisted, for a moment.

Then his knee hit the floor again.

"You can't outlast me," Rin whispered, stepping into the scorched circle. "This is your limit."

And as her flame curled around his remaining magic like a noose, Lance lowered his head.

Lance reached into the pool of shadows beneath him and pulled up a glint of silver.

A syringe.

His chest heaved with ragged breath. His laughter was thin, laced with pain and desperation. "I'm not going to die. I can't. My strength is meant to cover the world like a tide." His hand trembled as he brought the syringe to his arm. "This arena… it was designed for Gabriel Aurelius. Not any of you."

The needle pierced his skin. A thick violet liquid surged into his bloodstream, pulsing with mana and something far less natural.

Rin stepped forward and raised her hand. Her flames curled inward, black embers gravitating toward Lance's body like iron filings drawn to a storm.

Dark tendrils erupted from his shattered limb. They coiled and twisted, reshaping his hand in a grotesque mimicry of flesh. The flames didn't scare him. His fingers reached into the inferno.

Rin gasped. A bolt of searing pain struck through her stomach like a knife to the soul. Her knees gave out. She hit the ground hard, propping herself up with one shaking arm, her black fire guttering around her.

Lance moved without flinching. Each step scorched the black fire beneath him, yet the flames didn't burn him. They fed him.

"You're still clinging to this fight?" His voice was calm, almost pitying. "Aren't you afraid you'll die?"

Rin gritted her teeth. Her chest rose and fell with effort. "I've already met death once," she said. "It taught me to give everything just to see the next sunrise. If I fall now, then everyone who helped me… they'll have done it for nothing."

Lance crouched in front of her, his rebuilt hand twitching with unnatural spasms. "What a lovely sentiment," he whispered. "But I'm afraid you didn't fight hard enough." His voice turned cold. "The serum I took—it was made from Blight essence, condensed mana, and experimental bloodwork. A normal human's body would've rotted the second it entered their veins."

A flicker of white light flashed in Lance's peripheral vision.

His head whipped around—

Arthur stood there.

Silent.

His blade aimed like judgment itself. Every spirit he'd ever summoned spiraled around the sword, moonlight collecting in brilliant arcs. The very air around him thrummed.

Arthur's voice was barely more than a breath.

"Obliterate."

A beam of pure moonlight erupted from the tip of his blade. It wasn't a single strike—it was a river, a cascade of raw, sacred power. It tore across the lab, ripping into Lance's chest and pinning him against the metal wreckage behind him. The constant stream of mana dug trenches into the floor, illuminating the dark with impossible white.

One by one, the spirits faded, burning themselves away to keep the beam alive.

Finally, the light vanished.

Arthur dropped to his knees, soaked in sweat. He wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, his breath sharp and uneven.

Smoke filled the chamber.

When it cleared—Lance still stood.

Barely.

His skin had been flayed from his chest down to his ribs, blackened and burnt. Entire strips of muscle were missing. One of his eyes had boiled away. His shoulder was a nest of exposed bone and fractured tendons.

Yet he remained upright.

His hand gripped the wrecked metal behind him.

And then the darkness moved.

It slithered across his wounds, wrapping and stitching his ruined body together like a puppet built from shadows. His limbs reformed—not with flesh, but with dense cords of void-threaded mana. His torso sealed shut in segments. His skin regained shape, but no longer looked human. His veins glowed with corrupted light.

What rose wasn't a man.

It was a shell, held together by rage and invention.

Lance exhaled. "I should've done this sooner." He flexed his reconstructed fingers, watching them curl and twist. "Maybe I was afraid of what I'd become. But now… now I feel alive."

His eyes locked onto Rin.

"It's over."

His arm sharpened into a blade, and he lunged.

A flash of violet split the air.

Sosuke appeared in front of Rin in a crack of thunder, lightning singing across his shoulders. He swept her into his arms and vanished again, reappearing beside Elowen and the others. He lowered Rin gently to the floor.

Lance turned with a sneer. "Then I'll kill them first."

"No," Sosuke said, rising to full height. His voice rang like steel.

His Star Eyes gleamed, cutting through the dim laboratory like beacons.

"You won't hurt anyone else."

He pointed at Lance.

"I can see it. Your core's fractured. It's not even close to what it was before."

Sosuke glanced at Rin.

"It must've been her."

A tired chuckle slipped from his lips.

"She really gave everything, huh."

He looked back at Lance.