Kavlina charges forward, snatching a New Rule soldier’s knife before slicing their neck. The enemies around her fall like crops to the scythe, their lives rapidly reclaimed by Death.

As long as she is concerned, she is already far ahead of the Battalion, and perhaps, maybe, only a few steps away from Avalel. She feels it in her instincts. The ruthless Avalel will not shrink away from such horrific acts of bloodshed. She feels her body slowing down from the intense attacks, but that does not matter.

She bashes her blade against a soldier, breaking their helmet and skull. The blade itself is shockingly blunt, acting now more as a brutal hammer. She cannot even clean the blood on it, her eyes and limbs focusing only on the next soldier, and the next, and the next.

An aircraft crashes to the ground near her, shrapnel flying her way. She dodges, but one small piece still pierces her calf. She hears soldiers shouting “Run, run!” but she doesn’t care. They’re only sacrificial pawns, enemies in her way. A moment later, an explosion, another piece of shrapnel scraping her mask.

“Kill this insane mercenary!” a soldier screams. She cuts him down, her blade smashing against his torso. An accurate shot hits her wrist, knocking the knife out of her hand. A mere distraction. She grabs a pistol from a dead officer, firing as her legs pin two others down, crushing their torsos with her metal boots as she jumps up.

There is no stopping her. The number of enemies is already dwindling, and despite her injuries, she will not rest. She lets her instincts guide her, the energy coursing through her. No matter what they try to do, they simply cannot touch her. Her powerful legs drive her forward in large strides, her arm temporarily borrowing enemy weapons, using those same tools to kill their former owners. She sees the outlines of a hidden entrance now, the roof camouflaged by a layer of soil and dirt. Troops must’ve filed out from there before, but now, it is an empty space, guarded by seemingly no one.

Avalel will have no choice but to face her when she enters Thille.

Boom! A fiery explosion shakes the ground, stunning her and the soldiers for a moment. Even as she advances, she feels a warm gust of wind knocking her back, some dust drifting into her nose and mouth. As she shields herself with a corpse, she turns around for a moment, witnessing a large pillar of smoke pollute the air.

It is only an artillery barrage. Nothing special for her.

The enemies freeze, stunned by that seemingly normal barrage. Space for her to advance, exploiting their unprofessionalism. Even as several more of them fall to her strikes, they only offer a feeble reply, their minds still at the smoke behind her. There is nothing special about that bombardment to her. The casualties, after all, should only comprise the New Rule’s soldiers.

Her eyes are only on one figure, dressed completely in a glorious white suit of armor, in his right hand a sword shining with energy, its strength and intensity almost like that of the intense heat of the Elyfesta. Yet she cannot sense any sense of warmth, only the cold cruelty, guilty of the snatching of many lives. Inside that suit of armor, she senses only the husk of one who was her closest friend, now nothing more than a dead puppet.

She stares at Avalel, his face concealed by an expressionless helmet. Behind him are a small squad of soldiers, perhaps his escorts or guards, but they serve no particular importance to her. Her eyes are only on the boy who once was her dear friend for four years, now a ruthless tyrant controlling an ailing faction under his palm. The one whom she had supported for so long… until he betrayed her and Tarak. She only remembers that much, but it is more than enough for her.

The villain now stands before her, ready to take her life, as she is to take his.

“Surprising that I am meeting a soldier of the Confederation so soon,” Avalel says. “Where are the others? Or perhaps… You are the only survivor?” He does not recognize her, seeing her only as another one of those pawns. She is not.

The gears in her left arm twitch, removing the blood and other materials that had seeped into the system earlier. A waterfall of liquids splatter the ground, coating it in a puddle of red. Compared to Avalel’s clean armor, her clothes are dirty, stained with the blood of her victims and torn from blasts that had grazed her. Her blade is blunt, but she has finally found the space to regenerate.

As she closes her eyes, the dull metal seems to polish and sharpen itself, growing, reaching out in thin little wires. As they wrap and fold, the blade extends, the grime pushed away in favor of new metal, the energy driving its creation. Not just as an apparition, a fake imitation created by pure energy as Kerohar does, but the solidification of it into something she desires. Not even the magic of regeneration and healing, where broken parts are repaired, but the creation of something further, enhancing the original object far beyond the normal sense of comprehension. It is the epitome of magic itself, gifted, received from the finest of concentration, the removal of emotion.

Materialization. The creation of something from nothing.

“It has been a while.” Kavlina doesn’t know what she is saying. She didn’t even remember his face, recognizing Avalel only from his still boyish voice. Aside from her fractured memories, she realizes he is just a stranger, one whom she has no connection with since Tarak died.

“Do you know me?” Avalel asks. “A shock that someone from the Confederation has already reached this far.” He doesn’t even seem alarmed, not unlike one noticing a dead leaf drifting to the ground.

“I am only here to kill you.” She points her blade at him, the metal still bubbling as if it’s alive.

The other soldiers raise their rifles, pointing at Kavlina. However, Avalel doesn’t even flinch, his stance still the same as before.

“Relax,” he says to his subordinates, motioning for them to back down. “This enemy soldier just has an unnatural obsession over my life. Continue the plan in my absence.” Obediently, his subordinates leave him, refusing to sneak even a glance at their revered leader.

He takes a step forward, dragging his sword on the ground. Sparks fly, the ground cracked and scorched from the sheer presence of the energy. All she can hear is its noise, screeching, overpowering even the sounds of artillery. The soldiers, the entrance, the wasteland… They all fade away as she now only sees Avalel, the one destined for her to kill, the sole reason for her continued existence in this world.

After this day, she will die.

“Although I do not remember you, I applaud your foolishness and strength to have cut through so many of my soldiers alone to face me,” Avalel says, his steps gradually increasing in speed. “But I must apologize, for we do not have places in our graveyards to bury the enemy dead.”

Eight black blades materialize from behind his back, each marked with an alien symbol resembling some sort of a name. They are no apparitions or imitations. Together, they form somewhat of a ring behind him, their collective energy emanating like a halo. Squinting, Kavlina can even make out the thin trails of energy binding the blades to Avalel himself, like strings attached to the limbs of a puppet.

“Eight mages forged this sword,” he chants as if in a trance. “Their lives, forged into one weapon. Their names, engraved in the Spirit. Their power, in slumber in a stone. The Eight now rise, their eternity etched into the temporary appearance of blades. Servants of the One, chosen by Fate, the Eight now fight for its ambition, their power unlocked inside its Gate.”

He suddenly charges, his sword poised for a stab. Kavlina instinctively dodges. Her eyes catch the gleam of the weapon as it narrowly hisses past her shoulder. Bringing her own blade up to her face, she finds herself parrying a second attack. A jolt, sending her arm in a peculiar direction. She parries a third. Her legs leap upward just as the sword strikes the ground, scorching it in a blast of energy.

She staggers back as she lands, narrowly avoiding more strikes. It’s relentless. There is no space to even counterattack. Her eyes dart around, tracking his movements. In front, to the side, behind… Breaking and reforming, her blade is somewhat of a shield, protecting her unarmored body. Where one blade is deflected, another takes its place to attack. There is nowhere to think.

An attack from behind. She parries, forcing an opening in front of her. A slash in front. She jumps to the side, just as another blade reaches towards her face. She ducks, finding instead a leg already there, knocking into her chest.

She stumbles, her breath knocked out of her lungs. There is no rest. Her left arm is immediately skewered by a blade, rendering the machinery from below the elbow immobile. A searing pain reaches her ribs, her flesh suddenly feeling warm air. No time to react. Her legs, her waist, her arm, even her neck… One slash after another, wounding her just enough to render her immovable, yet retaining the consciousness to face Avalel as he now towers over her, the eight blades fading away as he points his sword at her throat.

“Your skills are, unfortunately, still inadequate to even touch me,” he gloats. “I still remember a certain group of soldiers from the Confederation who dared to test my power quite a while ago. I believe it is only honorable for you and them if I defeat you in the same manner.”

She cannot even speak, with every twitch of her muscles sending excruciating pain through her entire body. Just how did he strike with such precision and accuracy, the flow of her energy severed just enough to render herself useless and temporarily paralyzed? Yet those questions cannot be answered now as his sword is raised up high like an executioner’s blade, frozen just for a moment before it swings down.

So much for her goal to kill him. So much for the sole purpose of her continued existence.

“A goodbye to you, brave soldier of the Confederation.”