“You have no idea what went into that orb,” the mysterious woman complained, “should be ashamed of what you’ve done.” Her shawl shifted as if she were shaking her head. “Should have just led with this.”

They were back in the passage. The ocean of dead wolves made that obvious. He felt fine, the fatigue and exhaustion completely wiped away. His Discord was as usual, calm as a lake. What happened? The cuts in his duster were mended. Not stitched together, but completely fixed, as if it were never damaged. He checked his gash. Sure enough, it was gone. There was no evidence of it being cut.

She twirled her weird sword around. It had a long rectangular blade and a ring at the hilt, like a giant keychain around her wrist.

A scythe fell into Sayhas’ hands. The cold metal was warm to the touch, invoking reminiscing memories Perhaps he was dumb for not using Maaier Speal in this desperate situation. But this was his scythe. It deserved to be there when he died.

“Hello,” Soulthirst said into mind. Soulthirst prodded him with a slight hum, seeking attention like the child. “This is a good time to run isn’t it?” Soulthirst asked. Wordlessly, Sayhas raised Soulthirst in a basic scythe stance. Somehow, Soulthirst huffed in Sayhas’ mind, displaying as much sass as Mizu on a bad day. “Fine. You won’t last ten seconds though.”

“Let’s try this again.” She rested her odd sword on her shoulder and paced. “I'm not here to hurt you. You won’t die. It’s rather painless experience or so I’m told. Trust me nothing will go wrong.”

“You’re doing a bad job at persuading us.”

“Look, I really just need to pok—”

“No,” Mizu interrupted. She pointed two diametric daggers at the women's face. A short arc of lightning shot out from them

Almost casually, the woman dismantled the weird rectangular blade reforming it into her oversized silver blade, with fluidity and expertise that Sayhas didn’t think possible. She sliced at the bolt. “A dual aspect formed of off galvanic differences. Interesting,” she mused.

“Not going to consider running?”

Shut up Sayhas thought.

The woman pointed her silver sword at Oldum. Mizu’s lightning bolt shot out—Sayhas recognized it’s Discord—except this time, it was stronger. Oldum dispersed it into six smaller beams with a honeycomb lattice. They reflected off an ethereal mirror and bounces back towards the woman.

She reformed the blade back into her odd rectangular one and swung carelessly. The bolt’s halted and travelled backwards. Then, it returned back to her silver blade. She pointed the blade at Sayhas, shooting out the exact same bolt.

“My turn?” Soulthirst asked.

Sayhas channelled Discord into it.

“Yay,” Soulthirst said, emanating a bubble of soft sound. The bubble refracted the bolt into Soulthirst causing the scythe to light up. It spat out the light forming a blue, wispy orb behind Sayhas. “Tasty, but more please.”

A bright ray raced out of the orb, consuming it. “What,” Soulthirst complained, “that’s it! At least do the other one. C’mon, final hurrah.”

The woman wagged a cylindrical dagger made out of interlaced, multi-coloured metal rods at the ray. It disappeared.

“Alright, this is going nowhere,” she said, “change of plans.” Her dagger reformed into her silver blade and she materialized a bright lantern in her other hand. The lantern reeked of something unnatural—similar to Clive's chains.

As if on queue, Oldum and the woman leapt into the fray at the same time. Mizu stayed back, waiting for an opening.

A rhythmic, iridescent barrier, enveloped Oldum, pushing her silver sword back. Silent waves emitted from the lantern rolled towards the barrier, threatening to bring it down. Oldum didn’t bother to counterattack, he had a simple job: distract the woman until Sayhas is ready and potentially provide Mizu with an opening. They've practiced tactic hundreds of times, it’s always worked, even against Clive.

The battle for their lives had begun.