Location: Carlon – Mountain Caves | Year 8002 A.A.
The cave groaned like an old beast in its sleep, its hollow mouth open wide to the wind that roared through its jagged teeth. Dust spun in thin, twisting veils, carrying with it the scent of stone—cold, ancient, unyielding. The air was thick with more than wind. It bore the sting of old magic, the kind that clung to skin and fur and made one's breath feel as if it dragged through sand.
From the cavern's entrance, the valley below could just be glimpsed—a land broken and bent, as though once crushed under the heel of a giant. Trees, few and far between, bowed to the tyranny of the gale, their branches gnarled and pointing in the same direction like a chorus of accusations. But inside, the light was stranger still. Ancient mana crystals, long dead yet stubbornly refusing to surrender all their radiance, pulsed faintly from the walls. Their glow was pale, ghostly, casting wavering shadows that moved like restless souls.
And there, in the very heart of the cavern, stood Kon Kaplan.
The tiger warrior's stance was a thing of deliberate defiance. His legs were braced against the uneven stone, every muscle taut as a bowstring pulled to its breaking point. His shoulders squared, his claws flexed—half-curled, half-ready, poised between patience and fury. His fur, the color of flame in sunlight, bristled under the unseen pressure of hostile Mana that thickened the cave like a fog. Even the ponytail of gold that hung behind him swayed gently with the rhythm of his breath, though his breathing was not calm—it was controlled, like a fire forced into a lantern.
His single golden eye was the brightest thing in the cavern, gleaming sharp as a blade. The black patch over the other was not a weakness but a reminder—a silence where sight had once been, now turned into unwavering resolve. His swords were sheathed at his sides, yet nothing about him was still. He was the stillness of a predator crouched, the stillness that comes not from peace, but from the readiness to strike at the first shift in the air.
And before him, waiting with all the patience of executioners, stood the Punisher Duo.
Sahira moved like a whisper caught in flame. Her body tall and lithe, her emerald scales shimmered under the ghostlight, reflecting glimmers of green that danced across the stone walls. Her hood was partially spread, a promise of venom yet to be loosed, and above her brow, her third eye gleamed—a pulsing, golden light that throbbed with malice. The glow was alive, watching, pressing, like a finger upon the mind. She did not merely stand in the cavern; she wrapped herself around it. The air itself seemed to bow to her, twisting into unseen coils that constricted thought and breath alike.
Beside her, Baraz was her perfect counterbalance—a mountain cast in flesh and fire. His form was brutal, shoulders broad enough to dwarf the cave wall behind him. Purple flames licked across his bulk, consuming nothing yet devouring everything. Sparks crackled around the obsidian horn that jutted from his skull, humming with dark mana so dense it made the stone floor beneath him splinter. Every stomp of his hooves was a threat, each crack in the cavern's rock like a countdown to destruction.
Kon's jaw set, a faint tremor running down the line of his cheek as he tightened it. He knew at once: this was no longer reconnaissance, no cautious probing of enemy strength. This was battle.
He shifted slightly, turning his head just enough to look over his shoulder—and the breath caught in his chest.
There stood Kopa Boga.
The stag, his antlers gleaming faintly even in the dim light, should have looked a figure of defiance, of protection. But his posture betrayed him. One arm half-raised, caught in the beginnings of a defense he would never finish. His green eyes—normally bright as spring leaves in sunlight—were dimmed, glazed over with a dull, unnatural sheen. They stared past Kon, past the cavern, as though they had been swallowed whole.
"Kopa!" Kon's voice thundered through the cavern, raw, cracking against stone. It was a command and a plea in one.
But there was no answer.
Kopa's chest rose and fell in eerie rhythm, his breathing steady but hollow, as if performed not by his own will but by some unseen puppeteer tugging at invisible strings. And behind him, Kon saw the refugees. Men, women, children—those he had sworn, silently if not aloud, to protect. All stood in that same dreadful stillness, bodies upright, eyes empty, trapped in some dream not their own.
Sahira's eye.
Kon's claws curled until they dug into his palms, breaking flesh. He felt the sting, the wet warmth of blood gathering in his fists, but he welcomed it. The pain tethered him. It cut through the haze pressing in on his mind, reminded him of what was real. But it could not erase the sight before him—his friend, his ally, held as nothing more than a puppet upon the strings of a serpent's gaze.
'Damn it.' The words were not spoken but burned through his chest like coals. 'She caught them all.'
Sahira's third eye flared, its golden glow expanding like an ember fanned to flame. Her lips parted into a smile, curved and poisonous, a smile of one who did not need to hurry, for she already believed herself victorious. Her voice slithered through the air, wrapping itself around Kon's ears with languid delight.
"You're tenacious, Wild Tiger," she drawled, each word rolling from her tongue with venomous amusement. "But even Hazël Lords bend to me when their guard slips."
Kon's golden eye narrowed, its flame refusing to be dimmed. His jaw clenched, his voice roughened into a low growl that carried more faith than fury.
"He's not gone," he said, each syllable struck like iron. "Not yet."
And as if those words had touched some hidden chord, Kopa's body shuddered.
The stag trembled from antler to hoof, every line of him shaking as though invisible chains pulled at his limbs. His eyes, clouded and vacant, flickered for the briefest heartbeat—something behind them stirring, something fighting. Yet the struggle had its price.
Kon's stomach dropped as he saw it: Kopa's hands.
From his fingertips upward, a creeping blackness spread. The flesh seemed to harden, to calcify, as if stone itself was swallowing him alive. Fingers became unfeeling blocks, veins vanished beneath the crawling crust, and the weight of earth itself climbed up his arms like shackles forged in silence.
"No…" Kon's voice cracked against the cavern walls. He took a step forward, claws flexing in helpless desperation. "Kopa! Stop! Stop fighting it!"
His words were not command but plea, ragged and hoarse, thrown like ropes to a drowning man.
"It's the only way—you've got to yield!"
The words rang out, shattering the cavern's breathless stillness.
Kopa exhaled—long, strained, a breath pulled from deep within. His shoulders sagged, his trembling arms loosening as though he had abandoned the fight. His body seemed to remember stillness, to let go of the futile struggle that tightened the chains around him. The creeping transmutation slowed… and with a shiver, stopped.
Kon let out a sharp, almost disbelieving gasp. Relief struck him, swift as lightning—but mingled with it was dread. Because the struggle was not won, only postponed.
Sahira purred.
Her clawed hand lifted to her lips, tracing them as though savoring the taste of her prey before devouring it. Her third eye glowed brighter still, fixated upon Kopa. Her voice softened to something almost tender, though it was tenderness sharpened into cruelty.
"But he will be mine in the end," she whispered, as though speaking to herself, or perhaps to the stone that clung to his arms.
Kon's heart lurched, for even as her words left her mouth, Kopa's body moved.
His hooves slammed against the cavern floor with thunderous force. The stone quivered under the strike, cracking outward in a web of fractures. From those wounds in the earth, something terrible and unnatural was born. Vines—twisting, spiraling, crimson as blood—burst upward. Their thorns gleamed wickedly in the ghostlight, barbed spears of living malice. They surged toward Kon, writhing as though guided by purpose, hungering to pierce flesh.
Sahira's lips curved wider, and she breathed the name of the spell like a lover's sigh.
"Forest Emergence."
The words carried a caress, almost loving, as though she adored the very cruelty she unleashed.
Kon's breath rushed out in a sharp exhale, no longer the breath of patience but of decision. His claws flashed forward, sunli6 light flaring along their edges. He moved with the inevitability of instinct, the culmination of years trained into his very bones.
"Swordless Style…" His voice rang, steady and fierce, through the gloom.
"Bölünme Darbesi—Severing Blow!"
His claws swept wide, cutting arcs of light across the oncoming thicket. Golden strokes split the air, sharp enough to sear themselves into the cavern walls. One by one, the crimson vines met his strikes—and one by one, they fell. Severed mid-rush, they dissolved into motes of dust, scattering like ash caught in wind. The cavern became a storm of broken leaves and dying thorns, raining down harmlessly around him.
Kon did not wait for the silence to settle.
He lunged forward, his paw slamming hard against the cold stone beneath his feet. Mana flared outward in a golden ripple, expanding in perfect arcs until it formed a half-dome around Kopa. The energy solidified into translucent light, a cage not of punishment but of protection. Its glow shimmered against the jagged walls, casting the stag within in soft radiance, cutting him off from Sahira's gaze—if only for a moment.
Kon's breath came ragged now. Sweat beaded and ran down his neck, dripping into the fur of his chest. His eye never left the shimmering barrier, never left the friend who stood trapped within. His voice was low, clenched between teeth, yet steady.
"Sleep it off my friend,a" he muttered.
However—
BOOOOOOOM!
The cave erupted in sound. Stone trembled, air shuddered, and dust exploded from the cracks above in thick clouds. It was not the cry of wind nor the groan of rock—it was violence made into thunder.
Baraz had struck.
Kon felt the attack before he truly saw it. The ground convulsed under his feet, an upheaval like the belly of the world rolling in protest. Shadows leapt wildly across the jagged cavern walls, stretching long and thin like terrified spirits fleeing from the force. Fragments of stone rained down in dull clatters, bouncing against his shoulders and arms.
And yet—when the dust settled, Kon still stood.
He was planted firm, body braced, a barrier of yellow light stretched outward from him in a wide arc. The glow shimmered with strain, vibrating against the impact, but it held. Behind him, the refugees, wide-eyed and still bound in half-trances, remained untouched.
Kon's teeth bared in a snarl. His face twisted, not in fear but in rage, and the single golden eye blazed hotter, colder, steadier. His voice ground out through grit and fury.
"That…" His breath rasped, claws curling tight. "...was a huge mistake."
The cavern itself seemed to recoil at the tone, for it was not boast, not bluff—it was promise.
Baraz shifted, massive bulk rolling forward like a mountain dislodged from its roots. The purple fire that wreathed his shoulders flared higher, licking the cave roof, casting shadows that writhed and twisted grotesquely. His form was a pillar of darkness, but the flame made him alive, terrible, untouchable.
"Twenty percent output," he rumbled.
The words did not merely echo. They vibrated, carried through the ground itself, making the stone floor tremble as though acknowledging the weight of his declaration.
Baraz's horn burned with gathering mana. It coiled around him in thick, violent streams—raw energy warped, its purity poisoned by the Shadow's corruption. The mana thickened until it seemed a storm contained within itself, violet-black tendrils writhing like serpents trying to escape their prison. The pressure bore down on Kon's chest, stealing his breath.
Baraz's deep voice cut through it like the toll of a bell.
"Implosion."
At the utterance, the gathered energy collapsed inward, compacting into a single orb, seething and furious. It pulsed with a hunger that promised nothing would remain in its wake. The air hissed around it, warped and bending as though reality itself shrank away.
And then Baraz swung.
The orb blasted forward, a comet of violet flame tearing through the cavern. Its passage left behind a trail of distortion, an afterimage etched in light and shadow, as though even the air burned under its fury.
Kon's instincts screamed. Every nerve was fire, every muscle demanded motion. He braced, aura igniting in golden brilliance, flooding outward until his body shone like a small sun. His claws clenched, his feet dug into the stone, ready to receive.
His hand hovered. Trembling. His claws brushed the hilt of one of his swords.
The weight of it seemed to draw his whole arm down, as though the blade itself longed to be unsheathed. And beneath that weight was another—greater, more dangerous—the weight of revelation. He grabbed the hilt, his aura slightly shifting into crimson.
And then—
BOOOOOOOM!
The world became sound and fury, light and ruin.
A wall erupted from the cavern floor—crystal, blue and luminous, its surface veined with streams of living mana. The shield rose not in violence, but in sudden and serene certainty, like the sea itself standing upright. The Implosion struck it head-on.
The cave roared in protest.
Power rippled outward, shockwaves tearing through the stone, making fissures spread like spiderwebs along the ceiling. Dust rained down in choking clouds, filling the cavern with a storm of grit and thunder. Yet the shield endured. Its crystalline surface shivered, cracks branching outward, but it held. Each fracture caught the light, turning the shield into a prism of scattered blues and silvers. It was not unscarred—but it was unbroken.
And then, as the fury faded, the chamber was left in a stillness broken only by the soft settling of stone.
Through the haze, Kon saw a figure standing beside him.
Adam Kurt.
The wolf emerged like a shape from legend, framed in the fractured glow of the crystal wall. His fur, a deep and sleek blue, gleamed faintly under the ghostlight, broken by subtle streaks of yellow that traced through his long hair. It brushed his shoulders in uneven strands, stirred gently by the restless air.
Across his brow, the yellow blindfold shifted with the faintest movements, concealing the crystalline light that pulsed faintly beneath. His wolf paws, bare against the shattered rock, moved with soundless grace. The robe he wore—greenish-blue, flowing and frayed at the edges—billowed in the unsettled currents, neither regal nor ragged, but something between.
Upon his back rested a sword, its sheath oddly short, more dagger than blade. Yet even sheathed, it carried promise, a quiet gravity, as though the stone itself hesitated to crack beneath it. Over his right shoulder, etched like living ink, the mark burned faintly: Hazël #1.
The sight of it cut through the cave's gloom, louder than the blast had been. The mark was not decoration—it was declaration.
"You almost let your true strength show just now."
Adam's voice was quiet, but quiet in the way of steel hidden beneath silk. There was no accusation in it, but neither was there softness. It was the kind of voice that carried command without needing to raise itself. He did not even look at Kon when he spoke, as though the truth were obvious, needing no confirmation.
Kon's chest rose and fell in ragged rhythm, his fur damp with sweat. His breath rasped, sharp, each inhalation dragging heat from his lungs. He stepped back, claws twitching, his single golden eye glinting with restrained fire.
"Didn't have much choice," he rasped.
Adam tilted his head slightly. The blindfold shifted with the motion, the faint light beneath glimmering. "But you stopped."
The words fell like stone into water, rippling outward. Kon's eye flicked aside, gaze narrowing, golden flame dimming in quiet irritation.
"You here to take over?"
Adam's tail swayed once—slow, deliberate, measured. "Depends." His voice was low, unhurried, but carried the kind of certainty that did not need haste. "I'm here to make sure you don't push too far."
The words struck Kon like a blade angled not at flesh but at pride. He drew a slow breath through his nose, forcing down the instinct to bristle. He knew what Adam meant. He also knew it was true. But truth rarely soothed.
The cavern rumbled again.
Baraz stepped forward, each hooffall cracking stone, fissures splitting outward like scars across the earth. The violet fire roared across his shoulders, licking upward with hungry violence. His eyes narrowed, the darkness in them flaring hotter with recognition. His voice came low, deep, and resonant, each syllable heavy as falling stone.
"You…" His horn glowed, fire intensifying as he spoke. "…you are the one who—"
"Quiet."
The word cut the cavern sharper than any blade.
Sahira's voice lashed through the air, a whip of venom and fury. Her forked tongue flickered, the sound like sparks striking flint. The golden eye upon her brow flared, its baleful light spilling across the cavern, staining the stone in sickly brilliance.
Her voice sank into a hiss, low, sharp, almost trembling. "Kurtcan's wielder…"
For the first time, a fracture appeared—not in stone, but in her composure.
Her body rippled as her scales tightened, her serpent hood twitching back ever so slightly. She took one small step backward, her eyes fixed not on Kon now, but Adam. Her lips curved into something between awe and anger.
"So, the stories are true."
The cavern seemed to hold its breath.
Kon said nothing. His claws flexed at his sides, his golden eye fixed unblinking on Baraz. He stepped closer to Adam, not behind him, but beside. Not in surrender, but in solidarity.
"I guess this makes us even," Kon muttered, his voice low, ragged with breath but sharpened with defiance. His muzzle twitched into a smirk that didn't reach his eye. "For you being an asshole earlier."
For a moment, Adam did not move. Then, slowly, the corners of his mouth curved upward—the smallest flicker of a smirk. "I'll collect later."
And in that instant, the cavern knew where it stood.
Tiger and Wolf, side by side.
The dust still drifted from the trembling roof above, settling like ash upon their shoulders. The shadows pressed close, leaning in to bear witness to what was about to unfold.