When sound came back, it didn't return gently.
It screamed.
Rain hit the ground again — all at once — a single thunderclap of water striking broken metal.
Liora and Drayk moved as one; muscle and light, weight and edge.
And Mael? He was already in motion, tracing something invisible between them.
---
The Duel Begins
Liora struck first — four hardlight blades spinning around her like orbiting suns.
She closed the gap in two strides, stabbing, slashing, bending each weapon mid-swing. Every blade hummed at a pitch that could slice steel.
Drayk followed from the flank, dragging his hand through the ground.
Everything his fingers touched turned black, veins of transmuted stone crawling up like vines — the earth itself reinforcing him.
They attacked in perfect rhythm.
Guild combat doctrine at its finest.
The pattern — three strikes high, one sweep low, pressure left, overload right — had killed monsters far bigger than Mael.
But Mael wasn't playing by their tempo.
He slipped between strikes like he'd read their rhythm before they even moved. His boots barely touched the ground — each step controlled, no wasted motion.
Liora's blade tore through the air; Mael leaned just enough for the light to kiss his coat and nothing more.
Drayk's reinforced fist came for his ribs.
Mael caught it.
Didn't block — caught it, fingers closing around the moving force like he'd simply decided it should stop.
Drayk's eyes widened. "What—"
The next second, he was flying backward, slammed into a pile of collapsed scaffolding. The metal cracked like thunder, and the rain hissed on the heat of displaced Mirra.
---
The Guild's Finest
Liora pivoted, refusing to hesitate. She spun her blades around herself, forming a glowing halo — a perfect ring of death.
She flung it.
The spinning arc of light sliced through what little was left of the street — until Mael stepped through it.
The blade passed where his chest should've been, leaving only vapor and fragments of light scattering behind him.
Liora's focus sharpened. "You're distorting space. How?"
Mael's tone was soft, almost polite.
"I'm not. You just never learned how to stop thinking the world is solid."
Then he moved.
It wasn't teleportation; it was understanding.
The air folded slightly where he'd been, and in the next instant, his knuckles brushed Liora's jaw. The hit wasn't brutal — just precise. Enough to send her tumbling across the wet ground.
She slid to a stop beside Drayk, who had just pulled himself out of the wreckage, blood streaking down his cheek.
"You okay?" he barked.
Liora spat out a mouthful of red and wiped her chin. "Don't ask."
Her light flared brighter. "We do this together."
Drayk cracked his neck, Mirra veins glowing like burning wire. "You think he's human?"
Liora's eyes fixed on Mael's silhouette through the mist.
"I think he stopped being human when the world started making sense to him."
---
The Shift
They went again.
Two streaks — gold and blue — against a backdrop of gray.
Liora danced forward, slicing at his midsection while Drayk threw up metal walls to corner him. Each time Mael slipped between them, the walls closed, forming a cage.
This time, it worked — for a heartbeat.
Mael stopped. Looked around the cage like he was inspecting a child's drawing.
Then touched the wall.
A low hum, almost too soft to hear, rippled through the street.
The metal began to corrode — not rust, but something worse, unraveling itself, atoms bending outward like they'd decided they were tired of obeying.
The entire construct collapsed into black dust.
Mael stepped out, brushing his hands like he'd handled something dirty.
"Traps only work if your prey doesn't enjoy them."
---
Panic, Properly Introduced
Drayk roared and hurled a slab of transmuted rock the size of a wagon.
Mael didn't dodge.
He walked through it.
The rock shattered — not from impact, but from sudden absence, the entire middle of it gone like someone had erased a frame of reality.
Drayk stumbled.
"What the hell are you?"
Mael smiled faintly. "I'm what happens when rules get bored."
He blurred again, appearing beside Drayk before the man could react. A flick of his wrist, a soft crack — Drayk's forearm bent wrong.
He screamed and swung with his other fist; Mael ducked, caught his wrist, and let the motion carry him forward, slamming Drayk face-first into the wall.
The street shook from the impact.
Liora lunged in to save him, light forming twin daggers.
Mael turned, grabbed her wrist mid-swing —
and for the briefest instant, their eyes met.
She saw nothing there. No hate, no thrill. Just calm purpose.
He whispered, "You're wasting something beautiful."
Then flung her across the street like a discarded sketch.
---
The Crack in Perfection
For the first time, they faltered.
Their rhythm — perfect for years — fell apart.
Drayk knelt, gasping, clutching his broken arm.
Liora's blades flickered, unstable from exhaustion and shock.
The rain around them hissed like it wanted to comment but was too afraid to.
Mael watched, silent. He tilted his head slightly, as if measuring something.
"Two of the Guild's finest," he said softly. "All that training. All that structure. You're still fighting me, not yourselves."
Liora's breathing hitched. "What does that even—"
Mael stepped forward. "You'll understand before it ends."
---
The Tease of Power
For a moment, he vanished.
The air folded again, and when it snapped back, Liora found him behind her.
He didn't attack. Just whispered near her ear:
"Watch carefully. This is how a rule dies."
He lifted his hand — open palm.
No light. No energy flash.
And yet every drop of rain within five meters froze midair, suspended like a painting of glass.
Liora's pulse stuttered.
She could feel something pressing down on her Mirra, like a hand over her throat.
Drayk shouted, "Move!"
But she couldn't.
Mael's gaze flicked to him.
"Too late."
He clenched his fist.
Every frozen droplet exploded outward at once — not like water, but shrapnel, each one carrying the force of a bullet.
Drayk dove, but a dozen shards tore into his shoulder and leg, blood streaking the rain.
Liora stumbled free, her shoulder sliced open.
---
End Scene
Mael exhaled, lowering his hand.
His expression didn't change.
The battlefield looked worse now — smoke, rain, blood mixing into something almost artistic.
He turned slightly, looking at them both.
"You wanted a monster," he said quietly. "You should've asked for one that knew when to stop."
He started walking forward again — slow, calm, measured.
Drayk forced himself up, shaking.
Liora gritted her teeth, blades reforming around her.
And as the storm gathered itself for another chorus, the world seemed to lean forward to watch what happened next.
---
End of Chapter 44.
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