The air in the Nexan wasteland didn't just feel hot—it felt dead. Ash fell like a perpetual, silent snow, muffling sound and choking the light. In the center of a scorched basin, two figures stood facing one another, the tension between them a physical force.
Neros, clad in dusty, functional leathers, broke the silence, his voice a dry rasp. "Are you ready to fall, child of shadow?" As he spoke, a faint crimson aura ignited around his forearms, and the ground at his feet cracked, weeping tendrils of glowing, hot ash.
Morde didn't grace him with a reply. Beneath his hood, his crimson eyes burned with a cold fire. He took a single, deliberate step forward—and vanished.
He reappeared in a blur, a fist aimed at Neros's temple. It was blocked with an almost lazy efficiency. Neros countered with a knee wreathed in embers, but Morde twisted in mid-air, landing silently a few paces away.
"Fast," Neros conceded, a predatory smirk on his face. "But you still think like a brawler. This is a war of essence."
The earth erupted around Neros. "Cinder Chains!" he roared. Serpents of molten, glowing ash shot forth, impossibly fast, wrapping around Morde's arms and torso. The chains hissed, not just burning his cloak but siphoning the dark energy that flickered around him. Morde grunted, his body seizing as the searing heat met a deeper, soul-draining cold.
Neros yanked him forward and drove a fist into his stomach. The air left Morde's lungs in a whoosh as he was thrown backward, skidding through the blackened dirt.
"Pathetic," Neros spat, advancing slowly. "You let the shadow use you. You are not worthy of its name."
Morde pushed himself to his knees, coughing a splatter of crimson onto the gray earth. Yet, when he looked up, his gaze was unnervingly steady. "Maybe…" he rasped. "But my shadows never abandon me."
As he spoke, the very darkness of the wasteland answered. It pooled from the ground, rising like a tidal wave of pure night. It enveloped him, hardening over his torso and limbs into living, rippling armor—the Dark Guard. When Neros's chain struck again, it didn't burn flesh; it met the armor and shattered against it with a sound like breaking glass.
Neros recoiled, his confidence faltering for a single heartbeat. "What—?!"
Morde rose, his silhouette now a thing of moving, solidified shadow. "You got one free burn," he said, his voice layered, echoing as if from a deep well. "I don't give second chances."
A flicker of genuine excitement crossed Neros's face. "Interesting…" He raised a hand, and the air itself began to shimmer with heat. "Let's see if we can melt your new shell." He slammed his palm into the earth. "Ash Tempest!"
A pillar of superheated ash erupted, then exploded outward into a storm of blinding, razor-edged cinders. The wind itself became a furnace, scouring the battlefield.
Morde stood his ground. He raised an arm, and a wall of swirling, absolute darkness manifested before him—the Veil of Shadows. The tempest slammed into it, the furious ash and heat being absorbed, nullified, consumed into nothingness.
As the veil dissipated, Morde was already moving. He closed the distance in an instant, his shadow-clad fist connecting with Neros's jaw. The impact was solid, sending the ash-wielder stumbling backward, his boots carving furrows in the ground.
Neros wiped a trickle of blood from his lip, his grin widening manically. "Good! Now you're worth the effort!"
"Save your breath," Morde growled, and the true clash began.
The wasteland became a canvas of destruction. Whips of incandescent ash met blades of devouring shadow. Each collision released concussive waves of force, tearing the already-dead land asunder. With every passing moment, Morde's movements became more refined, his control over the darkness less an act of will and more an extension of his very being, a deadly dance synchronized with his rising fury.
But Neros was a veteran of such wars. "You think this is victory?" he bellowed, gathering every ounce of his power. The countless ash chains in the air retracted, coiling and compressing into a single, miniature sun of molten devastation. "Cinder Cataclysm!"
He hurled it.
The sphere of annihilation flew, set to erase everything in its path.
Morde crossed his armored arms, planting his feet. "Dark Guard… hold!"
The world turned white, then red. The explosion devoured the landscape in fire and thunder. For a long moment, there was only the roar of the blast.
Then, a spear of pure shadow pierced the heart of the inferno, and a shockwave of darkness erupted outward, snuffing the flames like a candle.
From the settling smoke and dust, Morde emerged. His shadow armor was shattered, his clothes smoldering, his body covered in burns. But he was standing. He lifted a hand, and the remnants of the darkness coalesced into a blade of solidified void, humming with silent hunger.
"Your chains burn…" Morde's voice was cold, final. "But my shadows consume."
He swung.
The blade passed through Neros's final, desperate defenses as if they weren't there. The force of the blow lifted Neros off his feet and hurled him backward, embedding him into the face of a shattered rock spire with a sickening crunch.
Neros hung there, broken, his power guttering out like a dying ember. "Impossible…" he gasped, blood bubbling at his lips.
Morde walked forward, his own energy spent, the shadows receding from his form. "You're strong," he admitted, the words tasting foreign. "But this is my domain now."
Despite his defeat, a faint, sinister smirk touched Neros's face. "This… isn't a victory. It's an invitation." With a final effort, he pressed his charred palm against Morde's chest.
A searing heat, brief but intense, flared on Morde's skin. When Neros's hand fell away, a faint crimson mark remained—a intricate, spiraling symbol resembling interlocked chains. It glowed once, malevolently, before fading into his flesh, invisible but felt.
Morde staggered back, clutching his chest. "What did you do?"
Neros's body began to crumble, dissolving into a cloud of lifeless ash. His final whisper was carried on the wind. "A brand… When the final fire comes… only one of us will remain standing…"
Then, he was gone.
Morde stood alone in the silent wasteland. He looked down at the unmarked skin on his chest. There was no pain, no surge of foreign energy—just a cold, profound certainty that something now lived within him. A tracker. A promise.
He clenched his fist, his crimson eyes narrowing as he stared into the bleak horizon.
"This," he whispered to the emptiness, "is far from over."
And deep in his soul, the chain-shaped brand pulsed once, in silent agreement.