Belemir lifted his hand and in an instant the world around them dimmed until it seemed as though light itself had been stripped away, swallowed by a curtain of shadows that spread outward in every direction.

Within that shrouded space nothing remained except for the shifting silhouettes that bent and twisted as if alive, yet even in this domain that he controlled the sound of violence intruded, a steady rhythm of concussive blasts pounding against the barrier of darkness.

Each explosion shook the veil he had cast around himself and the three children behind him, and he could feel with each impact that the stability of his defence was beginning to fray.

He turned slightly, his gaze falling on the children, though it lingered on Jacob longer than the others. Jacob's eyes were wide and restless, full of worry that he was too young to conceal, a sharp contrast to Jessica who sat beside him with a vacant stare, her face drained of expression as though life itself had been dulled inside her.

For Belemir that hollow gaze struck deeper than fear, because he had seen it before in soldiers who no longer cared if they lived or died. And then there was Arthur, his expression was the strangest of them all, not fear, not shock, but a quiet indifference, as if death were something familiar to him, something he had brushed against more than once and come to accept as a possibility.

The boy was a merchant's son, and yet his eyes spoke of experiences that no sheltered child should possess. That, Belemir thought, was a question that would have to wait until survival was no longer uncertain.

He turned back towards the darkness, to where he could sense their enemies pressing forward, and felt how rapidly his barrier was thinning. In a matter of seconds it would collapse entirely, and when it did there would be no time left for hesitation.

Lifting his other hand, he drew on the shadows of the children themselves, tugging until the faint outlines surrounded their bodies, condensed into tiny spheres no larger than marbles, and floated into his grasp. He slipped them into his pocket with care. This, he thought, was the greatest protection he could grant them, for as long as their shadows were hidden within him, harm would struggle to reach them.

The final blow came quickly. A thunderous crack split through the barrier, ripping apart the fabric of shadow, and the world outside rushed in again, light, sound, and the heavy stench of earth and blood.

Belemir did not waste a breath; he surged forward at once, the ground darkening beneath his stride as tendrils of shadow whirled about him like a storm, his own likeness, a perfect doppelgänger of solid darkness, racing beside him with twin blades raised high.

The first to meet him was a hulking figure, an axe-wielder whose sheer presence seemed to split the air. The man swung with such force that the earth fractured beneath the path of the weapon even before steel met resistance.

Belemir's shadow intercepted, its twin blades crossing in front of him, sparks of shadow and force erupting from the impact as the doppelgänger absorbed the brunt of the strike. Seizing the opening, Belemir shifted the darkness at his feet, shaping it into a massive spike that lunged forward like a spear, aimed directly at the man's chest.

"Don't forget about me." The voice was grating, almost smug, and even before Belemir could fully shift his weight a red rune flared to life across the surface of the shadow spike he had conjured. Instinct carried him backward in a single, fluid motion, his shadow double mirroring him precisely, both retreating a safe distance as the spike burst apart in a violent detonation of white light that washed over the ground.

Belemir's thoughts tightened in that instant, sharpened to the speed only a rank three mage could sustain, and in the space of a heartbeat he had broken down the situation before him with the clarity of someone accustomed to choosing between survival and death in less than a second.

'Six enemies, three accounted for clearly: the swordsman pressing the front, the axe wielder with strength enough to sunder the earth, and the woman weaving those volatile runes, an explosive rune-based mage, dangerous but predictable. Yet there are others: Mary did not fall to brute force, which means an assassin hides among them, silent and efficient. The cloaked woman's scent carries the unmistakable trace of devotion, an apostle, which places her firmly in rank three territory. That makes two confirmed at my level, perhaps three if the assassin is what I suspect. The remaining two are still veiled but are weak.'

It was a cascade of analysis that consumed no more than a sliver of a second, but in that short span Belemir came to the only conclusion that mattered: to leave this place alive with the children still secured, he would need to abandon hesitation entirely, for the margin for error was so thin that even a single breath spent unwisely would see him undone.

'Only the two women are certainly rank three, and the assassin almost certainly matches them. If survival is the goal, then the lesser ones must fall first, remove their claws, then turn to the fangs.'

Acting on that decision, he allowed the rune-weaver to fall from his immediate focus, ignoring her movements as he shifted his stance back towards the axe wielder, while his shadow-double surged forward against the swordsman, twin blades carving dark arcs through the half-lit air.

At the same time, Belemir reached deeper into the environment, tugging at every loose fragment of shadow, every dim outline cast by the faint light, until they slithered across the ground towards him like threads seeking their master's hand.

The axe wielder responded with fury, erupting into a storm of strikes, his weapon cleaving at angles meant to crush through anything that stood before it. Belemir met the first flurry with a wall of condensed darkness, letting the impact shudder through the barrier as he slid his weight sideways, eyes never leaving the space between blows.

He could feel the rhythm of the battlefield as much as see it, and so when a faint pulse of energy brushed the edge of his awareness, his gaze flicked down and caught the tell-tale glow of a red rune burning across the ground beneath his feet.

He retreated in a clean, decisive step, shadows peeling back with him, just as the rune detonated in a sharp burst of light and heat. Yet the axe wielder had anticipated this, and as Belemir's footing shifted from the recoil of the explosion, the man took the momentary imbalance as his opening. His weapon arced upward with lethal precision, its blade sweeping towards Belemir's exposed neck.

"Eclipse," Belemir muttered, the word scarcely more than a breath, and in the instant it left his lips the axe wielder's shadow rose up like a tide, wrapping around the man's body and halting his swing mid-motion as though invisible chains had tightened around every joint.

"Devour." The follow-up was quieter still, yet the effect was decisive, a sound like bone and sinew being crushed echoed faintly as the shadow constricted, and while the man strained uselessly against the unseen grip, Belemir had already moved on, his body flowing backwards in a clean retreat before turning in a new direction, his attention shifting towards the cloaked woman and the pair of lesser figures flanking her.

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The gulf between ranks was not something that could be bridged by effort or ambition alone; it was a truth carved into the world, absolute and unyielding. Even the most gifted of the lower-ranked could not stand long against those who had stepped further along the path, and these grunts, though armed and eager, barely required his focus.

The true complication came from the mage whose runes burst with that blinding heat and concussive force, for even with his mastery of shadow, a single well-placed explosion could injure him gravely if he miscalculated.

One of the two beside the cloaked woman raised a crossbow, her hands moving with startling speed, almost mechanical in their precision, as she fitted bolt after bolt into place until, within moments, a score of them had been loosed. They spread wide, forming a lattice of steel that seemed designed not for accuracy but to deny him all avenues of escape.

Belemir did not so much as shift his footing. He raised a single hand and allowed the darkness to answer him. The bolts' shadows twisted, seized their own bodies mid-flight, and with a flick of his will they reversed their course, streaking back across the battlefield toward the archer who had released them. Her eyes widened, but before instinct could take over, the cloaked woman's calm voice cut across the chaos.

"Do not bother with the bolts. Look to your shadow."

The words had their intended effect, and the archer's gaze dropped sharply. What she found there made her breath catch, the dark outline of her body no longer still, but moving, head tilting upward with a slow, deliberate motion until its eyeless face seemed to meet hers.

"Mimic," Belemir whispered, and though the word was soft, it carried across the field with a weight that made it impossible to ignore.

The archer's shadow flexed, its limbs stretching in angles no living creature could match, its body twisting violently to avoid the bolts that now rained upon it from its master's trembling hands.

In the next instant it pulled itself free, rising in jagged, fluid motions until it stood upright. Without hesitation it lunged, slamming into the woman who had birthed it, and the two fell into a brutal, graceless struggle, fists and knees and jagged blows landing with equal ferocity, the shadow fighting with a relentless lack of restraint that made the woman's own attacks look almost fragile.

Belemir, sparing them no more than a glance, turned his attention aside. His own shadow-double had already finished its work, two of the lesser enemies lying broken in its wake, their presence no longer relevant.

Now, only the cloaked woman and the mage remained. By conventional measure, a rank four should have been a calamity, a force capable of devastating a city and leaving the land fractured in their passing. Yet against him, at rank three but standing upon a higher threshold, their strength was annulled, rendered negligible by the simple disparity that no amount of training could bridge.

Belemir turned his head toward the cloaked woman, while his shadow, as though guided by instinct, angled itself toward the rune mage. The woman exhaled softly, her breath carrying not fear but a weary resignation, and when her gaze settled on him she spoke with an even tone that gave no hint of agitation.

"You have just slain four believers," she said, her voice calm, almost conversational. "Holy men, consecrated to God."

A faint curl of disdain touched Belemir's lips, not quite a smile but something that suggested contempt more than amusement. "And yet," he replied, his words sharp but measured, "you did not so much as raise a hand to aid them."

"No," the woman admitted without hesitation, and as she spoke she lifted one hand slowly into view. Resting upon her palm were three small marbles, black and unremarkable, their plainness belying the importance they carried. At the sight of them Belemir's chest tightened, his thoughts racing faster than his body, and without another word he surged forward.

Shadows leapt at his command, twisting into a storm of tendrils that lashed out to tear the woman down before she could act. Yet she did not falter. With the same unhurried precision with which she had revealed them, she flicked one marble toward the incoming wave of darkness.

Belemir halted his attack instantly, and with a sweeping motion of his hand he reached for the marble, desperate to seize it before it could be attacked. But the air in front of him shimmered, a crimson rune blooming like a sudden flame, pulsing with condensed power.

He did not slow, even as every calculation told him the risk was fatal; his hand still stretched toward the object, willing to accept the pain if it meant retrieving one of them.

The woman was faster. He saw the marble vanish from his reach as though plucked away by invisible fingers, and before he could adjust, the rune flared to completion. The resulting detonation was not large, but it was cruelly focused, a compressed blast that hammered directly into him. Belemir was thrown backwards, his body twisting through the air as fire and force seared through his flesh, his skin split in ragged lines, his arm hanging half-severed at the elbow.

When he steadied himself, vision blurred and body aflame with pain, his eyes found the mage. His shadow, his other self was already under siege, explosions blooming one after another in merciless succession, each one tearing more of its form away until it finally collapsed, torn into nothing.

The severing was not gentle; Belemir staggered as agony surged through him, a hollowing pain that was deeper than flesh or bone, as though something integral to his being had been ripped out and discarded.

Yet even in that state, he did not relent. He surged forward again, forcing his battered body to obey, hurling himself through the concussive blasts that filled the field, each one close enough to scorch but not to stop him.

As he moved, he gathered the shadows, dragging every trace of darkness toward himself, draining them from the battlefield until the world seemed emptied of them, leaving only the faint outlines clinging to the two women who stood, still and waiting, before him.

"You should give up now," the mage said, her voice cutting through the chaos with a certainty that made the words feel heavier than the explosions themselves, and before Belemir could even consider a reply a blast unlike any of the earlier ones tore into him, slamming against his body with such force that for a moment he could not tell if he still stood or if he had already been scattered into pieces.

His flesh was torn, his skin burned, his frame bent and battered, and from his side spilled a dark mess of blood and viscera that left him looking closer to a corpse than a man. He had wanted to hold back longer, to wait for the right moment before exhausting himself completely, but the choice had been taken from him, there was no time left.

He drew in every last shred of shadow he had gathered, pulled it to him like a tide rushing toward a single point, and with a hoarse, guttural cry that tore itself from his throat he commanded, "Eclipse."

The darkness surged outward in an instant, blotting out the battlefield, and for a moment the world itself seemed swallowed, the ground and sky alike disappearing beneath the press of shadows that swarmed across every surface. Within that sphere he was sovereign, each shade an extension of his will, each flicker of darkness a weapon that could strike from any angle, and in those first moments he almost believed that the tide would turn.

But then he felt it, sharp and sudden, a stabbing intrusion that punched through his chest from behind, narrowly missing his heart, a pain that was deeper than any burn or blast. His body locked, the shadows wavered, and as quickly as it had risen, the eclipse collapsed.

Light returned, harsh and unkind, and Belemir dropped to his knees, his breath ragged and blood spilling freely. He forced himself to turn his head, and there he saw the truth: the assassin, half-emerged from the earth itself, his body grotesquely fused to the soil, a blade buried deep in Belemir's back.

The last of his mana bled away, his reserves utterly spent, and with its fading the three black marbles lost their hold, unravelling into nothing.

The children reappeared as if waking from a spell, their figures shaking, and among them Belemir's eyes caught Jacob's face. Shock gave way to raw pain on the boy's features, and then a desperate cry tore from his throat, "Belemir!"

For a brief moment the sound anchored him, steadied him, but only long enough for him to understand the truth of his position. He exhaled slowly, his body broken and his chest burning, and admitted to himself what had to be done.

There was only one choice left: to flee. It might have seemed like cowardice to any onlooker, but it was not. Through the bond of Jacob's shadow he could still track the boy, still regroup and bring others, still salvage something from this failure. But if he died here, if he allowed himself to be dragged down now, then the boy's location would be lost, their pursuit slowed, perhaps irreparably.

With that grim calculation weighing heavier than his pain, he forced down the despair rising in him, ignored the anguish in his heart at seeing Jacob with enemies, and allowed himself to dissolve, his body thinning into the dark and sinking back into the shadows.

But as the last of him blurred into the ground, he heard words that stopped even his fading essence cold, words that struck deeper than the blade in his chest and filled him with an instant, hollowing regret.

"Can't have you tracking us back, can we?" the cloaked woman said, her tone calm and final, and with a single casual swipe she severed Jacob's shadow at its root.

And Belemir, helpless, felt the connection snap and vanish into emptiness as he was pulled fully into the dark.

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