The impact was silent.

When Vane's Silver Fang met the falling thunderbolt of Ashe's sword, the world did not explode. The laws of physics simply gave up.

The Star-Metal Spear, coated in silver mana, bit into the silver-black aura of the Warlord. It was the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. For a microsecond, Vane saw the steel of Ashe's training sword groan and buckle, a hairline fracture appearing on the blade where the silver light touched it.

He had cut her weapon.

But he had not cut her momentum.

Ashe did not stop. She poured a terrifying surge of crimson mana into the blade, forcing the metal to hold together through sheer will. The kinetic energy of her descent transferred directly through the spear and into Vane's arms.

CRACK.

It wasn't the spear that broke. It was the capillaries in Vane's shoulders. Blood misted from the pores of his uniform as his muscles tore under the weight of a falling mountain. His boots shattered the frosted floor, driving him knee-deep into the twisted metal of the grating.

"Heavy, isn't it?" Ashe whispered. She was suspended in the air above him, pressing down with a smile that showed too many teeth. "This is the weight of the crown, Thief."

Vane couldn't breathe. The pressure was crushing his lungs. But he didn't need to breathe. He needed to hold her for one second.

"Now!" Vane choked out, blood spraying from his lips.

The shadows beneath Ashe exploded.

Isole Sylvaris had finished her chant. Her right eye, the Abyssal Violet, was glowing with a malevolent, pulsating light. The Twilight Authority did not just cast a spell; it inverted the holy ground she had created earlier.

[Skill: Shadow Bind (Grade A)]

Thick, oily tendrils of darkness lashed out from the ice. They wrapped around Ashe's ankles, her wrists, and her throat. Unlike normal darkness, this mana was heavy. It possessed a gravitational weight that sought to drag the Warlord down into the floor.

Ashe's eyes widened slightly. Her descent stopped. For the first time, she was immobilized, suspended between Vane's spear and Isole's chains.

"Got you," Vane hissed.

He didn't try to push her back. He retracted the spear, spun it in a tight circle to generate centrifugal force, and aimed a Quicksilver Thrust directly at the gap in her armor above her heart.

It was a killing blow. A checkmate.

Ashe looked at the incoming silver tip. She looked at the chains holding her limbs.

She sighed.

"Boring."

She didn't use a spell to break the chains. She didn't use a counter-skill to deflect the spear.

She just flexed.

Authority: Warlord.

Ashe released a omni-directional burst of pure, raw mana. It wasn't shaped into fire or wind. It was simply a shockwave of rejection. The authority of the Warlord stated that she could not be bound by lesser magic.

SNAP.

The shadow chains didn't unravel; they shattered like glass. The recoil sent Isole flying backward, clutching her head as the feedback lashed her mind.

Free of the bind, Ashe didn't dodge the spear. She dropped her shoulder, moving faster than humanly possible, and let the spear graze her pauldron. The Silver Fang sliced through the reinforced composite like butter, drawing a thin line of blood on her shoulder.

But Vane had overcommitted.

Ashe stepped inside his guard. She dropped her sword and grabbed the front of Vane's uniform with her bare hand.

"You scratched me," Ashe said softly, looking at the cut on her shoulder.

She pulled him close, her crimson eyes burning into his grey ones.

"Good."

She headbutted him.

It was a brutal, primitive strike. Ashe's horns slammed into Vane's forehead.

Vane's vision went white. He felt the bone of his skull fracture. The world spun violently as Ashe released him and followed up with a spinning back kick to his ribs.

WHAM.

Vane was launched across the hall. He smashed through a frozen cooling pipe and tumbled across the ice, coming to a stop at Isole's feet.

He tried to stand, but his legs refused to obey. He coughed, and a disturbing amount of blood spilled onto the frost. His mana channels were spasming uncontrollably. The Silver Fang had drained him to the dregs, and the physical trauma was shutting his body down.

"Vane!" Isole dropped to her knees, her hands glowing with desperate blue light. "Absolute Restoration!"

The warm energy flooded Vane's body, knitting the bone in his forehead and easing the agony in his chest. But it wasn't enough. It was like putting a bandage on a dam that had already burst.

"Stop," Vane rasped, grabbing her wrist. His hand was shaking. "Save your mana. We're leaving."

"Leaving?" Isole looked up.

Ashe was walking toward them. She had picked up her sword. She rolled her neck, a sickening crack echoing in the silent hall. She looked annoyed.

"You break easily," Ashe criticized. "I thought you had more fight in you."

Vane looked at the monster approaching them. He ran the calculation. His [Usurper] interface was flashing red warnings. His stamina was at 10%. Isole was mentally exhausted from using the Twilight. Ashe, meanwhile, had a small cut on her shoulder and looked like she had just finished a light warm-up.

They couldn't win. The gap wasn't skill. It was the engine. Vane was a race car running on fumes; Ashe was a nuclear reactor.

"The vent," Vane whispered, pointing his spear at the massive intake fan on the far wall. "Behind the steam."

"That is a hundred meters away," Isole argued, her voice trembling. "She will catch us before we take ten steps."

"Not if she can't see us," Vane said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, crude mana crystal he had swiped from the Coalition mage earlier. It was unstable.

"When I throw this," Vane said, his eyes locking onto Ashe, "you hit the steam pipe above her with everything you have. Do not miss."

Isole hesitated, then nodded. Her blue eye hardened.

Vane stood up. He swayed, using the spear as a crutch.

"Ashe!" Vane shouted.

The Warlord stopped ten paces away. She tilted her head.

"Ready to die now?"

"Not today," Vane grinned, blood staining his teeth. "I have a schedule to keep."

He threw the crystal. It wasn't aimed at her. It was aimed at the floor between them.

"Now!"

Isole screamed, unleashing a lance of Holy light. It missed Ashe completely, slamming into the pressurized cooling pipe directly above the Oni's head.

BOOM.

The pipe ruptured. A wall of superheated, high-pressure steam exploded downward, mixing with the unstable mana crystal Vane had thrown. The result was a catastrophic expansion of white fog and blinding light.

Ashe clicked her tongue, raising her arm to shield her eyes from the sudden thermal blast.

"Cheap tricks," she muttered, slashing her sword to disperse the cloud.

But the cloud was dense. For three seconds, the hall was a white void.

When Ashe cleared the steam with a wave of Killing Intent, the hall was empty.

She looked at the ventilation shaft on the far wall. The grate had been kicked in. A trail of blood led into the darkness.

Ashe stared at the hole. She could chase them. She could rip the grate off and hunt them down in the dark. It would take her less than a minute.

She lowered her sword.

She touched the cut on her shoulder, looking at the blood on her fingertip. It was the first time she had bled in a duel since she arrived at Zenith.

"A schedule to keep," Ashe repeated, a slow, terrifying smile spreading across her face.

She sheathed her sword. She didn't follow. The hunt was more fun when the prey had a head start.

"Run, Rat," she whispered to the empty hall. "Run to the top. I'll be waiting."

Inside the ventilation shaft, Vane dragged himself forward, the metal scraping against his wounded ribs. Isole was behind him, casting a low-light spell to illuminate the cramped tunnel.

"She isn't following," Isole whispered, her voice echoing in the tight space. "Why isn't she following?"

"Because she's a cat," Vane grunted, spitting blood. "And we're the mice. She wants us to think we escaped."

He stopped, leaning against the cold metal wall to catch his breath. He looked at Isole. She was covered in soot, her pristine robes ruined, her eyes wide with the aftershocks of the battle. She looked terrified.

But she was alive. And for the first time, she wasn't looking at the floor. She was looking at him.

"You jumped," Isole said softly. "You could have stayed on the gantry. You could have let her take me."

Vane wiped the blood from his eyes. He thought of the efficiency. He thought of the points.

Then he looked at the dual-colored eyes of the girl who had saved his life with a shadow bind.

"Inefficient," Vane lied, pushing himself back up. "I need a healer to get past the next sector. Don't read into it."

He started crawling again, moving deeper into the dark arteries of the Spire.

Isole watched him go. A small, faint smile touched her lips, the first genuine expression she had worn in years.

"Liar," she whispered.

She followed him into the dark.

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