Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

"FIGHT!"

The judge’s arm is still dropping when I check my HUD.

[OXI: 2,489 / 2,500]

I don’t need to look. It’s a veteran’s habit, the same one that makes me test the weight of a familiar weapon before crossing a door. Eleven points gone since the Soul Link activated, exactly the rate the System listed.

Full tank.

All of us burned Scales in the inspection room. Walking into a team fight with an incomplete reserve means handing over an advantage before the first move.

I close the HUD in time to see Split Fang drop his stance.

Both daggers stay near his hips. One foot slides back, the toe pressed against the floor, while his torso leans over the front leg. The posture looks like a runner waiting for the signal, except there’s no track in front of him.

There’s Veric.

Split Fang explodes forward.

The push opens a short scar under his foot. His body loses definition, crossing the distance as a dark band that vanishes halfway across. For half a second, there’s no enemy in front of Veric.

He closes Undertow against the center of his body, but his eyes keep hunting Split Fang on the wrong side of the shield.

He finds him late.

The man reappears flush against Veric’s right flank, already finishing a lateral strike. The first dagger keeps Undertow busy from the front. The second comes from the opposite side, guided toward the lower ribs, kidney height.

Veric’s eyes go wide.

That speed came from a skill. A Rank D doesn’t cross a field like that, disappearing and trusting nothing but his own legs.

The dagger reaches Veric’s armor.

A violet bloom erupts between the blade and his body.

The defensive field closes around him in a curved layer, dense and translucent. The dagger’s point strikes the shell with a high clang, metal against stone, and every ounce of force stored in that dash comes back up Split Fang’s arm.

He’s thrown backward.

His feet touch down twice without finding purchase. Split Fang turns his hip, drags one dagger along the floor, and manages to avoid the fall, but he finishes the recovery several meters from Veric.

The violet glow disappears.

One of Rhayne’s earrings pulses beside me.

Nothing shows on my reserve. The Moondrop Aegis spent its own charge, gathered from ambient OXI, exactly as it should.

Split Fang lifts his eyes, the surprise still open on his face. "What the hell was that? That wasn’t in the reports!"

Deep Echo brings two fingers to the runic plates around his neck. A pale wave runs across the symbols, passes over Veric, and returns to the equipment.

"New item," he answers. "The source is the Ballerina. Negative polarity energy, condensed into a barrier with limited charge."

Split Fang shakes out the hand that took the recoil. "Can you break it?"

"Not alone, not like that. Force the barrier to answer several times. The charge will drop."

The analysis is fast and irritatingly good.

It also arrives too late for the first attack.

Veric understands what protected him. He doesn’t look at Rhayne, doesn’t waste a second on gratitude. He just sets Undertow, shifts his weight onto the front leg, and throws her name out of his throat in one dry shout.

"Rhayne!"

She’s already moving.

Veric advances before Split Fang fully recovers his posture. Undertow covers his chest and shoulder as he closes the distance, turning the run into a shield bash aimed at center mass.

Split Fang studied this.

At the last instant, he slips to Veric’s right. The movement takes his torso out of the line of both the shield and the gladius at once. One dagger drops near his waist, setting up the cut that would reach Veric in passing.

It’s the answer he’s been waiting to use from the start.

Veric doesn’t continue.

The shield bash dies the moment it forces the displacement. He plants his foot, holds Undertow in front of him, and denies Split Fang the body that was supposed to cross his line.

The dagger finds only space.

For an instant, Split Fang is armed for a counter against an enemy who already ended his own entry.

Rhayne comes out from behind Veric.

The Battle Ribbon arrives first.

The metallic silk passes over the prince’s shoulder and opens into a horizontal arc, cracking across the field toward Split Fang’s torso. The man pulls his neck back on reflex, realizes the flexible blade will still reach him, and drops low.

The ribbon cuts the air above his back.

He avoids the strike, but he has to bend his knees and split his weight between both feet. The posture that fed his speed is gone. No stored momentum, no room for another dash.

That’s exactly what we wanted.

Rhayne doesn’t press either.

The Battle Ribbon passes and continues the curve, opening the center of the field for the third link.

Oliver isn’t in front of Deep Echo anymore.

While Split Fang was calling for the report and Deep Echo was reading the shell, Oliver left his own marker. He moved along the outside of the formation with Motorhead close to his body, hidden from the main attention by Veric, Undertow, and the violet glare.

By the time Split Fang drops low, Oliver is already in the air.

He clears the line formed by Veric and Rhayne, knees tucked, both hands locked on Motorhead’s haft. The hammer rises behind his head during the jump and starts its descent with his whole body weight riding the arc.

Split Fang looks up. "Shit."

There’s nowhere to run. Veric seals one side. Rhayne and the Battle Ribbon own the other. Oliver comes from above, and that low posture has pinned Split Fang’s legs to the floor.

He crosses both daggers over his head.

The weapons won’t hold Motorhead. Split Fang knows it; his expression makes clear that defense exists only to keep the hammer from meeting his skull square.

Oliver starts the last stretch of the descent.

White Wake steps in.

She doesn’t run to block the strike. She simply advances her front foot and extends the spear with both hands, using every inch of reach she has.

The point catches the side of Motorhead, just under the head.

Oliver is still airborne.

With no ground to correct his hip, he loses the line by a few centimeters. Motorhead passes beside Split Fang’s daggers and hits the floor to his right.

The impact detonates against the arena.

Stone fragments leap around the crater, and the vibration travels up through my boots. Split Fang shields his face, throws himself backward, and rolls out of range before Oliver can tear the hammer free.

White Wake draws the spear back with a short motion. The point stays aimed at Oliver’s chest.

"You’re mine," she says. "Don’t run from me again."

Oliver pulls Motorhead out of the broken stone and returns to guard.

Split Fang breathes hard beside her, still recovering his balance. "Next time, try not to hit my arm along with him."

"Next time, don’t stand under the hammer."

There’s no humor in the answer. White Wake is already tracking Oliver’s shoulders, ready to intercept another attempt.

Rahul’s group studied our weapons, divided the roles, and prepared responses. Deep Echo reads the field. Split Fang breaks the formation. White Wake protects the transitions.

Freya still hasn’t moved.

Veric swears over the channel and pulls back until our line is rebuilt. "I had that bastard."

"The chain worked," I answer. "White Wake saved the target."

Oliver spins Motorhead, shaking the fragments off the head of the weapon. "I missed the last strike."

"An attack only ends when it connects. Watch the rest of the field until the moment of impact. You lost the spear because you were already looking at the result."

He nods and adjusts his feet. No excuses, no sulking. He takes a correction the way he takes damage, and that’s worth more to me than any of the four skills on the other side of this arena.

I turn my attention back to Veric.

"That’s what I was talking about during training. People come in through your flank, jump at your throat, and change the field while you’re executing. Pick another target and keep your eyes around the chain."

The mask hides part of Veric’s expression, but I see his jaw tighten under the fabric.

He understands the mistake. He’s angry at himself, not at me, which is new. Six weeks ago he would have argued.

The first link worked. The second did too. The third nearly ended Split Fang at the start of the fight, until White Wake used her reach to alter the strike.

In the plaza, I could stop the sequence and make them run it again.

Here, the other team turns every correction into ammunition.

Freya rests the base of the scythe on the floor.

"I’m sorry, Dryden," she says. "You don’t have time to fix them anymore."

The atmosphere changes.

The Oathring’s damp air goes cold inside a single breath. The mist leaving our mouths stops dispersing and begins crystallizing in front of our faces. A pale layer of frost appears under Freya’s feet, spreading through the small cracks Motorhead opened.

The light of the ocean sky touches the crystals and breaks into hundreds of blue reflections. They run across the ground, along the edges of weapons, and through the dust still hanging in the air. For a few seconds, the whole arena looks trapped inside a morning frozen at the bottom of the sea.

Freya’s right hand tightens on the scythe’s shaft.

Ice climbs her fingers, covers the glove, and fuses to the metal. Another layer wraps the short, wide blade, thickening the edge until it becomes a translucent curve marked by veins of deep blue.

The cold reaches my skin through my clothes.

Kraken shifts in my hand. The guard closes around my fingers, and the point drops a few centimeters, answering the change in threat.

Behind Freya, two structures of ice are born at her shoulders. The shapes open slowly, long and angular, like wings carved from crystal. They don’t beat, and they don’t hold her body up. They gather the OXI bleeding off her and channel it into the scythe.

The crowd’s noise loses strength under the barrier. Even the announcer’s voice, narrating for the spectators, goes distant, as if it were backing away.

Freya lowers her center.

Her front foot finds purchase. The back one turns, loading her hip for a full rotation. She isn’t going to test our defense, hunt for an opening, or measure Kraken.

She’s coming with everything.

The Soul Link bar surfaces in the corner of my HUD.

[Void Capacitor: 0%]

Full tank. Formation rebuilt. Eleven points spent.

The easy part of the fight is over.

Freya raises the scythe and whispers with all the calm in the world, though her eyes have already killed me.

"Permafrost."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!