The line is ready.
Freya compresses the wings at the far end of the smoke. Deep Echo is somewhere behind me, marked by the luminous ring of plates around his neck. The furrow Kraken opened crosses the arena between them.
The problem is that I’m still standing in the middle of it.
"He’s standing on the center line!" Deep Echo shouts. "Directly in front of you. Go through him!"
Pegasus Wrath’s pressure starts pushing the smoke away from Freya’s feet. The scythe points at my chest, and the wings gather the ice hanging around her.
’I should get out of the way... But I won’t. I have other plans.’
I run at Deep Echo.
I gather OXI in my legs and keep my steps inside the line cut into the floor.
Pressure Step.
The first burst throws me through the cloud. Deep Echo catches the change and retreats, but the floor Oliver wrecked steals part of his footing, exactly as I planned. Undertow seals one side. The Battle Ribbon owns the other.
His plates pulse again. "He changed targets. He’s coming for me."
Pressure Step.
My second step hits the ground before my body has fully absorbed the first burst. The stacked speed squeezes my chest and drains the definition out of everything at the edges of my sight.
Kraken vibrates in my hand.
Deep Echo tries to find another route. The light of the plates is visible through the arena’s smoke. He looks for Split Fang and White Wake, but both are still pinned by Veric’s formation, which has boxed him in from the flank and holds all three in front of the shield.
"Freya, break off the attack," he says.
The calm is gone from his voice.
I load more OXI into the last plant of my foot. The energy runs up through my calf, my hip, my core, into my right shoulder as I draw Kraken back.
The sword understands my plan and starts to cooperate.
Its weight reorganizes in my hand. The point finds Deep Echo through the smoke, locking onto the luminous concentration of the plates.
His face changes. "That’s not what he was set up to do."
Pressure Step.
The third burst goes into the pivot.
My foot tears through the smoke. My hip turns, and Kraken follows the whole rotation until it reaches the highest point behind my body.
Deep Echo catches his heel on a ridge of stone and nearly falls.
"Freya! This is coming for me. I won’t be able to dodge!"
"You won’t!" I shout.
Freya abandons her focus on me and throws every bit of Pegasus Wrath’s speed forward.
I release Kraken at the top of my shoulder’s reach.
The greatsword crosses the smoke point-first, rotating on its own axis like a shell. The pressure of the throw opens a corridor around the blade, and the dark blue steel holds steady, wasting nothing in a useless spin.
Deep Echo tries to throw himself aside.
Kraken corrects the trajectory like a guided missile.
If it reaches the plates, it goes through everything behind them.
Freya slams the wings shut for maximum acceleration, cutting the wind faster than my throw. Halfway across, she opens one and throws her body into a curve through the arena. The ice around her explodes outward when she changes direction.
She appears in Kraken’s path before the sword reaches Deep Echo.
The scythe spins between her hands and catches the flat of the greatsword.
The impact shakes the smoke.
Kraken was carrying three Pressure Steps, my rotation, and its own conscious drive. Freya is thrown back hard. Even using the full shaft to push the point away, her feet leave the floor for an instant.
To recover her balance, she opens both wings wide, like a parachute.
The Permafrost structures extend, the junctions glowing at her shoulders. Kraken is knocked upward, and Freya stops a few feet in front of Deep Echo.
The crowd loses its mind.
The throw carried me off the line. Now the two of them are standing on it with nothing of mine in between.
That was what the furrow was for, from the very beginning.
I don’t call Kraken back.
"Drifter Duvilin."
The runes rise from the spot I just cleared.
The glow crosses the smoke along the floor and climbs in ancient circles, forming symbols that lock into one another. Blue-white fire is born between the marks and gains volume until it draws a silhouette.
Duvilin enters the arena.
This time his body has weight to it. His feet settle on the floor, the cloak falls open behind him, and the fire on his shoulders burns without giving off heat. The bow is already in his hands.
The string, drawn taut, silences the whole arena.
Freya turns her face.
Deep Echo doesn’t move behind her.
"Clear the way," I say. "But nobody dies here."
Duvilin studies the two aligned targets.
"Hope is the highest order, Master."
The light around us begins to disappear.
The frost leaves the floor and rises in small fragments. The smoke curves toward the arrow. Even the glow of Deep Echo’s plates loses strength, pulled toward the point forming in front of the bow.
The barrier reacts before the shot. The runes in the pillars light, and a deep vibration runs through the floor.
Duvilin releases the string.
For a fraction of a second, nothing happens.
Then the world goes white.
The arrow crosses the arena in a slash of light. The core passes behind Freya without touching her body, but the pressure trailing it opens sideways as it crosses the roots of the wings.
Both ice structures explode together.
Thousands of fragments are thrown outward, suspended inside the glare before the force scatters them through the smoke.
The shot keeps going.
The arrow hits Deep Echo’s central plate, the one that sits farthest from his body. The energy runs through the runes connected to the equipment, lighting each of them in a fast sequence.
All of them burst outward.
Deep Echo is thrown, but the arrow never touches his flesh. The mounts break and the plates fall across the floor in luminous pieces.
The shot reaches the Oathring barrier.
The invisible surface caves under the impact. All four pillars light at once, trying to distribute a force that doesn’t fit inside the containment.
The energy finds one way out. Up.
A blue-white column detonates vertically.
The light crosses the ocean sky and lights all of Azure Prime. For one heartbeat, the towers turn into dark silhouettes, the windows catch the glare, and the creatures swimming above the city appear as giant shadows inside the suspended water.
The sound arrives after.
The detonation shakes the stands, lifts dust off the structures, and erases every voice inside the arena.
When my sight starts coming back, I look for the south tower.
Rahul is on his feet.
The chair sits empty behind him. One hand grips the glass cane, the other braces on the railing.
Duvilin begins to fade.
The bill comes due in the same instant.
[OXI: 1,978 → 332 / 2,500][Void Capacitor: 29% → 84%][Warning: Void Capacitor approaching critical threshold.]
My legs give. Kraken returns through the smoke and drives its point into the floor in front of me, offering the grip before I go all the way down.
Rhayne loses her footing on the other side of the arena. She drops to one knee, blood running from the corners of her eyes and marking her lips. A compact shadow forms around her feet.
I take the first step toward her.
Rhayne raises a hand.
Still conscious. Still holding the bond.
Veric moves in between her and Split Fang, putting Undertow in front of them both.
The suspended screens turn to me. I open a stream from my HUD showing my OXI to everyone. I pull an LDP from my inventory, leave the label exposed, and tear the cap off with my teeth.
I drink.
The warmth goes down my throat and spreads through my chest.
[OXI: 332 → 982 / 2,500]
The capacitor doesn’t move. I look back, and I see it.
Outside the barrier, the coach’s panels swing open. The runic lights come up across the shelves, and the white and silver mark of the Silver Fang rises over the commercial sector like a floodlight.
Leona’s amplified voice reaches the stands.
"The drink that just put Uncle Den back on his feet is available down here, my dears! Enjoy the show and get yours!"
"What the hell was that, Sands?" Veric asks.
"Later. Eyes front, Veric."
Deep Echo pushes himself up in what’s left of the smoke, which is starting to thin after the blast. He touches the empty mounts around his neck.
"I’ve lost the read."
Veric spins Undertow.
"Echo first!"
The shield crosses the smoke.
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