Sierra blinked then laughed, the sound harsh and mocking. "Veinwalker, huh? That takes me back…" Her aura flared crimson, veins glowing faintly through her arms. "I used to wear that name too before I realized loyalty doesn't feed you, and honor doesn't save your life."

Ceyla's grip tightened. "Then you've forgotten what it meant."

"Forgotten?" Sierra stepped forward, her Shinrei pulsing like a heartbeat. "No, girl. I learned. There's no 'meaning' in the battlefield only contracts and corpses."

Their eyes locked two warriors cut from the same cloth, but shaped by different fires.

Ceyla said coldly, "Then I'll remind you."

She vanished.

The ground exploded where she'd stood. Ceyla reappeared above Sierra, slashing downward with both daggers. Sierra twisted, catching one strike with her own blade, deflecting the other with a backward kick. Sparks rained between them.

"Fast," Sierra said, grinning. "But sloppy!"

She lunged forward, twin daggers crossing in a crimson X. Ceyla barely parried, her boots sliding across the dirt. Sierra's strikes came faster now each one fueled by raw, experienced brutality.

Ceyla matched her blow for blow, her aura flaring brighter with every parry. "You fight like a beast!"

Sierra laughed between strikes. "And you fight like a child who still believes in fairy tales!"

Their blades locked faces inches apart, breath mingling, eyes burning.

Ceyla gritted her teeth. "I fight for people who still believe there's something worth protecting!"

She twisted her wrist and disarmed one of Sierra's daggers, slicing her arm. Blood splattered the ground.

Sierra's expression flickered then she smirked, licking the blood off her lip. "Not bad, Azure girl. But you'll have to do better than that."

She drove her knee into Ceyla's stomach, sending her flying back. Ceyla crashed against a broken pillar, coughing, but pushed herself up, determination burning in her eyes.

Khael shouted from across the field, "Ceyla, fall back! There's too many!"

But Ceyla didn't move. Her eyes were locked on Sierra. "No. This one's mine."

Sierra cracked her neck. "Finally, someone who understands how mercenaries work." She spread her arms wide, red aura spiraling around her. "No kings. No masters. Just the fight."

Ceyla took a step forward, her daggers glowing faint blue. "You're wrong."

Sierra raised a brow. "Oh?"

Ceyla's voice trembled with conviction. "It's never just the fight. It's why we fight that defines us."

Their Shinrei collided again the explosion sending dust spiraling into the sky. Blades danced like lightning, every motion a blur, every strike carrying intent sharper than steel.

Sierra laughed even as blood ran down her cheek. "You've got fire, girl. Don't waste it on lost causes."

Ceyla's eyes flicked briefly to Ryn's still body. "He wasn't lost."

Then she moved faster than before the Azure Shift. Her form became a streak of blue, slashing across Sierra's defenses in a storm of precision cuts.

Sierra staggered, her aura flickering. She looked down at her chest several shallow wounds, each glowing faintly with Ceyla's Shinrei.

"Tch… what the hell…"

Ceyla whispered, "Heart Severance."

A pulse of blue light burst from Sierra's wounds, staggering her backward. The crimson aura shattered like glass.

For a moment, silence fell.

Sierra exhaled shakily, her grin fading into something faintly sorrowful. "…You've still got that look in your eyes. The same one I used to have."

Ceyla didn't answer. Her blades trembled.

Sierra chuckled weakly, clutching her wound. "Guess this is how it's supposed to go, huh? The old generation getting replaced by the new."

Ceyla stepped closer, daggers still raised. "If you surrender"

"I don't surrender," Sierra interrupted softly. "Mercenaries don't get that option."

She smiled faintly, almost fondly. "Tell Ryn… that idiot still owes me a drink."

Sierra's faint smirk twisted into something feral.

Her eyes dimmed

then blazed crimson.

She spat blood, straightened her spine, and roared with a voice that tore through the battlefield:

"FIFTH GATE—OPEN!!!"

The air warped.

A circular sigil of boiling red Shinrei erupted beneath her feet, spinning like a solar flare.

Her veins glowed like molten threads.

Her aura exploded upward, forming the silhouette of a red, horned beast behind her.

Ceyla's breath hitched.

Even wounded, even dying

Sierra was ascending.

Sierra raised her broken dagger, pointing it at Ceyla like a declaration of war.

"Let's end this… Ceyla Nox."

Ceyla's grip tightened around her storm-forged Echo Blades.

She inhaled once steadying her storm, steadying her despair.

Then she whispered back:

"Right."

Her eyes sharpened into lightning.

"Let's end this."

She dropped her stance

and screamed into the heavens:

"VEIN GATE FIVE — ECLIPSE GATE… OPEN!"

BOOOOOM

The ground beneath her shattered.

A vast sigil of stormlight unfurled, crackling with black-violet lightning that split the night sky.

Ceyla's body was wrapped in swirling, jagged arcs

her silhouette shifting into an armored tempest.

Her voice became a thunderclap:

"ECLIPSE FORM VOLT REQUIEM!"

The battlefield froze.

A storm god stood where Ceyla had been.

Her hair lifted like stormclouds caught in the wind, her eyes glowing white with despair-fueled power.

Lightning crawled across her skin like alive serpents.

Sierra laughed wild, breathless, admiring.

"Well damn…"

She rolled her shoulders, cracking her neck.

"You really are a Veinwalker."

Ceyla stepped forward once

KRRAAAK—

A bolt of lightning split the earth behind her.

Her voice trembled with fury, grief, and resolve.

"You tried to kill Everyone."

"And you followed that monster," she said, pointing toward K.

Sierra lowered her head… an expression caught between shame and resignation.

"Ryn knew the game we were playing."

Her aura flared violently.

"And I'm finishing my part."

She lifted her dagger.

"Come, Ceyla Nox."

Sierra lowered her head… an expression caught somewhere between shame and resignation, as though the weight of ten unspoken years pressed down on her shoulders.

"Ryn knew the game we were playing."

Her aura flared violently, crimson veins cracking like burning branches under her skin.

"And I'm finishing my part."

She lifted her dagger hands shaking, yet steady with purpose.

"Come, Ceyla Nox."

The world went silent.

Ceyla didn't breathe. Her storm curled around her like a mourning shroud, lightning trembling over her skin in jagged lines. Sierra's crimson blaze rose in answer, thick as molten iron.

For one heartbeat, they simply stared.

Then both roared

"ECLIPSE ART!!!"

The ground responded first, splitting in every direction as if trying to flee the two gods standing upon it.

Sierra's crimson Shinrei burst outward, forming the spiraling shape of a blood-red dragon, its jaws opening with a roar made of rage and regret.

Dragon Sever.

Ceyla's stormlight shifted into harmony. Dozens of lightning blades manifested behind her, suspended in the air like a divine choir ready to descend upon the world.

Stormfall Choir.

Two Eclipse Gates.

Two souls on the brink of collapse.

Two paths that could never coexist.

And then

They collided.

BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM

Reality folded inward.

Air pressure died.

Sound shattered.

The shockwave swept across the clearing, tearing trees from their roots, reducing boulders to dust, and obliterating every Voidborn in its path. Even K, watching from a distance, tilted his head slightly, a cold glimmer in his eye.

"Well now…" he murmured, amused.

"This is entertaining."

Inside the storm, time fragmented.

Sierra slashed downward, her dragon echoing each movement with monstrous ferocity.

Ceyla countered, her arms flickering with lightning so bright it left scars across the sky.

Sierra punched

Ceyla vanished into a streak of light

Ceyla descended from above like a vengeful deity

Sierra launched upward on a spiraling pillar of crimson flame

Every contact boomed like collapsing thunderheads.

Every step carved trenches into the earth.

Every breath felt stolen from the edge of death.

Sierra's grin wavered for the first time, a flicker of something fragile breaking through the hardened façade.

"Kid…" she panted between blows, "you've got a future."

Ceyla's arm trembled violently. She tasted blood, sweat, and grief in the back of her throat.

But she didn't yield. She refused to.

"And you had one too," she whispered, the words raw and aching.

Their blades clashed again steel screeching, sparks raining, lightning and fire entangled like dueling stars.

Their eyes locked.

Their emotions clashed harder than their weapons.

Ceyla: I won't let Ryn's suffering be for nothing.

Sierra: Let me die a fighter, kid… just let me end this right.

They understood each other in that moment two souls shaped by the same road but turned in opposite directions.

And then

It ended.

Sierra's crimson aura flickered.

Her Eclipse Gate sputtered.

Her very soul seemed to unravel in the wind.

She exhaled softly, almost peacefully.

"Tell Ryn…"

Her voice dimmed, losing its edge.

"That idiot still… owes me a drink."

Ceyla's lightning surged

Sierra moved forward

Ceyla slashed upward

SHRRRRAAAK

Light erupted.

Silence swallowed everything.

Sierra staggered once, blood painting the ground beneath her. She looked at Ceyla—not with hatred, not with regret but with something almost gentle.

Her lips curved into a tiny, proud smile.

"Good fight… Veinwalker."

Her body dissolved into drifting crimson motes, each one flickering like the last embers of a dying fire.

A mercenary's soul… going out the same way it lived.

Ceyla caught the falling red scarf before it hit the dirt.

Her knees gave out.

She didn't scream.

She didn't sob.

Just breathed in sharp, trembling bursts as the storm around her finally began to fade.

Khael landed behind her, boots crushing the ruined ground.

He looked at the destruction.

He looked at Ceyla.

He looked at the scarf clutched to her chest.

His voice barely rose above a whisper.

"…Ceyla."

His eyes widened, awe breaking across his face.

"That was… Eclipse-level combat."

Ceyla didn't respond.

She closed her eyes, pressing Sierra's scarf over her heart. Lightning flickered weakly around her fingers, not from power

from emotion.

To be continue

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.