Felaern pressed the advantage of the mont, launching a series of lightning-fast attacks that forced W’ithas to divide his attention. The dark elf was legendary in his skill, but even he couldn’t hold off both elves indefinitely. A thin line of dark blood appeared on his cheek as one of Felaern’s blades slipped through his guard.
The injury seed to enrage W’ithas. His next series of attacks ca with renewed fury, his daggers becoming nearly invisible with speed. Felaern was driven back step by step, forced to give ground before the onslaught. But this was part of their strategy—while W’ithas focused on Felaern, Daratrine had manoeuvred closer to Rhedel.
The wizard noticed too late.
His shadow constructs reached for her, but she was already inside their range. Her blade swept toward him again, and this ti there was no one to block it. Rhedel barely managed to throw up a barrier of pure shadow-stuff, but the magical shield shattered under the impact of her enchanted blade.
The wizard staggered backward, his concentration broken. The shadow constructs wavered and began to dissolve. W’ithas snarled in frustration, disengaging from Felaern with a spectacular backflip that carried him to Rhedel’s side.
"Your parlour tricks won’t protect you forever," the dark elf spat, blood still trickling down his cheek.
Daratrine and Felaern moved to stand shoulder to shoulder, their blades held ready. "They don’t need to," Daratrine replied calmly. "The forest protects its own."
As if in response to her words, moonlight suddenly flooded the clearing as clouds parted overhead. The pure silver light seed to strengthen both forest elves, their forms taking on an almost ethereal glow.
In contrast, W’ithas and Rhedel’s shadows beca sharper, more defined—and more vulnerable.
Rhedel’s hands moved in desperate patterns as he tried to recall his shadow magic, but the moonlight seed to dissolve his spells before they could fully form. W’ithas moved to protect the wizard, but he was now facing both elves alone in conditions that favoured their fighting style.
Daratrine and Felaern attacked in perfect synchronization, their movents complenting each other with the precision of a long partnership. Where one blade was blocked, another found its mark.
W’ithas’s incredible speed and skill kept him alive, but he was being forced to give ground with each exchange.
A particularly clever feint from Felaern drew W’ithas’s daggers high, leaving him open to Daratrine’s low slash. The dark elf tried to leap backward, but her blade caught him across the thigh, opening a long gash. He landed awkwardly, his wounded leg nearly buckling beneath him.
"Such a fierceness, haa!! You rouse more and more," W’ithas was getting excited as he fought, despite being injured.
Jaegar was unable to follow their movents, and their attack patterns were all over the place; he now knew he was far beyond the top levels, and these four people were where no normal human could dare to stand before them.
Rhedel, seeing his protector wounded, abandoned all pretence of control. He raised both hands toward the sky and began chanting in a language that made the air itself seem to recoil. Darkness gathered around him like a cloak, and the temperature plumted.
"If we cannot have victory," the wizard snarled, "then none shall!"
The darkness exploded outward in a wave of pure negative energy.
Daratrine and Felaern barely had ti to throw up their arms before it hit them. The force of it drove them to their knees, and for a mont, it seed as though all light had been extinguished from the world.
But then Daratrine’s voice rang out, clear and strong, in an ancient elvish song of warding. Felaern’s deeper voice joined hers, and where their voices t, light began to push back against the darkness. The moonlight seed to gather around them, forming a barrier against Rhedel’s desperate magic.
W’ithas, seeing an opportunity in their montary distraction, launched himself forward despite his wounded leg. His daggers sought Felaern’s heart, but the elf sensed him coming.
Without breaking his stance, Felaern pivoted and t the attack with one blade while maintaining his defensive stance with the other.
Daratrine’s voice rose in volu, and the moonlight responded, becoming almost solid in its intensity. Rhedel’s dark magic began to waver, and the wizard’s face showed the strain of maintaining his spell against the natural power of the forest.
The battle had reached its crescendo.
W’ithas, realizing their position was becoming untenable, abandoned his attack on Felaern and moved to grab Rhedel. The dark elf’s face was a mask of fury and frustration, but there was also calculation in those crimson eyes.
"This isn’t over," he promised, as shadow began to wrap around both him and the wizard.
Daratrine and Felaern launched themselves forward in one final attack, but the shadows had already begun to solidify. Their blades passed through empty air as their opponents vanished into whatever dark realm they had erged from, leaving behind only the lingering chill of dark magic and a few drops of dark elven blood on the forest floor.
The moonlight slowly returned to its normal intensity as the two elves stood guard, making sure their enemies had truly retreated. Only when they were certain did they finally lower their weapons.
"They ran away?" Felaern said quietly, cleaning his blades before sheathing them.
The night wind whispered through the leaves above them, and slowly, the normal sounds of the forest began to return.
Jaegar, who was thrown away by the force of their attacks, erged back. He stood beside Felaern and saw that Citadel was no longer present there.
There was an empty space with a clear sky. They didn’t even feel the presence of Citadel living in this place or how did it disappear into thin air.
Jaegar looked around and found nothing, except for the debris left behind by the citadel.
W’ithas retreated on purpose, and if they had been here any longer, they would have certainly been killed.
Jaegar watched the two elves with revered eyes; they were really strong beings, his ancestors.
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