There he was.
Hair white as snowfall after ashfall, untouched by ti, by rcy, by regret. His armor glead like polished bone, layered with protection slaves—enchantnts stolen from dying relics , screaming as they flickered across the surface. His crimson eyes locked onto them with the calm calculation of a predator who had already eaten.
The sword in his hand wasn’t just a blade—it was a statent. Thin, curved slightly, but etched with imperial runes that pulsed with breathless energy. A weapon that didn’t reflect light but consud it.
Behind him, his n appeared in tight formation. Knights, draped in black-and-gold, their breastplates stamped with the unmistakable royal nural: IX—Pri Nine.
"My lord Pri," one knight grinned, voice laced with laughter, "you were right. One bait, three fishes."
Another one, younger and hungrier, sneered as his eyes landed on Kury’s bloodied form. "The red-haired one... she looks fun. May I take her, my lord? First pick?"
His voice was salivating.
The Pri turned his head lazily, smiling as if he’d just been offered wine. "Boys... boys..."
He sighed, tone mockingly patient. "Have so decency. These are wounded enemies, after all. Show respect."
A long pause.
Then—
"Which ans..." He let his voice drop to a chuckle, "why don’t you all have a go with her? Share like the noble dogs you are."
Laughter erupted behind him. Rough, feral, echoing off the trees like the crack of whips.
It wasn’t laughter. It was hunger.
One knight lunged first, too eager to wait for the rest. Sword half-drawn, face twisted with anticipation. "You bastards can take what’s left—"
Steel flashed.
A sound—clean, sharp.
He never finished the sentence. Kury’s blade t him halfway. The edge punched through his open mouth and out the back of his skull, silencing him mid-laugh. Blood sprayed in a lazy arc. His body hung limply, twitching on the steel like a rag doll impaled on a spit.
She didn’t tremble. She didn’t blink.
Kury turned, expression hollow and cold.
"...I don’t stop people from having fun," she said, lifting the corpse slightly before sliding it off with a brutal shove. "But my body is sacred...."
Her sword rang like thunder when she lowered it.
The Pri’s brow lifted, not in anger—but in surprise. Or was it intrigue? His lips parted in a grin too amused to be anything but dangerous.
"She’s skilled," he mused softly. "Even now, bleeding, she’s not just alive. She’s alive."
The others didn’t hesitate.
Eight of them rushed in—a perfect arc of death. Their swords glead, their footwork flawless. They struck with the coordination of veterans, warriors forged in blood and orders.
But Kury moved like lightning wrapped in vengeance.
Her blade danced.
Steel clanged, broke, shattered.
Three blades shattered in the first two seconds. Two n scread as their armor crumpled like parchnt. She twisted, parried, stabbed, kicked.
But she wasn’t untouched.
Not this ti.
She felt it—a whisper of motion too fast to trace. The sting of a cut too sharp to notice until it burned. She pivoted, eyes scanning.
The Pri was gone.
Another cut. Her shoulder opened, warmth flooding down her arm.
She spun again.
There.
He moved like a ghost. No footsteps. No sound. Just absence followed by pain.
And then—
He stood behind her, sword at rest.
"You’re good," he said simply. "But you’re not ."
Kury wiped the blood from her lips with the back of her hand. Her breaths were shallow, sharp, but her stance didn’t falter.
"I don’t need to be you," she snarled. "I just need to kill you."
The knights hesitated now.
Their bravado had cracked.
One of them looked to the Pri for a signal.
He raised a hand.
And the rest backed off.
The duel had begun.
And only one of them would walk away from it.
But there she stood.
Bloodied, battered, but unmoved—like a crumbling fortress that refused to fall. Kury held her ground between the enemy and the last two people still breathing behind her: the trembling Baron, his face ghost-white and lips muttering prayers he didn’t rember learning, and Denish, who was trying and failing to stay conscious, blood leaking from a wound that would’ve killed a lesser man hours ago.
Kury was the wall. The sword. The vow.
And across from her, the Pri was playing with his food.
He circled her like a lion too bored to kill, dragging the tip of his sword along the forest floor, letting it hum and spark against the roots. His eyes never blinked, red and boiling with a kind of manic joy that only killers understood.
"You’re slowing down," he murmured, voice soft, almost sympathetic—mocking. "You were beautiful before. Now you’re breaking."
He slashed again—fast, cruel, untelegraphed. The cut kissed her side, shallow but stinging, adding another red line to the canvas of wounds already drawn on her.
"You know," he said, stepping closer, "you should’ve let my n have you. At least one of them might have been gentle. You? You’re going to die screaming."
Kury didn’t answer.
Her gaze flicked—just once—to the right. A shattered tree. A dead mage slumped at its roots.
And beside her hand?
The staff.
Old. Cracked. Still glowing faintly with the last sputters of embedded enchantnt.
A comm staff.
’There it is,’ Kury thought, pain almost overriding logic. ’One chance. One fucking chance...’
Another strike ca, slicing across her thigh. She dropped to a knee, not in defeat—but in calculation.
The Pri laughed. "Ah, is that it? Kneeling already? Co now, warrior, give your last words. Sothing poetic. Or tragic. I’m not picky."
Her fingers twitched.
Then she moved.
It wasn’t elegant.
It wasn’t clean.
It was desperate.
She lunged—not at him, but past him. Her shoulder took the full force of his next strike, the blade digging in deep, severing flesh and muscle.
"Aaaaaaaa!"
She scread—but she didn’t stop. She twisted with that broken body, bent low, and rolled across the muddy ground to the staff.
The Pri turned in shock, watching her crawl like a dying wolf toward salvation.
"No no no no—" he spat, lunging after her.
But she was faster.
Her hand closed around the shaft of wood and rune.
With every ounce of strength left in her, she turned, threw the staff—straight into the Baron’s arms.
"CAST IT!" she scread, blood spilling from her lips.
The Baron fumbled, shocked, trembling. "I—I don’t—!"
"You KNOW enough!" she shrieked. "You said you studied in the western academy! DO SOTHING!"
His fingers closed around the wood.
Denish, half-conscious, shoved him forward.
The Baron blinked—then shouted the incantation, his voice cracking halfway through the words.
The staff lit up.
A piercing beam of blue light shot skyward through the forest canopy, screaming through the air like a dying star.
A distress beacon.
A cry for help.
A call to arms.
The Pri roared in fury. "NO!"
He charged—
Kury rose, one leg barely working, one arm limp. Her sword clattered to the ground from blood-slicked fingers, but she stood anyway. Because walls didn’t collapse when they were needed most.
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