Rain continued to pour down onto the Forgotten Shore.
A young woman with pale white hair raised her longsword against a young man with the same hair and an eye-patch. He held his scythe up, barely trembling.
Their eyes met — locked in a stare so sharp it cut through the downpour between them.
The crowd around them had long since given way. A wide clearing had formed without anyone saying a word, every soul holding their breath, watching with eyes filled with tension.
The Mad Scythe, stronger than the strongest lieutenant of the Bright Lord.
Against Saint Nephis, Changing Star. The princess of the Immortal Flame Clan.
Birdie finally released Caster, who stumbled upright and quickly put distance between himself and the great beast.
Sunny kept his gaze fixed on the two, helpless to do anything but watch.
No one in the crowd understood why Changing Star had suddenly chosen to fight the Mad Scythe.
But deep down, they all shared the same dark thought.
Who would win?
Neither of them moved. They stood like statues in the rain, as though waiting for a signal only they could hear — the opening note to a battle that would end with one of them dead.
Leon's mind was flooded with a single image: Changing Star, standing atop a mountain of corpses, eyes fixed on some distant future that had no room for anything but her goals.
Nephis's mind filled with betrayal — Leon's hands working unseen threads, pulling everyone around her like a puppeteer, laughing all the while.
Thunder cracked across the sky, rolling through the shore and rattling the walls of the outer settlement.
The moment the sound faded, they both moved.
***
Leon's scythe met Changing Star's sword in a clash that sent the water droplets suspended around their blades scattering into the air.
He felt the bones in his forearm strain under the impact — her white flames were roaring up her arm, and the force behind the blow was monstrous.
His hand trembled.
Nephis drove him back and immediately followed with a kick to his stomach.
Leon blocked the kick, but the force still sent him sliding several steps through the mud.
'Calm down.'
The thought settled through him like still water, and in that moment, his presence vanished from the battlefield entirely. Nephis's eyes twitched. She swept her gaze across the clearing, searching for him.
But the calm didn't hold.
His thoughts once again grew unstable, as nothing but rage consumed him.
Due to his loud mind, his invisibility faltered, and Nephis saw him for just a split second.
But that split second was all she needed.
The white flames around her erupted brighter. Gripping her sword with both hands, she swung in the direction her instincts told her was right.
Leon noticed his slip-up the moment it happened. But his mind didn't falter — his legs coiled, ducking beneath the blade as it swept past his face.
His scythe swept at her legs in return.
Nephis simply jumped.
She twisted in the air in an unnatural angle, and brought her sword crashing downward.
Leon narrowed his eye. The scythe shifted in his grip, reshaping into a katana, and clashed against her blade with a sharp ring of steel.
As Nephis was mid-air, her strength was not too great, which allowed Leon to use his aspect for a split second, augmenting his entire body like Effie's aspect.
He strained his legs, and threw Nephis upward.
Nephis was calm, positioning herself mid-air, as rain continued to fall down.
Leon then summoned a crimson red crown over his head. He prepared to unleash a barrage of explosions on her.
But before he could, Nephis threw her longsword at him.
His eye widened by a fraction. He twisted to dodge, but not fast enough — the blade carved a deep wound across his shoulder before driving itself into the earth below. His feet lost their balance.
Nephis landed on the ground and immediately lunged, snatching the sword from the ground mid-step without losing a moment.
Gritting his teeth, he parried her sword. But with his footing already compromised, her raw strength drove him to the ground.
He knew. He'd always known. Fighting her directly was not a battle he could win. His mind was not in a clear place right now.
He didn't care.
He just wanted to hit her. To break her.
Nephis thrust her sword at him while he was still falling.
The crown pulsed with red light. An explosion detonated beside her, knocking her off-balance. The longsword slipped from her grip.
Leon planted his foot, steadied himself, and swung the katana at her neck.
Nephis caught the blade with bare hands.
Blood gushed out of her palm, falling to the ground. She pulled the blade toward herself — and drove her fist into his face.
Everything went white for a second.
Leon staggered, fingers loosening around the katana's handle.
Nephis was already moving, closing in, throwing another strike.
The floor was already wet, making their footwork sloppier than usual. The heavy downpour had rendered the crown of ember nearly useless — dampening its reach, smothering its range.
But it was not completely useless.
Bright flames covered Leon's face, healing his broken nose as he grabbed Changing Star's fist before it connected.
She swung her free hand at his ribs.
He threw himself into the air before it landed — using her own fist as support. Her punch missed him by inches. His leg hurled at her face, throwing her a few inches back.
Nephis grunted loudly.
Neither of them reached for their weapons again.
Even with her considerable physical advantage, the gap in technical skill was obvious.
He raised both his arms, his face peeking between them. Leon began jumping on his feet.
Nephis rushed forward and began trying to hit him.
Leon slipped around her strikes — ducking, deflecting, not wasting a single movement.
Nephis realized it would go nowhere. She flooded her body with white flames and stopped trying to punch him and simply charged instead.
Wrapping both arms around his waist, she hurled him to the ground with a crash. Leon spat out blood as pain rushed through his body.
His augmentation had just run out. He'd reached his limit.
He drove his knee up into her to try and create some space.
The kick seemed to do nothing as Nephis tanked it. She raised her fist.
Leon tried to hold his guard up, but Nephis began pummeling down on him. The bones of Leon's arms broke, and Nephis broke through the guard.
Her fist came down like a hammer. Then again. Then again. Relentless and mechanical.
Leon almost lost consciousness for a moment, but he held on.
'I'm going to kill.'
He slowly raised his arms, just an inch above the ground.
'Kill her...'
White flames erupted across his entire body.
Nephis froze for a moment, her eyes going wide.
Leon's augmented fist drove into her face. Nephis staggered back, her nose breaking under the blow.
The white flames swept across Leon's face, healing his jaw, nose, and whatever was broken.
He rushed to his feet and lunged at her.
But Nephis had already found her footing, and she was grinning.
He didn't care what expression she had, just kept moving.
His leg suddenly jerked forward.
As he fell, he caught sight of it — a thin golden rope coiled around his ankle. Nephis stepped in, grabbed him by the head, and drove it into the ground with everything she had.
Leon's back felt crushed as he grunted in pain. Before he could do anything, Nephis started punching his face.
"More lies?"
She hissed as her hands pummeled onto him.
Leon couldn't answer. Her fist collided into him multiple times. He could almost feel his teeth fall off as he withstood the pain.
He did not want to answer either.
Nephis then stopped punching.
She looked at his face — battered, bleeding, thoroughly destroyed — and studied it for a long moment.
But he was grinning.
"That..." Leon's voice came out ragged and shaking. "...all you got?"
Nephis's jaw tightened.
Leon's hands grabbed the sides of her head.
"Don't underestimate me..." His grin stretched wider. "...you autistic blowtorch."
He then smashed her head with his forehead.
Nephis was momentarily shook by the blow, and by the time she looked down again, Leon was gone.
She blinked — and he was already in front of her. His foot disappeared for a fraction of a second before it reappeared against her jaw with white flames trailing behind it.
He was using Caster's aspect.
She was kneeling down, when his kick crashed into her jaw, white flames burning on it.
The cost was immediate.
Every muscle in his body seized at once. The pain was absolute — a full-body cramp that turned his limbs to stone. He wanted to scream, but couldn't. His jaw wouldn't open. His fingers wouldn't curl.
Nephis hit the ground and forced herself upright, white flames already eating through the damage. She took one look at Leon — frozen, wide-eyed, like a statue in the rain — and walked toward him anyway.
Bright flames emanated from his crown as it covered his body. But his healing was a split second too late as Nephis jumped into the air hurling a kick into his face.
Leon had his back bent down slightly, dealing with the pain, as the kick crushed his nose, throwing him back.
The kick was unnecessary, and yet she wanted to pay him back for his earlier kick.
His body just healed as his palm touched the ground.
Nephis came at him again.
Leon broke.
The crown detonated her. One explosion. Then another. Then another, stacking without pause. She couldn't move — every time she tried, the next blast came.
Her white flames worked frantically to keep pace with the damage. The pain was crushing her — the explosions and then the pain from her aspect.
Leon stood in the rain and smiled.
But the crown then went dark.
He froze.
His fists clenched tightly, as he tried activating the crown again, but it just didn't respond.
"Aurelia... activate the fucking crown."
He muttered under his breath, and yet the crown did not respond to him.
Nephis found her balance again, breathing in rough pulls, face twisted with pain and rage. Her gaze focused onto him.
Leon looked at the crown and smiled.
"Fine... I'll do it myself."
Then he laughed — a short, quiet, mad sound — and pulled the crown from his head. He threw it aside without looking where it landed.
An Azure Scythe formed in his grip.
He started walking toward her. His muscles were still half-repaired, his movements stiff and off-rhythm. He didn't slow down.
Completely swallowed by rage, he hurled the scythe at her.
Nephis sidestepped it. A longsword materialized in her hand.
She read his sluggish movements the moment he committed to the throw, and she was already inside his reach before the scythe had left his fingers.
Leon flung his arm out in a last attempt to redirect the blow —
A sharp burst of pain tore through his abdomen.
Nephis stood before him, her sword buried half-way through in his stomach. She breathed heavily, waiting for the inevitable collapse.
She looked at his face and froze.
Leon bared his teeth, grinning madly through the pain.
He slowly inched forward.
The blade dug deeper as Leon inched forward.
Nephis couldn't move. She had fought Nightmare Creatures. She had fought through an Awakened Terror in her Nightmare. But this — the sight of a human being walking into the weapon buried in his own gut and smiling...
For the first time in a long time, Changing Star felt fear toward a human being.
Her body grew stiff due to fear, as Leon's grin stretched wider and his eye burned with something that should not have existed in a person this close to death.
Leon raised the scythe and flung it at her.
Nephis released the sword and stepped back, barely avoiding the scythe.
The scythe slipped from his hand. He didn't reach for it. Instead, he grabbed the longsword — still buried in his own stomach — and pulled it free in one grotesque motion.
He fixed his gaze on Nephis.
Gripping the sword tightly, he threw it straight at her.
It dissolved into white sparks before it arrived — she unsummoned it in the last instant.
Leon stepped forward.
"Come on, Changing Star!" His voice cracked at the edges, but the words were steady. "Is this all you have?"
He grunted and pressed a hand over the wound in his stomach.
"What happened to achieving your goals?"
Nephis's eyes focused again. Her expression darkened, and she took a step forward.
He did the same.
Both their fists connected to each other's faces at the same time. They staggered back, but both remained standing.
Neither of them were in a shape to fight anymore.
Leon chuckled through the blood in his teeth.
"I was right to not trust you completely."
Nephis spat blood from her mouth.
"And I was right to never consider you a friend."
Smiling madly, Leon retorted.
"Let's finish this."
But the smile faded almost immediately.
Bright orange flames bloomed around Nephis — not white, but orange — pouring over her wounds. Color returned to her face, and her posture straightened. She looked at him with confusion.
Leon watched her expression shift and understood exactly what had happened.
"Aurelia... you bitch..."
He hissed under his breath.
Nephis caught the look on his face and understood it wasn't his doing. She didn't waste another second.
Leon reached out with his mind.
'Birdie.'
Nothing.
His eye swept to the rooftop of a nearby hut. Birdie sat there, perched and still, watching the fight with an unreadable black gaze. Not moving. Not responding.
'You disloyal pieces of shits...'
Aurelia had once again meddled in the fight.
If Birdie wouldn't answer, Lyka wouldn't either.
He screamed anyway, and threw himself at Nephis, unleashing everything he had left.
But it seemed to be powerless against her as she simply kept pummeling him. She absorbed every blow and kept coming.
The Blood Arrow materialized in his hand and he drove it toward her. She caught it without slowing and threw it into the mud.
Everyone watched as Leon was getting beaten up by Nephis.
Sunny couldn't watch anymore.
He snatched the crown from where it had fallen and ran.
Nephis was pummeling Leon with mechanical focus, her ears filled with the rush of rain and a ringing silence that blocked everything out.
She didn't hear Sunny coming. She barely registered being grabbed until she was already airborne, thrown backward with a grunt.
Sunny stepped between them, his onyx eyes cold and steady. Leon slumped in his arms.
Gritting her teeth, she wanted to retort. But then she looked at Leon.
His hair was plastered across a face that was barely a face anymore. His limbs were bent at angles that made her chest tighten to look at. His body was wrecked in every sense of the word.
But his one eye was wide open. His silver eye was fixed on her, burning with something she couldn't explain. An expression no dying person could wear.
Nephis instinctively took a step back.
Sunny tried helping Leon up, but Leon pushed him away.
Leon fell to his knee, white flames crawling weakly across his skin. A black dagger formed in his grip.
He tried to stand, but couldn't.
He never took his gaze off of Nephis as he continued staring at her with a mad expression.
Nephis stared back at him.
It struck her then — a cold understanding. She thought back through every moment she'd called him reckless. Every time he'd thrown himself into something suicidal without flinching. Every time he should have hesitated and hadn't.
He could not feel fear.
That was the only explanation that made sense. That look on his face — the grin, the madness, the refusal to stop — it wasn't bravery. It wasn't a performance.
He simply couldn't be afraid. And if he couldn't be afraid, then death was just another thing happening to him.
Because no normal human being could have such a look on their face, while they were on death's door. Every single human feared death greatly.
She looked at him differently now.
The dagger reshaped itself into a bow. He knocked an arrow and drew it back with trembling arms, aiming directly at her from one knee.
His crown was silent.
His Traces had abandoned him.
His friends were gone, or as good as.
There was nothing left — and still he was drawing that bow.
Leon was trying to find any reason he could to hate anything and everything around him.
He was just tired of it all.
Leon exhaled slowly.
If nothing helped him anymore, he would use his aspect.
Then he stressed every last thread of his aspect into his body, hauling himself to his feet with white flames burning around him — not healing, but augmenting, and took one step forward.
Nephis frowned as she raised her fists.
Leon smiled slowly as he took a step forward. He then—
Sunny's fist hit Leon in the face.
Leon's exhausted body was already at its limits — so he went down immediately, and Sunny caught him before he reached the mud.
Sunny held the crown close to Leon's battered face. Orange flames spread quietly across his body, and the worst of the damage began to fade.
***
Moments earlier
Sunny saw Leon cover himself with white flames as he tried to take a step forward.
'That's it.'
He stepped forward and punched Leon in the face. He made sure to hold back, but after his punch, Leon immediately fell down.
Catching him before he could fall, Sunny gripped the crown tightly as he brought it near Leon's body.
Bright orange flames enveloped his entire body as all the injuries on Leon's body slowly started to heal.
Sunny carried Leon in his arms as he glanced at Nephis.
Nephis looked at Sunny.
"You—"
He stopped.
What was there to say?
A vast black shape descended from the dark sky and landed behind him with a sound quieter than a raindrop. Birdie stared down at Nephis with eyes like two pieces of the void.
Nephis stood steady, but her body involuntarily shuddered at the sight of the bird.
Sunny took one last look at her.
"Good luck with your kingdom, Changing Star."
He climbed onto Birdie's back, Leon unconscious in his arms. The great bird launched into the sky without hesitation, swallowed quickly by the dark and the rain until there was nothing left of them but the sound of wings fading.
Nephis tilted her head back.
Cold rain fell onto her face.
Around her, the entire settlement was silent. No one spoke. No one moved. The only sound was the rain against the rooftops and the mud and the distant shore.
Changing Star.
Saint Nephis, had won.