The Swords of Chaos

A dozen plans, a hundred contingencies, and she had never, ever expected this. A direct, personal betrayal from an ally she thought she was manipulating.

After pulsing with one last, ferocious burst of dark energy, the shadow sword in Anna's heart dissipated, leaving a gaping, bleeding wound. She screamed, using the last of her might,“MAREN!”

She pointed a trembling finger at Demidicus. The holy sword shot towards the vampire noble. But Demidicus just smirked, his body dissolving into a black mist that flowed effortlessly around Maren’s furious strike.

“Anna! I can’t hit him!”

“Control the mist!” Anna gasped, clutching her chest. “It’s just water vapor! Control it!”

Maren’s light flared with understanding. As Demidicus’s mist form swirled around her, she unleashed her true power.

Demidicus stumbled, his eyes wide with surprise, a look of genuine fascination on his face. “I see…” he purred, wiping a drop of condensed moisture from his cheek.

“So you’re learning how to truly control your sword. Interesting… I won’t be stupid enough to turn to mist again.”

Anna, dragging herself backward through the dirt, gave her next command. “Overwhelm him.”

In a flash of light, Maren split into three perfect copies. One sword slashed high, forcing him back, while another conjured blades of solid, razor-sharp ice to attack his legs. The third whipped around him, unleashing jets of high-pressure water that could slice through stone.

But this was where 600 years of experience made a mockery of raw power.

The coordination is flawless, he thought, even as he spun to block a jet of water. Instantaneous. Telepathic. The source… the girl on the ground. Her focus must be fractured by the pain of my first strike. If I can break her concentration completely, the swords will become puppets without a master.

He saw his opening. He allowed one of the ice blades to score a deep gash across his shoulder but he still moved forward.

“You have impressive power, little vampire,” Demidicus called out to Anna, his voice calm even as he dodged another strike. “But your focus is your greatest weakness!”

He thrust his free hand forward at Anna herself. To distract. Anna cried out as several of the spikes pierced her legs and her non-wounded shoulder.

As her focus shattered, the three Marens faltered. Their perfect, synchronized attack dissolved into a chaotic, clumsy flurry.

Demidicus, despite the gash on his shoulder, now stood with a triumphant smile.

.

.

.

“Pietta. You are late. And you are alone.”

“My lord, I…” she began, but he cut her off.

“General Gryztoz is dead. General Pirtor is dead. And it seems the little cat has shown her true colors. Uetum has absconded with your fellow spymaster, Helartha.”

Pietta stared. The entire command structure had collapsed in a single night.

“You have spent the most time with the vampire. You have seen her work in the mines. Tell me, child. What do you think of Anna?”

Pietta took a deep breath, “She is… more cunning than anyone I have ever met. She deduced the mine’s true purpose—the fifteen-hundred-year-old trap—in a single evening. A secret we have sought for years.”

“She is ruthless,” Pietta continued, “She gave me permission to eliminate the human overseers without a second thought.”

“She spoke of ‘liberation,’ not just conquest. I believe… I believe she truly intends to save the three hundred thousand prisoners in that mine. Her goals are not the same as ours. She is a power that follows only her own path.”

“Her path is irrelevant now,” Yarte sneered, rising from his throne. “I have seen enough of these games of spies and secrets. The time for subtlety is over. I will kill Anna first, then the true Saint, and then the King himself.”

“I have already commanded the acceleration of the Morvanium using my life. This forest, this very throne room, will be consumed within hours. We must leave.”

He turned his full, terrifying authority upon the small, corrupted girl. “Your orders are simple. Go now. Tame the Ruinhorn. We will strike the city at dawn and crush them all under its heel.”

Pietta’s blood ran cold. The Ruinhorn. The accelerated corruption. The mines. She saw the entire, horrifying equation laid out before her. She pushed herself to her feet, her small frame trembling not with fear, but with a new, defiant rage.

“No.”

Yarte’s head snapped towards her. “What did you say, child?”

“The mine is directly beneath Frola. If the city falls to an accelerated corruption, the ground will collapse. It will kill every dark being inside. Three hundred thousand of our own kind.”

She looked her master in the eye, her fear gone, replaced by a pure, unshakeable purpose.

“I joined you to seek justice for our people, not to lead them to a different kind of slaughter. I will not be the one to unleash the beast that buries them alive.”

“And you truly believe it is possible to get three hundred thousand of them out? Through one tiny gate, in a matter of hours, with an entire army waiting above? Do not be a fool.”

Pietta trembled under his cold, logical assault. She had no answer for that. She couldn't argue the logistics. All she had was a single, irrational spark of hope.

“I… I believe that Anna can do it.”

The name was a lit fuse. To hear his own subordinate, a being he had personally empowered, placed her faith in the very anomaly who had dismantled his plans was the final, unforgivable insult.

“Then you will die with your foolish, misplaced faith!” Yarte roared.

From his extended skeletal hand, tendrils of pure, soul-devouring darkness—the very substance of undeath—slithered over the floor in Pietta's direction.

As her death crept closer to her, she was frozen in fear.

FLASH!

A blinding, defiant portal of pure golden light erupted between Yarte and Pietta. The holy energy was so intense it burned the encroaching shadows, forcing Yarte’s death spell to recoil with a pained hiss.

Uetum leaped out. She didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the stunned Pietta by the collar of her tunic.

“Nya!! Let’s run away, nyaa!!” she yelled, and with a strength that defied her small size, she hauled Pietta with her, diving back into the incandescent gateway.

A quiet that was more damning than any scream was left behind when the golden portal slammed shut. With his death-spell gone, Yarte stood with his skeletal hand still extended. They had stopped him. embarrassed. in the chamber of his own throne. Twice.

“All right!” he bellowed, the voice resonating with unadulterated, nihilistic strength.

He moved toward the far end of the throne room.

There was a massive cage made of black, soul-infused iron set into the cavern's own rock, with glowing, stifling runes inscribed on each bar.

“If I cannot direct the storm, then I will simply unleash it!” Yarte bellowed.