Jin's arm lay on the ground, and the black blood evaporated before it could touch the earth. The air had grown heavy, suffocating, as if the world held its breath in anticipation of what came next.
Then…
Bouros took control.
Jin's head snapped upright with a dry crack. The shadows around him twisted. His eyes, once calm and deep, became blazing purple abysses. There was no longer pain in his expression, nor struggle. Only something ancient and proud.
"Pathetic," the voice that emerged from his lips was not his own. It was denser, sharper. "This body is in tatters… but it's still better than the garbage you carry."
The man with the colossal sword didn't respond. He merely pointed his blade at Bouros.
And then they clashed.
There was no warning. No cry. The earth exploded beneath their feet.
Bouros advanced with relentless ferocity, Jin's hair whipping in a black whirlwind. With a shadow transformed into a wavering blade, he deflected the opponent's downward strike and spun, slashing diagonally.
*CLANG!*
The impact was deafening.
The man's gigantic sword seemed forged from ancestral iron, but Bouros wielded the shadows in unpredictable arcs, like ravenous serpents.
The man stepped back and struck again. A horizontal slash that could cleave a horse in two. Bouros raised his left hand, and ten shadow spears materialized, orbiting to block the impact.
The ground cracked.
The group watched from a distance.
"They… they're fighting as equals," Allan murmured, eyes wide.
"That's not Jin," Lyn whispered, a chill running down her spine.
"It's Bouros," Kaellia added, her voice dry. "And he doesn't want to win. He wants to humiliate."
The battle raged on.
Bouros moved with cruel grace. His steps left trails of shadow that clung to the air like smoky fingers. Each strike was precise, seeking gaps in the man's defenses; each retreat was choreographed like a war dance.
The man, however, was no ordinary foe.
He roared without sound, his presence a gravitational force. The colossal sword spun, defying physics with each motion, slicing the air with screeches of burning metal.
Bouros leaped over a vertical strike and descended with a guillotine of shadow. The man blocked the blade at the last second, and they pushed against each other, eyes locked, both smiling.
"You're better than I expected," Bouros murmured. "But this body… oh, this body holds secrets."
Bouros extended his right arm, and the shadow of Lyria—hidden until now—rose from Jin's own shadow, merging with his blade.
The next strike was devastating.
The man staggered back two steps, for the first time in the battle.
Bouros gave no quarter. He advanced, striking in zigzags, the shadows morphing with each step: now a spear, now a whip, now a serrated blade. The man blocked but didn't counter.
Until…
*BOOM.*
A slash of energy from the giant sword cleaved a distant mountain in half.
Everyone present stopped breathing for a moment.
Bouros leaped back, twisting in the air as if floating. He landed firmly, smiling.
"Now *this*…" he whispered. "This is starting to entertain me."
They charged at each other again.
The impact darkened the sky for an instant, as if the world needed to blink to endure the sight.
Tolen fell to his knees. Mireya leaned on her staff, trembling. Allan and Kaellia stood in defensive stances, but they knew: they were no longer part of this fight.
They could only watch.
A diagonal strike from the man was parried by a shadow shield etched with flaming runes—Bouros's mark. He laughed aloud.
"Are you sure you're worthy of the fragment?"
The man paused. For the first time, he spoke.
"I don't fight for worthiness. I fight for necessity."
"Then die like a dog," Bouros whispered, striking with full force.
But something went wrong.
In the next instant, the man's sword pierced Jin's flank. Bouros staggered. The body was too exhausted, too wounded to keep up any longer.
Bouros gritted his teeth.
"Tch… miserable body…"
He glanced at the others—Kaellia, Allan, Lyn, Mireya, all frozen—and muttered with rage:
"Useless… all of you…"
Then he turned back to his opponent. A chilling whisper carried on the wind.
"Summon me… Jin."
Jin's body swayed, his knees buckling under the battle's weight. Blood poured from the wound in his flank; the severed arm still oozed evaporating darkness. His left eye trembled, as if struggling to contain something. Then, he collapsed to his knees, his breathing heavy, gasping.
He raised his remaining hand, trembling, toward the darkened sky—and spoke:
"Bouros… come."
The air tore apart.
From Jin's chest, shadows spilled like liquid smoke, taking form before everyone. The ground cracked under the emerging presence. Bouros appeared as a spectral figure, cloaked in black veils that pulsed with contained rage. His form was humanoid, but his eyes—two purple embers—and his aura were an abyss with a will of its own.
Jin collapsed in the same instant. Unconscious. Exhausted. Vulnerable.
"Jin!" Saphira screamed, rushing to him without thinking. She dropped to her knees and cradled him carefully, pressing his head to her lap. "Breathe… please, breathe…"
Bouros turned. He stared at the man with the colossal sword and smiled with pure contempt.
"Finally… a stage all to myself."
And the fight began.
Bouros didn't run—he glided, like a malevolent breath crossing the field. The man swung his sword, unleashing a wave of energy. Bouros evaporated and reappeared behind him in an instant, landing a cross-slash with an arm of pure shadow.
The blade that had sundered mountains now struck nothing.
The man roared and swung again, but Bouros split into three momentary copies, all slashing in unison, forcing the opponent to retreat for the first time.
This wasn't a fight.
It was an execution.
Bouros manipulated the gravity of shadows, turning the battlefield into a prison. Black chains erupted from the ground, binding the man's movements. Every attack was met with a precise, cruel counter.
Bouros raised his hand—and launched a black spear that pierced the enemy's sword and lodged in his chest with a thunderous crack.
The man fell to his knees.
A silent vibration rippled through the air. His body trembled, the sword fell, and then… from within him, a small red crystal slipped out, rolling onto the ground.
Absolute silence.
Kaellia began to approach, her gaze fixed on the pulsing crystal. She reached out…
But someone was faster.
Eira.
With a swift motion, she crouched and snatched the fragment before Kaellia could touch it. Her eyes gleamed with determination as she met Kaellia's gaze.
"This stays with us."
Kaellia narrowed her eyes, surprised by the audacity.
It was Lyn who spoke, her voice sharp:
"Are you after the fame of defeating a Fragment?"
Before Eira could answer, Lino stepped forward, his voice calm but certain:
"We don't want fame. Our leader wants these fragments. So… we'll take them all."
Kaellia took a deep breath, searching for words, but Eira raised a hand and cut her off coldly:
"You can say you defeated him. Take all the glory of this fight." She twirled the crystal between her fingers. "But the fragment… is ours."
Bouros reappeared behind them like a spiraling shadow, returning to Jin's unconscious body. The darkness dissolved, like smoke drawn by a sigh.
Kaellia's group stood in silence. Saphira still held Jin in her arms.
Lyn walked slowly to Jin and began healing him.
Lino and Kaellia locked eyes.
Allan broke the silence. "Well, then, the fragment stays with the guild. They'll know how to—" Allan seemed to want to defuse the situation. He was brutally interrupted.
"The fragment isn't leaving my hands. We don't follow the guild. We don't work with them," Eira said, her gaze dripping with contempt.
Saphira, still holding Jin, her eyes brimming with tears, said, "We have two wounded, and the mission is complete. Do we really need to argue about this?"
Mireya added, "This city gives me the creeps. Can you discuss this somewhere else, please?"
Lino slowly lifted Jin, hoisting him onto his back, and began to walk. Eira followed.
Tolen picked up Ziek in his arms and started walking too. The battle seemed over, but a greater conflict was beginning.
---
Hours passed.
The pain was like an icy river coursing through his veins. Jin didn't know if he was still breathing. He saw nothing—only a thick darkness that whispered in his ear like an old friend.
But then, a spark.
The void around him trembled. An ancient presence slithered through the shadows. Even unconscious, he felt the weight of that gaze. Familiar. Terrible.
"You called me again… even without knowing, even without wanting."
The voice came from all directions, like metal scraping against stone.
Jin turned slowly—or thought he did—and saw a figure emerge from the blackness. Arched horns, a body indistinct like living black smoke. Bouros.
"You're persistent. That… amuses me," Bouros said, approaching with deliberate slowness, as if savoring Jin's presence in the air.
Jin tried to speak, but there was no mouth, no throat, no sound. Only thought and silence. Yet Bouros heard him.
"Why are you here…?"
"Because you pulled me in. Or perhaps because part of me never left." Bouros stopped before him, eyes like embers buried in a well. "But summoning me has a price…"
The silence grew heavy.
"Two years."
Those words fell like a sentence. Jin didn't fully understand—or perhaps he did but refused to. He felt something inside him close, like a door locking from within. Time. Life. Memory. Nothing was clear.
Bouros raised a claw, and the darkness recoiled as if fearing his touch.
"You're deeper now. Closer to me. Perhaps too soon…"
Then, with a subtle gesture, Bouros touched his forehead—and the world shattered.
---
**Reality:**
The sound of distant thunder yanked him from unconsciousness.
"Jin… Jin!"
The voice was muffled, and his eyelids felt heavy as lead. When he finally opened them, he saw the inn's ceiling, a crack in the plaster like a frozen river. Dried blood stained his shirt. The light of dusk seeped through the window's slats.
Eira knelt beside him, her eyes red. Lino and Ziek stood nearby, tense. Something had changed.
Jin raised a trembling hand to his eyes. He was still there… but something was missing. He couldn't say what.
Bouros had said two years.
But two years of what?