AnnouncementI'll be busy for the next two days, so here's the chapters for those days.The silence after her final words didn’t st.

  Rourke let out a guttural, inhuman howl and charged forward, the magma-streaked veins across his body fring like wildfire. His cws, each as rge as Kurai’s torso, sshed down in a brutal cross. The ground cracked beneath him with every step, stone splintering under the pressure of his mutated form.

  Kurai didn’t flinch.

  She met his onsught with a graceful pivot, her bde swinging low to parry the first strike before rising in a counter-arc that left a wake of bck and violet energy. The Shadow Sovereign screamed with power, and her form blurred as she danced around the beast’s fury.

  Rourke twisted mid-lunge, his tail shing with venomous speed.

  It grazed her shoulder.

  The blow sent a jolt of impact through her ribs, but she turned the momentum into a somersaulting flip, nding in a crouch. Blood dripped down her sleeve.

  “Cute,” she muttered, rising.

  Rourke was already on her. His entire body spun, becoming a storm of cws and tail and seething darkness. His attacks tore into the air like scythes. Kurai shifted between ptforms of darkness, her footfalls light as feathers, bde fshing to intercept.

  A tendril wrapped around her ankle and hurled her into the wall.

  The impact cracked the obsidian.

  Kurai grunted, her body slumping momentarily. But as Rourke lunged again, a trap rune fred beneath his feet. He stumbled.

  Kurai rose with a feral smirk.

  “You forgot,” she hissed, forming a sphere of darkness between her palms. “I’m not the brawler. I’m the baited hook.”

  She unched the sphere forward—it struck Rourke square in the chest. Instead of exploding, it sank into his torso and froze in pce.

  Then detonated with a thundering boom, unleashing hundreds of serpentine shadows that shed and constricted him in midair.

  Kurai lunged forward with a roar of her own, her keybde igniting in a spiral of dark fme. She brought it down on Rourke’s shoulder with a devastating vertical ssh, cleaving through armor and flesh.

  This time, he roared in pain.

  The first wound.

  His body writhed, snapping the shadow-bonds. A pulse of violent darkness erupted from him like a tidal wave. Kurai threw up a barrier just in time, skidding back across the ground as the force shattered her defense.

  She crashed onto one knee, breathing normally.

  Rourke’s body healed rapidly. The gash she’d carved had already closed with molten crust, as though the va in his veins was knitting his body back together. His eyes, now pools of red light, locked onto her with pure hatred.

  Kurai spat blood and stood again.

  “Alright,” she growled, “let’s see if you can keep that up.”

  She rushed in again, shifting into a blur of darkness. Her bde sshed low, then high, then feinted before she spun and delivered a brutal reverse cut across his back. Rourke turned and sshed with both cws, and this time she didn’t dodge.

  She met his blow head-on.

  Their attacks collided in a shockwave that fttened the stone around them.

  Kurai slid back, boots grinding across obsidian. Her arms shook.

  Rourke didn’t move an inch.

  “Tch,” she muttered. “You’re starting to get on my nerves.”

  She unched a flurry of Dark Firagas, each one infused with cursed fmes that twisted midair and struck from unpredictable angles. They peppered Rourke from all sides, exploding against his shoulders, torso, face.

  Smoke engulfed him.

  Kurai exhaled slowly, lowering her bde.

  A moment passed.

  Then Rourke stepped out of the smoke, completely unfazed.

  Only his horn was singed.

  “That’s it?” he growled. His voice was warped, a blend of man and beast and something far worse. “You’re not even a threat.”

  Kurai clicked her tongue. “You’re right. Let’s try something more intense.”

  And vanished.

  When she reappeared, it was beneath him, spinning upward into a Dark Spiral Ascension, her body wreathed in bck fme as she carved into his midsection with rising sshes.

  Rourke howled and grabbed her by the leg, smming her into the ground like a ragdoll.

  She coughed, the air knocked from her lungs.

  Before she could blink, he brought his cw down.

  She caught it with her keybde.

  The weight crushed her knee into the stone. She gritted her teeth, veins bulging in her arms. Her boots cracked the ptform she knelt on.

  “I said…” she hissed, dark energy fring from her back, “I’m not a brawler!”

  She released the Shadow Sovereign’s limiter.

  A pulse of pure darkness erupted outward, flinging Rourke back into a jagged rock spire.

  Kurai stood slowly, swaying. Blood trickled from her shoulder. Her bde vibrated in her grip, a low hum resonating with her heartbeat. Then it transformed into its warfan mode.

  Rourke rose again. The spire he was embedded in colpsed behind him. He stepped forward, slowly this time, like a predator savoring the hunt.

  “You’re strong,” he said. “But not enough.”

  Kurai said nothing.

  He leapt, mouth wide, cws crackling with bck fire.

  She sidestepped the first ssh and parried the second, then retaliated with a palm strike that unched a point-bnk Dark Firaga into his face.

  Still nothing.

  He struck again—faster this time.

  Kurai blocked—but the force rattled her to the bone. She barely had time to counter before he spun and brought a cw down in a vertical ssh aimed to cleave her in two.

  She caught it.

  The ground beneath her colpsed.

  She fell, dragging herself onto another ledge as Rourke dropped after her.

  Kurai nded and stumbled back, breathing hard.

  She looked down at her fan, still glowing faintly.

  Then at Rourke—still unmarred.

  Her lips curled into a thin line.

  “Okay,” she muttered to herself. “I think we’re almost done warming up.”

  Another strike came. She blocked it with one hand, fan ringing. Her feet dug into the stone, her stance unshakable.

  Another blow.

  She parried, this time using the ft of her fan to redirect the force.

  A third.

  She ducked, twisted, and spun around his leg sweep.

  Then she fired a wide Dark Shockwave, forcing him to shield his face.

  Kurai took the moment and leapt back, nding on a high ledge.

  She exhaled, brushing her hair from her face, her expression as calm as still water.

  “Right,” she said aloud, “I think I’ve pyed around long enough.”

  She flicked her hand, summoning a barrier of darkness between them and leaned her fan over her shoulder, one eye narrowing as she stared through the veil at Rourke.

  “You’re built like a fortress,” she murmured. “And my fire doesn’t even scratch the paint. That’s a shame that was the nicest way to kill you. I’m afraid you’re in for a world of pain.”

  Below, Rourke hissed and raised his cws again, charging.

  Kurai’s eyes gleamed.

  She met his charge with a grin—and unched another Dark Firaga, not at him this time, but at the ceiling. The explosion shattered a chunk of volcanic rock that rained down on the battlefield.

  Rourke shielded himself.

  Kurai used the distraction to dart left, fire a final Dark Firaga directly at the side of the wall to open up the space so she could really fight.

  The explosion hit.

  Dust and debris clouded the chamber.

  Kurai nded on a far ptform and exhaled, to the shock of Skuld, who was watching nearby, saw that Kurai smiled.