Under the perpetually dark sky of Tenebris, the tension had become a physical entity, a pressure that crushed the lungs of anyone who dared to breathe this air saturated with mana. Eleanor floated in the middle of her sons, her movements possessing a fluidity that defied human perception.

Amaera Castillon, her hands wrapped in an aura of ice of absolute purity, launched volleys of sharp crystals, seeking to sever the invisible threads that restricted their space. But for every thread broken, Eleanor wove ten more with a simple movement of her lace-gloved fingers.

Klein, for his part, remained at the center of the storm.

Yet even while restraining himself, he had to draw on his predator reflexes.

< Elemental Magic : Ice >

< Blizzard de Ronces >

Amaera struck the ground with her palms.

A wave of ice bristling with spikes surged toward the dark elf. Eleanor let out a light laugh. With a graceful gesture, she pulled on several suspended threads. Her body rose, pivoting in the air with agility.

"Too slow, Vice Director," Eleanor sneered.

She descended like a meteor, her hands tracing complex circles.

A rain of < Mana Threads > fell from the sky, each one charged with murderous intent. Klein had to react. He activated his < Eye of Predator >, seeing the trajectories of death sketched in his field of vision.

He used the < Fluid Sword >, transforming his stance into a sequence of circular and economical movements. His black katana deflected the threads at the last millimeter, the metal meeting the magical silk in a crackle of bluish sparks.

Eleanor landed on the ground, less than three meters from him. Her slender figure and wide hips swayed imperceptibly as she adjusted her guard. Her golden eye shone with a strange gleam when she fixed her gaze on Klein.

’This style... this way of betting on the angle rather than on force...’ she thought, a fleeting memory crossing her mind. She saw Kaiser again, sitting on the roof of Black Neon, his cold gaze and provocative smile. She shook her head, chasing away that unwelcome thought.

’ Impossible...that idiot is dead.’

This realization, or rather this denial, triggered a glacial fury in her. She could not stand that someone else could move with the same grace as that man.

"You annoy me, little one," murmured Eleanor, her voice losing all neutrality to become a promise of pain.

She accelerated even more. Her speed became such that she left only afterimages behind her. Klein found himself backed into a corner. In close combat, Eleanor was simply superior in this state of restriction. Her threads were no longer just traps; they became extensions of her limbs. She struck with her palm, sent circular kicks that shattered stone, all while manipulating her threads to hinder Klein’s legs.

Klein took a violent shoulder blow that made him recoil. He felt Eleanor’s aura crushing his own. < Aura Farming > struggled to compensate for the fatigue.

"Klein! Move aside!" ordered Amaera, preparing a fifth-circle spell.

But Eleanor was faster. She used a < Shadow Walk > to appear in the Director’s blind spot. Her hands were joined, the threads converging to form a single mana blade capable of slicing diamond.

"Your heart is mine, Loriel..." said the dark elf.

The blade of threads cleaved the air, aiming directly at Amaera’s neck. Surprised by the speed of the attack, the Director had not had time to raise her ice defenses. Time seemed to freeze. The whistle of death was a few centimeters from the albino skin of the Director.

*CLANG !*

A deafening metallic sound, like the clash of two mountains of iron, shook the area. Klein was there. He had interposed himself, his katana blocking the blade of threads a hair’s breadth from Amaera’s throat. The impact was so powerful that his boots sank into the rocky ground, creating radial fissures under his feet.

His tensed muscles under his coat trembled under the phenomenal pressure exerted by Eleanor. The dark elf leaned with all her weight, her eyes fixed on Klein’s, seeking to understand how this simple warrior had been able to intercept her fastest blow.

Their faces were a few centimeters apart. Klein plunged his gaze directly into the golden eye and the black eye of the elf. He was no longer smiling. The expression of lightness had disappeared, replaced by a natural authority that made Eleanor shiver to the marrow of her bones.

"It’s me, Eleanor... Stop," he said in a low voice.

Eleanor froze. That voice.... It was the imperious tone of the one who led Black Neon, the one who had kissed her in the shadows of the night after a murder. Her aura wavered brutally. Confusion overwhelmed her.

"Kaiser... ?" she stammered, her threads relaxing imperceptibly.

Amaera, behind him, remained petrified, short of breath, not understanding what had just happened nor the words that had just been exchanged in that murmur.

It was at that instant that the ground, weakened by the repeated impacts of Eleanor’s attacks and Klein’s shockwaves, began to break. A dull cracking sound, similar to an underground thunderclap, echoed beneath their feet. The ledge on which they were fighting fractured cleanly.

The plateau collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris.

"The cliff is collapsing!" shouted Amaera, trying to create an ice platform, but the instability of the mana in the area caused her incantation to fail.

Eleanor and Klein were carried away by the fall. In the chaos of the falling rocks, Klein tried to grab Eleanor’s hand, but the dark elf had already regained a fraction of her lucidity. She saw the gaping void below them, the depths of Tenebris that promised an endless fall.

She looked at Klein one last time. An expression of regret, devotion and infinite sadness passed over her face. She knew she could not save both of them with her threads, not in this chaos.

"So you were still alive..." she murmured.

With a fluid movement, she launched one last mana thread. It wrapped around Klein’s waist. With a brutal twist of her slender body, using her strength, she propelled Klein far away, toward a stable rocky outcrop located several dozen meters higher up.

Klein was propelled with a violence that took his breath away, his fingers desperately clawing at the air as he moved away from the abyss.

Eleanor, deprived of her foothold and having used all her momentum to save him, toppled backward. She fell alone, her slender silhouette quickly disappearing into the darkness of the depths, her blonde hair floating like a last spark of light before being devoured by the depths of Tenebris.

’ Shit what is she doing! I could easily save myself using aura Repulsion!’

"ELEANOR!" shouted Klein, his voice lost in the crash of the rocks that finished their fall at the bottom of the gorge.