As Leoric Blackwelll bravely challenged the dark elf Cazri head on, Shinsou’s wounded body passed from one moment of consciousness to the next. The transformation to Shin no Kotei 5th grade had long since worn off, and the ethereal healing properties that it gave to the Telgradian were now lost to him for another day. Dragged by trembling limbs through the searing waves of pain, his very life wavered on the edge of existence.

Get up.

Shinsou’s wrecked nerves felt as if they were being cut on blades of grass. His lungs could barely cope with the dense air. His throat thirsted for water to wash away the greasy blood and the burning film of gastric acid left in his throat. He pressed his arms into the floor as crimson spattered from his lips onto the sandstone below. His legs were like the drooping boughs of millennia-old bloodwoods, shivering in nights not yet free of winter’s chill grasp.

Get up.

Time slipped past like breath on a mirror, ephemeral as ripples on a pond. No dose of harsh reality could wholly extinguish the seriousness of the wounds he had endured. Shinsou could feel the searing of some sort of infection in his exposed muscles, and the gaping hole in his back festered in burning agony, incessantly branding torment into his vulnerable mind. It was then, though, that the desperate struggle to live doused the fires consuming his thoughts. The Telgradian pushed through the pain until he could stand again on his own two legs. Every limping step buckled, each attempt to brace sending fierce lightning racing up his wounded thigh.

The trail of blood-stained torture faded to the grim but determined totter of a man with nought left to lose.

The cacophonous thunder of unseen voices gave Leoric the unholy mission of destroying the dark elf Cazri, but these soon gave way to something else. Even as death tried to settled like motes of tar in the depths of his lungs, sickly sweet and cloying, Shinsou began an unfamiliar incantation. It was one belonging to Telos Soltair, his father. A spell that would end this once and for all.

Respectful hand, unable to touch the darkness. Shooting hand, unable to reflect the blue sky. The road that basks in light, the wind that ignites the embers, time that gathers when both are together. There is no need to be hesitant, obey my order and fill the soil.

The very temple seemed to quake in fear. Foundations around the chamber shattered like brittle crystal, and in the distance the winding corridors and smaller collapsed in thunderous ruin. Roiling waves of wind emanated from the epicentre of the spell, revealing Shinsou to be the source from which the powerful magic spewed forth. Sudden violent gusts tore at his exposed ears, and powerful strokes of razor sharp wind carved deep gashes into the tiles of the floor and the sandstone walls around them.

The dark skinned Cazri darted from tile to tile to avoid the many crescent shaped pulses, settling almost instantly on a fallen boulder in the centre of the room. Within a moment, her hands wove a powerful, heady cloak of wind. The sphere of cyclonic air dominated half of the chamber almost immediately, decimating the deadly gusts with its majestic bulk.

Shinsou clenched his teeth as the intensity of the upkeep of the spell started to erode what energy he had left. Cazri, far more comfortable and contained in her shield of wind magic, flashed her eyes towards another section of roof that had fallen from the ceiling and noted the long shadow it had cast next to the swordsman. Instantaneously, arcane energies allowed her to wind a path out of reality and twist, like a sinuous river, through the sandstone and out of the shadows behind the pair. Her shrewd silver eyes loomed closely over the two warriors, the lashing golden sword of the first king barely visible as it swung towards them in a wide arc.

Shinsou’s life flashed before him, reflected in the silky pools peering so effortlessly into his soul. Then quickly, imperceptibly, he reached out. His wounded muscles screamed. His mind felt as if it would explode. His golden eyes exploded into that familiar burning scarlet as Enpera’s blade glowed like lit magnesium by his side.

A heartbeat later, the edge of the sword was in his hand.

“Wh-“ Cazri stuttered, her eyes wide in disbelief as the cutting edge scraped against the armour plated palm of the Telgradian; a shrill, metallic sound echoing through the ruined hall. Clenching his fingers around the blade, Shinsou growled and suddenly yanked it from her grasp, flipping the golden sword of the first king until its ornate guard was firmly in his grasp.

“This wasn’t my doing. Enpera wanted me to live, and used up its own power.” Shinsou explained, holding the edge of the sword up to Cazri’s exposed jugular with one hand and restraining her movement with the other. The power of his transformation had already begun to close his terrible wounds, but even as the situation looked hopeless for Cazri, the woman dismissed his bridling antipathy with a wave of her stick-thin wrist and her nose wrinkled in perfect pantomime mockery. Her gestures conflicted jarringly with the emptiness of her expression.

"I'll send you both to hell myself!"

Cazri smiled as a burst of wind magic allowed her a skillful riposte of the blade at her throat, grabbing onto it as Shinsou staggered momentarily. Before Leoric or Shinsou could do anything about it, the dark elf channelled the sword’s power. A thin blue cross ripped open to reveal a portal of black expanse. With a tug, she pulled the sword free and used a second burst of wind magic to try and knock the adventurers into the portal. All of a sudden their shoulders slumped, arms dragged downwards as if laden by invisible weights. The crushing pressure upon their chests swelled unbearably, flinging bolts of piercing agony through random muscles.

Through it all, Shinsou could sense the dark flame that still licked at Leoric Blackwell. His eyes saw the power grasp his companion, the demonic energy beating down upon his form as though a seperate entity, attempting to sweep him away.

"Use it, Leoric! Don't hold back!"

Shinsou's head slumped and his vision wavered as the energy Enpera had gifted the Telgradian to maintain the Shin no Kotei 5th grade dissipated. Adrenaline and focus faded into the void ahead, and in their place rushed the recurring waves of agony from both shoulder and leg, and the slippery sensation of losing control over his faculties that suggested he meant to fall asleep soon.

Time was running out for them both.