The momentary silence before the storm was shattered by a deafening scream of steel as Fredrinn lunged forward.
He was the first to attack.
He channeled his rage and determination into a single, fluid motion, swinging his sword in a horizontal arc toward the Black Knight’s neck.
But the Knight was as if he had been anticipating this move for years.
Twisting his arm at an unnatural angle, he met the blow with his own black blade.
For an instant, the two swords paused, like two predators locked in combat.
And then a deadly waltz began.
Fredrinn pressed the attack, each blow heavier, faster than the last.
Their swords sang a lethal melody, glinting in the cathedral’s dim light and scattering sparks with every clash.
In the midst of this hellish duel, Rose and Cassian were not idle.
Rose, wielding her staff like a conductor’s baton, constantly harassed their opponent.
Vines erupted from the floor, shards of ice sliced through the air, and bursts of light momentarily blinded the Knight.
Cassian, meanwhile, was a phantom.
Exploiting the main pressure created by Fredrinn, he slipped into the Knight’s blind spots, striking at the most unexpected moments.
His katana was wreathed in pure lightning.
Each swing left a crackling trail and the scent of ozone in its wake.
His attacks were devastating, yet the Black Knight’s armor seemed to be from another dimension.
In the rare moments Cassian managed to breach its defense, his blade left only shallow, irritating cuts.
Worse, the Knight’s counterattacks against Cassian were far more vicious and merciless.
With every parry, he repelled Cassian with a force that vibrated his very bones.
The Black Knight met this organized three-person assault with incredible mastery, showing not a single moment of weakness.
Rose realized this was not going to end well.
Small-scale, rapid-fire spells were not enough to budge this iron behemoth.
She had to play for higher stakes.
Closing her eyes, she gripped her staff tightly and began to focus her mana into a single point.
High on the cathedral’s shadowed ceiling, one by one, orbs of fire began to appear, glowing like small, angry suns.
Each was the size of a human head, radiating an intense, destructive wave of energy.
Down below, Fredrinn barely dodged a vertical sword strike from the Knight.
He ducked to the side before instantly launching a counter-attack.
As their blades locked once more, Fredrinn revealed a hidden dagger in his left hand, attempting a swift strike at a joint in the Knight’s armor.
But it was no use.
The Black Knight, sensing his intent at the last second, leaned back slightly.
The dagger scraped across the armor, leaving a scratch too insignificant to even be called damage.
As he continued to support Fredrinn, Cassian made a decision.
They couldn’t win a war of attrition like this. They needed a bigger, more decisive blow.
He suddenly pulled back, leaving Fredrinn and the Black Knight alone for a brief moment.
With one less opponent, the Black Knight focused his entire assault on Fredrinn.
But Fredrinn called upon the power of the stone in his chest.
The blue glimmer intensified, and his attacks became visibly faster and stronger, allowing him to withstand the Knight’s onslaught.
Having bought this brief window, Cassian focused on two different spells simultaneously.
In his right hand, a spear of pure lightning began to take form, as tall as a man and brutally sharp at its tip.
With his left, he sliced through the air, creating a colossal, razor-sharp ’X’ formed of wind.
He sent the wind spell first.
Then, he sent the lightning spear.
Both hurtled toward the Black Knight.
The Black Knight, after parrying Fredrinn’s attack, raised his sword to block the incoming spells.
But Fredrinn had no intention of letting his attention be divided. He brought his sword down with all his might.
A deafening clang and a shower of sparks erupted from the impact.
At that exact moment, Cassian’s ’X’-shaped wind spell struck the Knight’s side.
Though most of the spell was nullified by the armor, it managed to cut a small gash in a weaker spot under his arm.
Instantly, the lightning spear plunged into that newly formed opening, striking the Black Knight’s arm.
This blow was unlike the others.
As the raw, destructive power of the lightning hit the armor, the sound of cracking metal echoed through the hall.
A section of the armguard shattered completely, revealing a substance beneath that looked like living darkness, a dripping, jet-black fluid.
Before the Knight could recover from the shock, Rose’s main assault began.
The dozens of fireballs gathered on the ceiling rained down upon the Black Knight like a meteor shower.
Fredrinn swiftly retreated to avoid being caught in the attack.
The floor trembled with the force of the explosions as the Knight tried to fend off the fiery onslaught.
At that same moment, Cassian cast another spell from a distance.
Chains of chaotic flame, glowing purple and black, shot up from the ground, wrapping around the Black Knight and attempting to restrain his movements.
The Black Knight resisted, but for a fleeting moment, he staggered from the blows he had taken.
That moment was everything to Cassian.
He swooped down from the shadows of the ceiling like a bird of prey.
His katana hummed ominously, now coated not only in lightning but also in an all-consuming black flame he had not used before.
At the last second, the Black Knight perceived the deadly threat from above.
He used his special ability to counter, converting all the energy from the blows he had taken into a single, overwhelming counter-assault.
His aim was to simply crush Cassian’s attack with pure force.
But in that same millisecond, Fredrinn attacked again.
He channeled the full power of the stone in his chest into his sword and swung at the Knight.
The Black Knight was now faced with two fatal attacks at once; he was forced to meet Fredrinn’s blade with his own.
The instant the two swords collided, a massive wave of energy shook the entire chamber.
In the midst of this chaos, Cassian’s attack found its mark.
The lightning widened the cracks in the Knight’s damaged arm, but that wasn’t enough. The black flames on his sword spread across the Black Knight’s body like a plague, seeping into his wounds and consuming his dark mana like a parasite.
At the same time, Cassian’s ’Void Decay’ ability activated.
The Black Knight grew confused by this curse spreading through his body. He had been afflicted with two debilitating effects from a single blow.
He understood this was not going in his favor.
Cassian’s attack had succeeded, but the pure force unleashed by the Black Knight was far beyond what he could withstand.
The energy of the counterattack tore a huge, deep gash across Cassian’s stomach.
A scream tore from his lips.
Blood sprayed everywhere.
The force of the blow sent him flying lifelessly onto a pile of wooden chairs at the edge of the room.
Black smoke billowed over the site of the clash.
"CASSIAN!"
The worried screams of Rose and Fredrinn echoed through the cathedral.
From their perspective, Cassian had suffered a mortal wound. If they didn’t help him immediately, he would bleed out in minutes—if he wasn’t dead already.
For a single, fatal moment, their focus, the greatest mistake of their lives, was broken.
Before they got an answer, a figure in damaged armor burst through the smoke, charging toward them.
This time, his target was Rose.
Desperately, Rose tried to block the blow by creating a multi-layered mana shield in front of her.
Fredrinn ran to help, but he realized with bitter certainty that he wouldn’t make it in time.
The mana shield shattered like glass under the impact of the black sword.
The blade plunged into Rose’s lung.
The young woman’s eyes widened in shock, blood pouring from her mouth.
At that moment, Fredrinn reached the Knight and attacked with pure fury.
He no longer had the luxury of waiting, of watching him play his cards.
If he didn’t put everything on the line right now, he would lose both Rose and Cassian.
He called out to the stone in his chest with a plea that came from the depths of his soul.
He felt the blood in his veins being replaced by a searing, pure power.
His entire body trembled with a momentary weakness.
Then, upon his skin, a faint, translucent, bluish layer of armor slowly began to form.