The anger pulsed through her veins. It felt like pockets of air, trapped between a lake and its frozen surface. The gas was every bit as cold as its surroundings, a frigid wrath, that nonetheless yearned to escape through the cracks.

Few were showing so far. She was holding onto her grace.

Straight, prim, and proper, she stood on the descending tongue. It had dropped through the floor of the skull and was now going ever further down a shaft of crudely cut stones. Aztec decorations were carved into them, all of them appearing remarkably fresh. This was no ruin, forsaken for several generations, but a ritual place of frequent use.

They were being delivered from one pocket of the Sanctum to another. The connection she shared with her Master grew distant and fuzzy. The four other people on the staircase stared at her. Aclysia did not rein in the cold. Mist flowed down her features like a second dress. Ice flowers bloomed at her feet.

Their grotesquely shaped elevator came to a stop at the bottom of the shaft. Four doorways split into four different areas. No instructions were necessary. The four fighters headed towards one gate each. The annoyance with the cat head turned into splitting strands of darkness, filling gemstones above each of the gates.

Once through, the door behind Aclysia disappeared. Torches flickered to life, too far from each other to create any proper light. They were spots of twilight between gulfs of black, scarcely revealing the insides of the impossible temple they were now inside of. It stretched too far to the left and right not to overlap with adjacent rooms, yet Aclysia was doubtlessly alone with the dark. Silhouettes of cat and human skulls were carved from the rock. Some formations appeared borderline natural, dripstones and the like, others were entirely artificial.

Aclysia gripped Eclys in her right hand. The katana lay feather light in her hand. She swung it carelessly at a nearby shadow, creating a slicing shockwave of the same silver as the blade. Despite its luminous appearance, it spread very little light and stopped after cutting a trench into the stone.

The harsh winter winds around Aclysia only grew more intense as she advanced into the chamber. Temperature dropped until the moisture itself turned into snowflakes in her wake. Her aura of glacial cold was faintly visible as translucent blue streaks, spreading her influence in a vortex.

“Cease wasting my time,” Aclysia demanded.

“Why do you invade?” The pointy ears of the dragon maid twitched at the voice attempting to find its source. Turning to the side, she unleashed a cone of cold from her maw. Icicles spread in diagonals away from her, ready to pierce anything in their path. There was nothing. The ice lost itself in the murky darkness.

Aclysia clicked her tongue and advanced further. She was deliberately putting herself out there. Cautiousness was not part of her purpose.

“Why do you invade?!” Tezcatlipoca repeated his question. “This is not your land.”

‘Just make him angry,’ Aclysia decided. “It is not yours either. You lay claim to something you surrendered generations ago.” Before the god-warrior could answer, she continued, “Not that it matters to me.”

“…Why do you fight, then?” the Lord of Darkness wished to know.

“Because you ruined my Master’s breakfast – thrice,” Aclysia answered. She knew that was ridiculous to the god-warrior. To her, it was very real. “You have inconvenienced my John,” she hissed, airing her grievances through the cracks in her exterior. “That is worse than any invasion of ‘your land’, worse than any slight to your respect. You have annoyed the one and only worthwhile leader in this world and I will have you bleed for it!”

“That’s it?!” Tezcatlipoca roared. “That’s your grand motivation for fighting?!”

“It is greater than yours will ever be!” Aclysia shouted back.

A moment later, the god-warrior launched himself at her. He emerged from the surrounding darkness like a black panther charging at its prey. Aclysia turned her back, turned ephemeral, and sliced. Tezcatlipoca sailed through her, then was hit by the cut after the Reality Fracture was ended.

It was a shallow cut, but it was long. Black Ice flowered along the length of it, like a crooked spine grown on the muscular back of the god-warrior. He whirled around immediately, in his right hand a sword of obsidian fused with animal teeth.

Aclysia remembered their first fight well. She let the blade crash into her side and focused a bellowing breath at the fist hurled towards her instead. Ice over a hundred degrees colder than the hot, humid tropical air enveloped the black first. True Block did the rest, allowing her to push the fist aside before it could knock into her with gravitational might.

Tezcatlipoca jumped back and slammed his frozen fist into a pillar. The ice shattered at the impact. The wound in Aclysia’s side was already mending itself. She lost no time to keep up. ‘This fight is won on the basis of who disables whom first,’ she thought, ‘and I have the edge. I just need to stay close.’

Black Ice worked best if given time, but her glacial aura worked only when she remained within a few metres of her target. Drawing the warmth out of his bones was her way to win and she would push her advantage.

Eclys clashed against the obsidian sword. Both weapons vibrated from the impact. Counterforce pushed them back. The long katana in her hand was exchanged for the dagger, Salver, and Aclysia dove under the next strike. Portals opened up around Tezcatlipoca, feeding him increased energy. The additional power was channelled into a swift downwards punch.

It went through Aclysia, her weapons’ second Reality Fracture activated. She moved to the side, became material again, then went into a Cutting Flurry. The dagger, the god-warrior evaded, the katana, he blocked, but the cleaver slammed into the side of his obsidian weapon and shattered it. Aclysia’s mind was pulled at by the activated Scourge. Her HP bled away. Her mind slipped to a lesser point, but her body was strong – too strong. Scourge doubled all of her Physical Stats and that force was put into a devastating impact.

Shards of obsidian and teeth flew through the air, closely followed by frozen blood. It was the ribcage of the god-warrior that stopped her attack. Tiemarath glowed an angry red, its edge sunk deep into the pectorals of the large man.

Ice was followed by heat. The Hellblade Attribute of Tiemarath made the wounds it created that much harder to heal. Blood flowed, then was frozen again. Black Ice spread despite the heat. Frost and searing heat went back and forth in competing waves. The weapon quivered in excitement at the taste of blood, its Swordmind awakening fully.

This was the weapon Aclysia wanted to wield.

Effortlessly, she evaded the counterpunch, her increased Agility putting her ahead even of Tezcatlipoca’s speed. The god-warrior attempted to slink away into the shadow, but Aclysia refused to let him. A sword wave was closely followed by her charge. Tiemarath slammed into a pillar. She laughed. Aclysia’s pink lips peeled back and she laughed. Black Ice covered her like an armour and crept over her enemy like a growing sarcophagus.

Scourge made her mind swim. The rage grew. The sword practically moved on its own, knocking aside a gravitational pulse. The magic was sliced like fabric. Tezcatlipoca took another step back; Aclysia was ready to ram her sword through his chest when she caught him in this game of dragon and cat.

Strike for strike, she chased him. He did well delaying her, using gravity wells to slow her advance and avoiding her at all times. He used the darkness as his cover, as little as that served him. Aclysia was always there, always chasing, always basking him in frost. He was getting slowed and she-

-was slowly dying.

Aclysia grasped the mental alarm bell and cut the flow of her life into Tiemarath. Pain suddenly flowed into her, dull, throbbing, and all over. Powerful as Scourge was, it also took a ramping cost, a cost that now left her at 60% of her HP.

The god-warrior noticed the sudden break. How could he not when it was accompanied by the ending of the red light around the cleaving blade?

Yet more energy flowed into Tezcatlipoca. The red streaks attempted to mend the wound in his chest first – to no avail. The gash in his pectoral remained, the Hellblade preventing it from sealing up.

Aclysia took glee in the sight. A glee that froze when a surge of purple ooze pumped through the portals. It gnawed the entire muscle clean off before replacing it with a new one. Tezcatlipoca hissed, in pain. Ultimately the wound was gone. The Black Ice remained, still creeping on.

The god-warrior knew that his only victory was a quick one and Aclysia knew that she had him exactly where she wanted. Disarmed, cold, and shaking, her enemy had been dominated so far.

That he charged at her faster than ever before was expected. Aclysia was the slower of the two now, Scourge still cooling down from its recent use, but even as she took a fist to the shoulder, she revealed her fangs in a wide smirk. The impact lingered as a sphere of gravity, pulling her down with the same intensity as the knuckles had cracked her Glacial Exoskeleton. Yet, still, her segmented tail curved with glee. Her victory would not be fast, but it was assured.

A movement in the corner of her vision had Aclysia turn her head. Both she and her opponent jumped back. A sword slammed into the ground between them. It was a gargantuan thing, a heap of metal wrapped in darkness. “Claim it!” thundered the Horseman of War.

Aclysia made the mistake of glancing over at the red rider, before lunging for the weapon. Tezcatlipoca seized it in an instant and whirled it around. Even in the hands of the two-metre tall panther man it seemed huge. The sword vibrated with shadows and gravitational energy.

The inherent unfairness of the intervention did not matter to the god-warrior. They made the rules and so all Aclysia could do was grit her teeth and turn ephemeral. Tezcatlipoca had learned something about how the Reality Fracture and Delayed Cut worked, charged through her, and only turned around after he had distanced himself several steps. He charged back in and once again through her, putting the second Reality Fracture on cooldown.

‘How do I win?’ she asked herself. The answer was the same as before. ‘Delay.’

Aclysia assumed a defensive stance, Tiemarath now in hand. A feint, sprung on her enemy when he dove back in. Tiemarath met the new weapon – and shattered like glass. The shards of the weapon tumbled through the air, before getting pulled towards Tezcatlipoca’s weapon. Pieces of white and black Mithril were pulled into the raw iron.

Up to that point, Aclysia had been annoyed. Then, even the heft of the weapon was ripped from her hands and devoured by the gravitational blade. Annoyance turned to shock, but shock did not stop her from reacting. She pulled out Eclys next.

The katana was not a weapon to use for blocking, too light and thin for a task that Tiemarath could not have completed. Tezcatlipoca’s body rippled, the muscles bulging, bursting the obstructing parts of the creeping ice off them. His breathing was loud and laboured. The degree of additional power he was tapping into was visibly pushing him towards his edge.

The katana was not a weapon to use for blocking, but Aclysia had no choice. The heavy blade shattered that obstacle as well, going through the katana and slicing into Aclysia. The edge of the weapon was blunt, too blunt to cut, but the gravitational magic of the god-warrior found a medium in it. Aclysia could only stumble a step backwards, while the impact clung to her torso like an anvil around her neck.

The broken shaft of Eclys similarly leapt from her hands. Shock turned to horror, watching her most used weapon disappear into the raw heap of metal. It had been a New Year’s gift from a being from another world – a gift of a sort, anyway. It had been upgraded on commission by her Master. She had wielded it for most of her service, and just like that, the katana was gone.

Aclysia was left with the dagger, Tezcatlipoca with exhaustion and cold. His muscles deflated to their usual size. He exhaled a thick, shadowy mist and stepped forwards. His moment of strength was over, but he still had enough power to threaten her.

Reality Fracture came off cooldown in that moment. The weaponized maid went for distance. The chill had seeped into her enemy’s bones. Even where the Black Ice did not reach, he was starting to freeze over. The glacial winds were chilling blood and muscle.

Momentum kept Tezcatlipoca going and momentum was all he needed. Thrums of gravitational energy accompanied the wide swing that went for the rematerialized maid. She dodged. He steadied the weapon like a lance. He charged. Her back hit a pillar, previously obscured by the darkness. She clenched her teeth and held on to her final lifeline. She had the HP to take this attack.

Dull as the blade was, the tip was just sharp enough to, combined with the force, push into her defenceless stomach. By the time the straight blade stopped, it split her from womb to sternum and was embedded deep into the pillar behind her.

Aclysia screamed. The weapon was pulling metals out of her. All of the Celexiums and Fusionals were devoured. Elementium and Mithril soon followed. She felt dizzy, her magical matrix struggling to adjust to the changes. Excruciating pain was layered above that. It was as if her nervous system was ripped out, regenerated, then ripped out again.

Even among all of that, Aclysia managed to glare at the grinning god-warrior and the Horseman that observed them from a distance. War stood in a dimensional gash of some kind, clutching a weapon of wrought faces. “Claim it,” he repeated.

“I claim it,” Tezcatlipoca spoke, his voice dry, all moisture in the air frozen. “I complete it!” The god-warrior ripped the dagger from Aclysia’s clutches.

“Don’t you da-“ Tezcatlipoca smashed Salver against the side of the blade. The dagger bent, but did not break. “Please!” she shouted out, but that only made the black-skinned man repeat the motion with greater enthusiasm. She tried to act, but the pain kept messing with her magical matrix. She was helpless. “No!” A third time the dagger hit the weapon and finally it broke.

The shards tumbled in slow-motion through the air. Salver, the weapon longest in her arsenal. Salver the knife used to prepare food and the tablet to deliver it with. Salver, first gifted to her by her John, by Lydia, by Eliana, and by Rave, on that first Christmas together.

Horror turned to pure rage.

The pain stopped.

Aclysia inhaled. Arctic winds spewed forth from her maw, enveloping Tezcatlipoca for a moment, before the god-warrior managed to roll to the side. Pulling her final lifeline, Aclysia activated Juggernaut. All of the clumps of gravitational energy fell off her in the initial burst.

The god-warrior tried to charge back in, but their speed was finally back to equal. In a moment of perfect hatred, Aclysia ripped the sword out of her stomach and turned it around.

The grip laid in her hand with familiar heat. Gravitational forces were expelled. The blade as a whole exploded, shedding an outer shell of iron and revealing a jagged, gorgeous, and cruel weapon of black and white ice within, layered around a core of frigid Fusionals. The weapon played on keys of purity the melody of murder.

An explosion of gravitational force swept over Aclysia, its effect much diminished by the ongoing Juggernaut effect. Tezcatlipoca tried to do something, anything, to defend himself. His right arm was frozen in place. His left arm hurled an attack at Aclysia. He was too slow, covered in ice flowers, and she had only one goal.

Aclysia’s overhead slash came down with the inevitability of the falling guillotine. The cleaver slammed through his forehead, then went on and on. Where the blade passed, it left the body flash frozen and splintering. When it emerged at the bottom, Tezcatlipoca’s two halves did not drop. They remained upright, frozen inside, and were swiftly covered completely by Black Ice.

Thoughts within Aclysia wrestled as she raised up her new weapon. It played music in response to her gaze, a tune of concentrated vengeance in synchronicity with her mood. The sorrow of loss and the confusion of victory intermingled. She turned her eyes to where she had last seen War, not certain if she should thank or kill the rider.

Luckily for him, he was gone.