The battlefield was far from over. The cat-mask, those slender limbs cloaked in inky ether, blurred toward Eleyn.

In a flash, they were upon her, talons slashing through the air, Eleyn barely twisted aside, wrenching her wand to one side.

The blunt haft collided with the cat's wrist, sending a shower of sparks as ether flared. The masked assassin howled, springing backward to maintain distance, and in that instant, the deer-mask burst from cover, antlered head lowered in a lethal charge. They tackled Eleyn to the ground, bone-sickening crunch echoing as her ribs folded.

Pain lanced through her. The golden pendant at her throat pulsed violently, like the ether stored in it was complaining.

With a roar, she clawed at the earth, embedding her fingers into the soil.

"Burst forth!" She screamed.

At her command, the world answered: the ground fractured in concentric circles, and choking vines, it was glossy, thorn-tipped, and it snapped upward, curling around the deer's legs.

But the deer's eyes burned black, and with a guttural bellow, he shrugged off the vines like a rag doll, green sap spraying everywhere. The antlers on his mask turned dark as he reared to gore her.

Somewhere behind the fray, Seraphis roared.

She thrust both hands downward, and the ground quaked. A jagged fissure split the earth between Eleyn and the deer-mask. The tree roots split apart with a tearing sound.

The massive stone arching from either side separated like a broken gate, forcing the deer off-balance and sending them tumbling.

Before they could recover, Seraphis was there: her fist connected with the deer's sternum, breath leaving their lungs in a high-pitched squeal. Yet even as Seraphis's punch seemed to crush them into a lifeless heap, the deer slumped, only to rise again, leaping backward into the shadows.

Eleyn gasped, every breath searing her lungs. She pressed her wand to the dirt, drawing in frayed strands of ether from the necklace around her neck. The air grew heavy with a golden haze. She rose slowly, voice ragged but resolute. "Furorem aetheris!"

The words shattered the silence, the sky lit up, and tiny stars started to appear one by one. But stars grew larger each second that passed. The attack was slow, but that drawback came with a destructive force.

"Siste!" She gave another command, and all the movements of the five masked men stopped.

She flinched inward, her whole body shaking from pain. She held her head and rubbed, she had exerted her psyche again. Stopping their movement was getting harder as time passed, and it was consuming ether at an alarming rate, but this didn't last long.

From the thick clouds overhead, stalactites of pure, molten ether rained down like shooting stars. The five masks turned, but the torrent was too swift. Golden shards impaled them through chest, limbs, and throat. Each spasm of agony was punctuated by a hiss as ether dissolved flesh.

The forest stilled again, the only sound the sizzle of molten ether as it evaporated on contact with damp soil and foliage.

One by one, the five masked assassins staggered, bloodless viscera coagulating as they tried to step forward. Their masks cracked, the seams tore open, revealing eyes gone crystalline. Three of them were men, and two were women. They sank to their knees, heads bowed, then exploded upward in a crescendo of dark ether, as though the forest itself vomited them back into life.

Seraphis's crimson aura flared wider, covering half the clearing in blood-red light. Her silhouette seemed to meld with the shadows, her every movement a blur. She launched forward again, fists swinging in arcs of pure strength. Each strike shattered bone and sinew, yet each foe still rose, a moment later, hands re-knitting torn flesh, eyes glowing with necrotic fire.

Eleyn's knees shook, but she remained standing. Her wand began to bleed golden sparks, ether so dense it warped the world around it. Branches twisted, leaves blackened, and the very air seemed to warp with heat. She stared at her enemies, once again lunging, once again animated by some hellish power, and her eyes narrowed to slits.

"Renascantur animae"

With that final invocation, the air tore. A blistering wave of corrupted wind, half flame, half lightning, erupted from her wand, spiraling like a whirlpool.

It consumed everything in its path: roots overturned, stones vaporized, fragments of masks disintegrated. Underneath the storm, however, the five masked assassins stood unmoved, animated by whatever horror strove to unmake them. They advanced, each step carving craters in the earth. Something changed about them, their movements got less sloppy, it became more alive, it was as if Eleyn had blessed them.

Seraphis crouched, all ten fingers digging into the soil. Her knuckles glowed. The ground beneath the assassins rippled, a series of concentric spikes bursting from beneath their feet to lift them, only to hurl them like ragdolls into surrounding trees.

Each tree exploded outward, wood splintering as if struck by a divine hammer. When the assassins landed, they stared in place for a heartbeat, eyes flickering with recognition of the violence around them, then rose again, possessed by a relentless malice that outranked pain or exhaustion.

The foes, however, staggered a bit. As if they were hurt from the impact.

Blood and ether mixed in the clearing's center. Eleyn, wand ash-white now, whispered, "This ends." She stretched out both arms, palms open to the sky. "Da mihi quod Deus spirit."

From the heavens, a single column of golden light descended, striking her like a spear. The pendant at her neck flamed so brightly it cast her entire body in silhouette. The glow intensified, and with a final word, spoken as if Splitting Reality itself, she snarled, "Oblivio Vitae."

Seraphis jumped up as far away from Eleyn as she could, which was a lot considering her physical enhancement.

A cathedral of pure light unfurled from Eleyn's chest, rays piercing out in all directions. Every organism within a hundred paces felt the force: leaves curled, sap boiled, even the air trembled.

The five masked assassins froze, ether crackling violently around them as their twisted bodies were unmade limb by limb. The fox had its mask shattered, eyes shattering like glass. The rabbit's twisted ribcage exploded inward and out. The pig's once-regenerating flesh burned to ash. The cat's sinew snapped as though pulled apart by invisible hands. The deer's antlers sunk through their own skull in an agonized arc before everything went dark.

Silence returned, absolute. The only sign of life was Eleyn herself, still standing, golden light ebbing from her form like spent embers. Seraphis came back just as quickly and knelt beside her, fingertips brushing her shoulder. Neither spoke.

Finally, Eleyn fell to one knee, panting hardly and struggling to breathe. The ground around her was cratered, the trees nothing more than charred stumps. Her wand clattered to the earth, spent. She looked at Seraphis, eyes bloodshot, body trembling. "My psyche... I ...I can't—"

Seraphis rose, voice low and calm, uncertain if it was relief or fatal certitude. "You wielded the weight of life and death itself… and survived."

Eleyn swallowed, shaking her head. "They were… not human anymore. I had to burn out whatever remained."

Seraphis surveyed the battlefield, crimson aura fading. The carnage was complete: not a single one of the five unholy assassins remained. Yet in their stead lay a new dread in her chest, an ache born of watching life twisted beyond return.

"What were they?" Seraphis asked, much to herself than Eleyn.

"Not a normal Necromancy principle." Eleyn sighed and laid on the ground, "That is for sure."

"Eleyn can I ask you something?" Seraphis turned to her.

"Yeah sure, just... let me take a breather."

Seraphis took a deep breath, hesitating a bit before asking. "The words you used to cast the principles... were they from the lost dragon tongue?"