"I only have seven chances left to attack. After that… I'll have nothing left," Hayama murmured softly before closing his eyes to map every step and every distance.
He regulated his breathing until the pulse at the tips of his fingers beat in rhythm with time itself.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
"May luck be with me."
Caelendir repeatedly wiped the blood flowing from the wounds across his body. And each time, he winced in pain.
His body trembled. He tried to steady his arm, but it no longer moved in harmony with his thoughts.
"Why is my hand like this now?" he muttered in confusion.
Then suddenly, his pointed ears caught the faint scrape of movement behind him.
Two shuriken sliced through the air.
Caelendir merely watched. The aurora light surrounding his body condensed.
The two blades struck an invisible wall before clattering harmlessly onto the marble floor.
"One," Hayama whispered from somewhere unseen.
From another direction, a kunai carrying a small gunpowder sphere tied to its hilt shot forward.
Again, Caelendir heard the whistle of the blade. Again, he condensed the aurora light around him.
But this time, the instant the kunai struck the invisible barrier, the gunpowder sphere exploded.
The blast wave hurled Caelendir backward despite the protection surrounding him.
The Prince of Light was thrown like a rag doll. His hands trembled as he tried to rise once more.
"Ughk!"
Blood spilled from his lips as he coughed.
Caelendir slowly wiped the corner of his mouth.
He stared at the crimson liquid warming his palm. His eyes glimmered with curiosity… and with the strange feeling now growing inside him.
"Two."
The next two kunai came from different directions.
Caelendir slowly raised his palm. The mana within his body glowed dimly like a flickering candle.
One kunai stopped midair, spinning while producing a sharp metallic ring.
But the other—aimed toward the opposite side of his body—failed to be stopped by the aurora light.
The second kunai pierced his left shoulder.
The Elf Prince staggered backward.
He groaned as he pulled the human weapon free with trembling hands.
Elsewhere, Hayama drew a deep breath.
The wound on his left shoulder had stopped bleeding, but the stain remained painfully obvious against his white clothing.
"Five more times," Hayama hissed from behind a crystal pillar, his breathing ragged from exhaustion and pain.
The whistle of death echoed again.
Caelendir looked up and dodged unsteadily.
Swhht!
The kunai barely grazed past his cheek.
"Three."
But from another angle, another kunai emerged from within the reflected light itself.
Silent.
It buried itself into his forehead.
"Four."
The elf staggered. Then ripped the kunai free with force.
A bitter smile suddenly appeared on his lips.
"Have I… become fragile now?" he whispered quietly, staring at the blood-covered kunai in his hand.
"I think… I'm beginning to understand why humans fight so desperately against their limitations."
The next three shuriken flew simultaneously toward different vital points.
But Caelendir did not move.
His legs had grown too weak to take another step.
All three blades struck true.
His body now resembled a straw doll endlessly pierced by a storm of steel.
"Five."
Caelendir fell to his knees.
Once again, he pulled the human weapons from his body, staring at them as though they were proof of a courage both foreign and beautiful.
One final kunai flew forward.
This time, carrying a gunpowder sphere.
The weapon embedded itself into the floor directly before Caelendir.
The elf stared at it with almost no reaction.
Then another kunai shot forward and ignited the gunpowder.
The explosion split the air apart.
Caelendir's body was blasted away once again.
"Six."
His body sagged weakly, yet his grip upon Elysiara still struggled against the strange sensation clouding his mind.
"For some reason… I must not lose here."
His trembling hand tried to force his body upright. His legs stumbled forward again and again.
But the look in his eyes no longer carried true arrogance.
Cheers erupted from the elf side.
This time, however, they were not cries of pride.
They were filled with painful emotion.
For the first time ever, they had seen their prince bleed.
Something that had never happened in centuries.
In the stands, several elves lowered their heads. Others quietly sobbed.
Slowly, they began to understand.
Perhaps this was why humans never gave up so easily.
Pain.
Something the elves had avoided for centuries… yet it had become the very source of strength for mortal beings.
The next two kunai flew in tandem.
Their tips were connected by a thin wire gleaming beneath the altar's light.
The air hissed.
Before Caelendir could react, the wire wrapped around his body.
Binding him like a horse caught in a cowboy's lasso.
His weakened body swayed helplessly as the wildly moving kunai tightened around him.
His arms locked in place.
At last, Elysiara slipped from his grasp.
The Aurora Sancta surrounding him dimmed together with the weakening rhythm of his heartbeat.
"Am I… finally going to die?"
His pupils widened as a shadow slowly grew above his head.
Larger and larger.
Like a black disc swallowing the light of the sky.
Slowly, he looked upward.
He saw Hayama descending from the peak of a pillar like an eclipse devouring the sun.
Yet now, there was no fear in his eyes.
"We have witnessed eclipses before," Caelendir said softly, his voice barely more than a prayer.
"When light is swallowed by shadow, we become uneasy… because we have never lived within darkness."
Hayama tightened his grip on his sword, now reduced to only five centimeters of remaining blade.
Yet his body still descended swiftly like a swallow diving toward its prey.
"Seven!"
Caelendir stood there in acceptance.
"And now… I finally realize that shadow can never truly be separated from light."
Hayama exhaled heavily.
His eyes focused on Caelendir's neck.
"Water Surface Slash!"
His body accelerated like an arrow piercing through water itself. The wind split apart around him as fragments of light scattered like shards of glass.
But Caelendir smiled.
Not the arrogant smile from before.
But a sincere smile reflecting the peace of someone who had finally understood what it meant to be fragile.
"Now I understand why humans fear loss so deeply."
Hayama's pupils widened.
In the fraction of a second before the blade reached Caelendir's neck, something inside him trembled.
He shifted his stance.
Twisted his wrist.
And redirected the path of his attack.
"Summer Drizzle Cut!"
The slash swept forward.
Gentle—
yet precise.
Like the first rain falling in the middle of a scorching day.
The air split apart.
And within the hanging silence, the altar's light shattered into thousands of tiny droplets, drifting downward like falling dew.