A violent gust exploded from the crater where Rowan had fallen—cold, serrated, and unnatural. The air trembled. Dust and shadow peeled away like brittle parchment, revealing a figure slowly rising through the smoke.
The twins braced themselves. Or at least, Jacob thought they were ready. His system was at one hundred percent… yet the only skill they could access was the ability to control their summoned construct. Nothing more.
Then Rowan raised his hand.
"You two did enough," he said, voice low, steady. "Honestly? I got carried last time. This one's on me. You can relax… I'm handling it."
Jacob and Connor heard him loud and clear. Their instincts screamed to fight alongside him—but something in Rowan's tone said no. This battle belonged to him.
The twin-headed axe in his grip began to hum. The skull embedded in its center flared to life, eerie and radiant. Around the battlefield, similar sigils ignited—ones Rowan had placed long before the battle began. Traps. Portals. Anchors.
"It's a damn shame," Rowan muttered, gaze fixed on the advancing Warden. "Spent hours laying these out… but desperate times."
The sigils pulsed. The skulls grew larger with each passing second, glyphs circling around them, forming a massive ring of shifting energy. The ring began to fill, line by glowing line.
When the final segment clicked into place, Rowan grinned.
"Let me show you why they used to call me the Phantom Reaper."
The Unchained Warden lunged.
Its massive blade tore through the battlefield, an arc of ruin cutting through reality itself—
CLANG!
Rowan met it head-on, towering axe raised high. Sparks erupted. Shadows screamed. And then—
He vanished.
And reappeared behind the Warden.
Then above it.
Then beside it.
Each teleport left a crackle in the air, a flicker of ghostly afterimages—skull sigils glowing like dying stars in his wake.
This wasn't just a fight.
This was a hunter reclaiming the kill.
As the battle raged on, the twins began to notice something—subtle, almost invisible at first. Every few movements, in the middle of a dodge, a clash, or a feint, Rowan would stamp his foot against the ground. A faint glow would flicker beneath his heel—a skull-shaped sigil, etched in the blink of an eye.
He was laying markers.
Even while fighting the Unchained Warden head-on… Rowan was preparing the field.
"Ohhh… think of a hunter laying traps," Connor murmured, eyes wide with realization. "This is something else."
Jacob nodded slowly, his gaze tracking Rowan's movements. "He's not just fighting… he's orchestrating."
What followed was a blur of precision and chaos—Rowan teleporting from sigil to sigil, weaving through the battlefield like a phantom. Each jump put him one step ahead, each strike more calculated than the last.
For a moment, it seemed everything was going his way.
But then the Unchained Warden began to shift—less aggressive, more reactive. It was on the back foot now, struggling to keep up as each attempted blow missed its mark.
Rowan wasn't just winning.
He was dismantling it.
The battlefield had become a graveyard of afterimages.
Rowan moved faster now—no hesitation, no wasted motion. His strikes were perfectly timed with each teleport, each one echoing with brutal efficiency. One moment, his axe carved across the Warden's flank. The next, he vanished and reappeared mid-air, twisting his body to bring the weapon crashing down with thunderous force.
The Warden staggered.
It roared, shadows unraveling from its form like smoke torn from a dying star. Its once-fluid movements were now jerky, disrupted. Unstable.
"Do you see it?" Connor asked, voice hushed, reverent.
Jacob squinted. Then he saw it—faint lines of energy crisscrossing the battlefield, connecting the skull sigils like threads in a web.
"He's turned the entire arena into a conduit," Jacob muttered. "A hunting ground… no, a cage."
The Warden stepped back—and triggered one of the linked traps.
A blast of force erupted beneath it, sending the beast skidding, and Rowan was already there, waiting, axe arcing forward with vicious precision.
Another sigil lit up behind the Warden.
Then another.
And another.
The sigils weren't just teleport points—they were detonators. Chains. Pressure points. A tactical snare designed by a master.
Rowan appeared mid-spin, trailing a wake of ghostly fire, and slammed the Warden across the chest, sending it flying. The Unchained creature crashed against a distant obelisk, splintering it.
Still, it stood.
Still, it roared.
But its body flickered now, torn between dimensions—glitching, struggling to stay whole.
Rowan stood at the center of the web, breathing slow and steady. His axe hummed at his side, the skull now roaring with light.
"I laid these traps weeks ago," he said, voice low. "Didn't even know if I'd get to use them."
He pointed his axe toward the flickering Warden.
"But I've been waiting for something like you."
The ground beneath the Warden lit up—every sigil connected to that single point now pulsing like a beating heart.
Rowan vanished.
And reappeared above the Warden, axe raised high—twisting in midair as if time itself slowed to witness the finale.
He came down like a meteor.
"Phantom Execution."
The battlefield erupted.
A shockwave shattered stone and sigil alike, a vortex of power detonating outward in a sphere of pure annihilation. The twins raised their arms, shielding their faces as the blast rolled over them.
Silence followed.
Dust hung in the air.
The obelisks groaned, fractured but standing.
And in the center of the crater… Rowan stood alone.
The Unchained Warden was gone.
Not defeated.
Erased.
Connor let out a slow breath. "Okay… that was terrifying."
Jacob smirked faintly. "That's the Phantom Reaper, huh?"
Rowan turned to face them, shadows flickering around his boots. He gave a tired grin, blood trickling from his nose.
"Next time," he said, voice hoarse, "you're carrying me."
Damn, it was finally time to head back to camp.
The twins couldn't agree more.
Without a word, they urged the beast beneath them forward, thundering across the broken battlefield toward Rowan. The fight was over. The tension had passed.
Now, at last, it was time for peace.
All the markings on the ground vanished, absorbed in a flash of light. In their place, the sigil on Rowan's axe expanded—growing brighter, more defined—as the circle surrounding it finally completed, glowing with full, ominous power.