The fifth dawn was black.
No sun—only the taste of iron on frozen air. Serena stood in a circle of shattered pines, boots ankle-deep in frost. Across the killing ground, Aurora Vale waited—robes flayed to ribbons, silver hair unbound, eyes still bright with the certainty of saints.
< Night-Sewn Path – 100 % mastery achieved >
First Move – Step of the Wind Demon
Serena exhaled once.
Memory slammed into her: the moment House Valen cast her out, the words darkness taint spat like poison. She stepped between heartbeats, between raindrops—her body becoming the same shadow that once swallowed her name.
Aurora's bells rang once, then could not keep up.
The clearing blurred. Serena appeared at her flank, scythe whispering. A single black line opened across Aurora's forearm—blood beaded, hung, then fell like slow rain.
Aurora spun, glyphs flaring white, but Serena was already gone, the ghost of her own exile.
---
Second Move – Tap of the Scythe of Death
Serena planted the scythe butt-first against the earth.
The impact was soft—no louder than a fingernail on glass—yet the clearing convulsed. Frost exploded upward; pines screamed as their trunks split from root to crown. A pulse of darkness rippled outward, hungry for heartbeat and breath.
Aurora raised twin mandate blades. The pulse touched steel—and passed through like smoke.
Her weapons shattered mid-air.
For one heartbeat Aurora saw her life: the day she first rang the Dawn-Song bells in childish devotion, the day they crowned her saintess, the day she learned destiny had teeth.
Then the heartbeat ended.
---
Third Move – Dance of the Ten Thousand Death
Serena began to move.
Each step was a memory she could no longer afford: Alina's laughter in the Valen gardens, the sea that swallowed her name, the friends she never made. Shadows unfolded into silhouettes—ten thousand Serenas, each holding a scythe, each striking at a different angle.
Aurora screamed a mandate—a spear of pure dawn—but the scream was swallowed by the dance.
Ten thousand blades fell at once.
Light shattered; runes burst like glass. Aurora's silhouette stood for one heartbeat longer, eyes wide, mouth open in a sound that never arrived. Then the silhouettes folded inward, collapsing her into darkness.
When the motion stopped, only Serena remained.
Aurora Vale lay on frost, robes blackened, bells cracked and silent. A perfect arc of blood traced the final cut across her throat.
---
Power flooded Serena—cold, sharp, absolute. Frost steamed from her skin; shadows curled around her boots like tame wolves.
< Celestial Mandate fragment absorbed >
< Night-Sewn Path – mastery confirmed >
< Core Bloom 4 → 5 breakthrough commencing >
Yet beneath the surge she felt the toll: every perfected arc had shaved a day from her remaining life. Twenty days had become nineteen.
Umbren padded from the treeline, ribs rising and falling hard. He nosed the body once, then stared at Serena with something close to fear.
She knelt, closed Aurora's eyes, and took the shattered bells. Somewhere far north, a sect's crystal bell cracked. Priestesses began to weep.
< 19 days remain >