The Divine Contractor of the White Moon moved with the pure, unfiltered fury of a man who had just watched his brother's head roll across the dirt. Tears still streaked his perfect face, but his eyes burned with lunar authority so dense the air itself crystallized into floating shards of frost and light. The staff of pure moonlight in his hand elongated as he charged, becoming a spear of condensed celestial force.
Eryndor was still on one knee.
His chest heaved. blood still stained his lips. The residual drain from the Blade of Absolute Severance lingered in his bones like cold iron. The Abyssal Flame Mask was gone. His long black hair hung heavy and wet against his grey skin. He looked, for the first time in a long while, almost mortal again.
Almost.
The White Moon Contractor closed the distance in a single, blinding lunge. The staff swept in a wide horizontal arc meant to take Eryndor's head cleanly from his shoulders. The silver light trailing behind the weapon was sharp enough to shear through the remaining stone walls of the village.
Eryndor's eyes tracked it.
He tilted his head a fraction to the left.
The staff screamed past his ear close enough that a few strands of black hair drifted to the ground, cleanly severed. The shockwave that followed still tore a shallow trench across the earth behind him.
The White Moon Contractor's eyes widened in pure disbelief.
He did not stop.
He spun with the staff, bringing it down in a vertical smash that could have split a mountain. Eryndor rolled to the side at the last possible instant, the silver impact cratering the ground where he had knelt. Fragments of stone and frozen light sprayed outward. Before the dust could settle, the Contractor was already on him again—thrusts, sweeps, spinning overhead strikes, each one carrying the weight of a divine authority that had never known defeat.
Eryndor moved like water that had learned to hate.
Every attack was readable.
Every trajectory whispered itself to him a fraction of a second early. Whether it was the lingering gift of Ellie's Sacred Echo, the cold clarity of the Serpent's corruption, or simply the fact that this opponent—while powerful—was not on the same level as the brother he had just killed, Eryndor could see the openings. He slipped between the silver arcs with almost insulting ease, grey body weaving through the storm of moonlight as if the entire assault had been choreographed for his convenience.
High above, Jae's voice cracked with disbelief.
"He's… dodging everything. He's exhausted. He just fought a full Divine Art battle. How is he reading him this easily?"
The Divine Flame of Curses watched in silence for a long moment before answering.
"Because the White Moon was always the weakest of the two brothers. Strong, yes. Beautiful in his authority. But he never crawled through Hell. He never watched the people he loved die twice. He never made a contract with something that eats souls for breakfast. The gap is larger than either of them realizes."
Below, the White Moon Contractor's face twisted further.
"STAND STILL AND DIE!"
He slammed the butt of his staff into the ground. A wave of pure lunar force exploded outward in a perfect circle. The air froze. The ground turned to reflective ice. Dozens of silver spears materialized above Eryndor and rained down like a judgment from the heavens.
Eryndor exhaled once.
Then he stepped.
Not with desperate speed. With calm, precise footwork. Each spear that should have impaled him found only empty space. One grazed his shoulder, drawing a thin line of blood, but the rest shattered against the earth in cascading bursts of silver light. When the barrage ended, Eryndor stood in the center of a field of broken moonlight, barely breathing harder than before.
He finally spoke, voice low and rough from exhaustion and residual blood.
"…You're slower than him."
The White Moon Contractor flinched as if struck.
Eryndor's eyes lifted fully for the first time since the new opponent arrived. There was no mockery in them. Only a cold, almost clinical assessment.
"Your brother at least made me work for it. You… I can see every move before you finish deciding to make it."
Rage detonated.
The White Moon Contractor screamed and poured everything into his next assault. His body became a blur of silver-white afterimages. The staff multiplied in the air through sheer speed, creating a storm of overlapping lunar strikes from every angle. Frost crawled across Eryndor's skin. The temperature plummeted until breath turned to ice crystals. The very concept of "night" seemed to answer the Contractor's grief and fury.
For a brief window, it looked like the tide might turn.
Eryndor was forced to block with his bare forearms. Silver light carved shallow lines across his grey skin. A staff tip clipped his ribs hard enough to force a grunt from his lungs. Another strike caught him across the cheek, splitting the skin and sending a spray of blood into the frozen air. The White Moon Contractor pressed harder, faster, more desperately, as if he could rewrite the reality of his brother's death through pure violence.
Eryndor's eyes narrowed.
The calm assessment hardened into something sharper.
When the next overhead smash came down, Eryndor did not dodge.
He stepped inside the arc, caught the staff with his left hand, and stopped it cold.
The White Moon Contractor's eyes went wide.
Eryndor's right fist—still carrying residual traces of Hellfire—drove forward into the Contractor's stomach with the full weight of a man who had just killed a Divine Contractor and was rapidly running out of patience. The impact folded the beautiful man nearly in half. Silver light exploded from his mouth as he was launched backward, tumbling across the ruined village until he slammed into the remains of a stone wall hard enough to crater it.
Eryndor shook the blood from his knuckles.
He was still tired. The previous fight had carved something deep out of him. But the gap in pure combat instinct and battle-hardened will was becoming impossible to ignore.
The White Moon Contractor pulled himself from the rubble, coughing blood. His pristine robes were torn and stained. The perfect face was no longer perfect. Rage still burned in his eyes, but now it was mixed with the first true spark of fear.
Eryndor began walking toward him.
Slow.
Inevitable.
"You came here screaming about making me pay," Eryndor said, voice flat. "Your brother at least understood what it meant to stand at the edge of death and keep swinging. You just look like a man who never expected the world to hit back."
The White Moon Contractor roared and charged again, staff blazing with everything he had left.
Eryndor met him head-on.
What followed was no longer a desperate exchange. It was a demonstration.
Every silver thrust was parried or slipped. Every sweeping arc was ducked or stepped through. Eryndor's counters were short, brutal, and precise—elbows to the ribs, open-palm strikes to the throat, knees driven into the stomach. He was not using the Blade of Absolute Severance. He was not even calling on Hell Kingdom again. He was simply fighting, tired and bloodied, and still dismantling a Divine Contractor piece by piece.
High above, Jae could only stare.
"He's toying with him… No. He's not even toying. He's just… better."
Below, Eryndor caught the staff one final time, twisted, and snapped the lunar weapon over his knee with a sound like breaking ice. Silver light exploded outward and died. The White Moon Contractor staggered back, empty-handed, pure shock written across his face.
Eryndor stood in front of him, grey skin streaked with blood, long black hair moving in the cold wind, eyes reflecting the dying fires of the village.
He raised one hand.
Black-red Hellfire began to gather in his palm—not a full technique, not yet, just the promise of one.
The White Moon Contractor took an involuntary step backward.
For the first time since he had arrived screaming his brother's name, the beautiful Divine Contractor of the White Moon looked like a man who understood he might not leave this valley alive.
And Eryndor, exhausted, bloodied, and still standing, watched him with the calm of a predator that had already decided the outcome.
The White Moon Contractor stared at the broken halves of his staff lying in the dirt. Silver light still flickered weakly from the fractured ends before dying completely. His hands trembled. For centuries that staff had been an extension of his will, a conduit for the authority of the White Moon itself. Now it was nothing more than scrap.
Eryndor stood before him, black-red Hellfire slowly rotating in his open palm. The flames cast long, jagged shadows across his grey face. He looked tired. Truly tired. The battle against the Contractor of Shadows had carved deep into his reserves. Yet the way he held himself—shoulders loose, breathing controlled, eyes flat and measuring—made the fatigue almost irrelevant.
The White Moon Contractor's face twisted.
"You… killed my brother," he rasped. "You took his head like he was nothing. Do you have any idea what he was? What we were?"
Eryndor did not answer immediately. He simply watched the man in front of him the way a wolf watches something already dying.
"I know exactly what he was," Eryndor finally said. His voice was low, scraped raw. "He was the one who once left me for dead in a forest of ash. He was the one who broke my sister. And he was the one who still made me bleed for every inch I took from him."
He closed his fist. The Hellfire compressed into a dense, swirling sphere.
"You are not him."
The White Moon Contractor screamed and lunged bare-handed, lunar authority flaring desperately around his fists. Silver light coated his arms as he threw a barrage of punches faster than most eyes could follow. Each strike carried enough force to shatter stone. Frost spread across the ground with every step.
Eryndor moved through it like it was happening in slow motion.
He slipped the first punch by a hair's breadth. The second grazed his cheek and left a thin line of frozen blood. The third he caught on his forearm, the impact cracking the air. Then he stepped in.
His free hand shot forward and clamped around the White Moon Contractor's throat.
The beautiful man choked, eyes bulging. He hammered at Eryndor's arm with both fists, silver light exploding on impact, but the grey skin did not yield. Eryndor's grip tightened. He lifted the Contractor clean off the ground with one arm, the Hellfire in his other palm still spinning.
"You came here for revenge," Eryndor said quietly. "I understand that. I respect it more than you know."
He drove his knee up into the Contractor's stomach. Once. Twice. A third time hard enough that something inside the man audibly broke. Silver-tinged blood sprayed from the Contractor's mouth and ran down Eryndor's forearm.
High above, Jae flinched.
Eryndor slammed the White Moon Contractor into the ground hard enough to crater the earth. The man bounced once and tried to roll away, coughing blood, one arm clutched around his midsection. Lunar light still tried to gather around him, weak and sputtering.
Eryndor walked after him.
There was no rush in his steps. No flourish. Only the steady approach of someone who had already decided how this would end.
The White Moon Contractor forced himself onto one knee, raising a shaking hand. A final, desperate construct of silver light formed—a spear of pure moonlight aimed at Eryndor's heart.
Eryndor did not dodge.
He let the spear come.
At the last instant he tilted his body. The silver point punched through the flesh of his left shoulder instead of his heart, exiting out the back in a spray of blood. Eryndor did not even grunt. He simply reached up with his right hand, grabbed the shaft of the lunar spear while it was still embedded in his body, and snapped it in half.
Then he stepped forward and drove his Hellfire-wreathed fist straight into the White Moon Contractor's chest.
The impact was catastrophic.
Black-red flames erupted from the point of contact, pouring into the man's body like molten judgment. The Contractor's back arched violently. A raw, wordless scream tore from his throat as the Hellfire ate through divine flesh and authority alike. Silver light tried to resist and failed. The flames burst from his back in a roaring column, lighting the entire ruined valley in hellish red.
Eryndor held the punch for a full three seconds.
When he finally pulled his fist free, there was a smoking hole clear through the White Moon Contractor's torso. The man stared down at the wound in pure disbelief, blood pouring from his mouth in thick ropes. His legs gave out. He collapsed onto his back, eyes still open, chest rising in shallow, wet gasps.
Eryndor stood over him.
Blood ran freely from the spear wound in his own shoulder, but he ignored it. He looked down at the dying Divine Contractor with an expression that held no triumph and no pity—only a grim finality.
The White Moon Contractor's lips moved.
"…Brother…"
Eryndor's voice was almost gentle.
"He's already waiting for you."
He raised his foot and brought it down hard on the Contractor's throat.
There was a sharp, final crack.
Silence returned to the valley.
Eryndor stood over the second Divine Contractor he had killed in a single night, chest rising and falling in heavy, controlled breaths. The Hellfire around his fist slowly died. The wound in his shoulder continued to bleed, slower now as his corrupted regeneration began its work. He stared down at the corpse for a long moment, as if making certain the man would not rise again.
High above, Jae's voice was barely a whisper.
"Two… He killed two of them. In one night."
The Divine Flame of Curses closed its eyes.
"The age of the Contractors has just been wounded in a way it has not been for a very long time. And the one who dealt the wound is still standing."
Below, Eryndor finally swayed.
The accumulated damage, the life-force drain from the Blade of Absolute Severance, the residual strain of Hell Kingdom, and now this second fight all crashed into him at once. He dropped to one knee beside the White Moon Contractor's body, one hand pressed to the ground, the other clutched to his bleeding shoulder.
He did not look victorious.
He looked like a man who had paid something irreversible for every step he had taken.
But he was still alive.
And two Divine Contractors were not.
The fires of the ruined village continued to burn around him.