Shadow of the Abyss

She drew back with a sudden feint and struck with her foot, catching over his jaw and tearing him off the ground into the walls.

Traces of blood slid from down his jaw, touching upon his robes. He cursed, shaken to his very core.

"Zariel\'s technique he instilled in you isn\'t to be used like you think it is." Iliana began shaking her head, the disgust radiating from the back of her throat. "Disciple, why do you think he blessed you with the [Soul of the Indomable]?"

Spitting the blood from his mouth, Altair cursed, reorganizing his stance. "To retain my self of self."

"The sense of self? The fuck is that?" She sneered. "We are constantly changing. Constantly evolving. The Soul of the Indomitable was meant to leave behind order within that chaos of your mind. It\'s meant to allow you some semblance of control of the madness empowering you."

Hesitant, he looked at his Master strangely. "Aside from innovation, what else can Madness grant?"

"Aside from innovation?" Iliana nearly laughed. She stepped to Altair, flashing forward in a blur, her sword swinging into semi-arcs so profane the howls of ghostly wails of the damned echoed. So frightening her sword, the boy dared not take the strike head-on.

When for some reason inexplicable reason, the image of the sword and the woman all vanished.

In a single moment, the instant of danger, the fundamental sixth sense ingrained in all living creatures, vanished from his being as Iliiana appeared, cleaving her sword over the back of his neck hurdling the boy into the ground.

BOOOOM~

Webs of cracks shot through the earth, carving out a crater. Iliana stared, and without hesitation, she stomped down over his head, piercing him deeper into the earth. Over and over, she stepped until a pool of blood dripped from her foot.

"Aside from innovation," she sneered, lifting her foot mirroring the very technique Altair once used.

\'Enimatic step\'

A dust cloud flared in an upward gust of torment, shaking weapons from off the wall.

Iliana stared down at the glowing red eyes through the dust. "So you reacted. I fear I\'d have killed you."

With a push of raw force, he forced Iliana back and pulled himself from out of the crater. Drenched from head to toe in blood and dirt, he stood with a newfound sense of coldness racing down his spine.

\'Had my spirit domain not opened up at the last second, alerting me,\' he gulped, sensing his death.

"You were going to kill me," Altair muttered, feeling the dull ache radiate from the back of his head. His vision began to blur with the damage to his skull.

"Of course. Better to kill you now if this is the zenith of your skill. The fragility of you mortals is something so profound to me." she shook her head. "My little disciple. The Ninth Path is so much more than you can imagine. Most of these so call Soul Kings are so crippled that most of their skills can\'t be used without major changes.

The Ninth Form is all you need to slaughter them."

Iliana lifted a palm and invoked her spell, "Spacial Isolation."

Mana whirled form out of her palm, distorting the space of the region around them. Light itself seemed to be partly fractured, bringing about a sort of silence to the once rowdy castle.

"Within this Mirror Realm, I can run wild without the need to worry about unnecessary destruction." She pointed her sword towards her disciple. "By the time we are done here, little despite. You\'d either be dead or that madness you keep at bay with break free."

Altair took a step back, suddenly feeling all his senses go on edge. He gulped down the bile crawling up his throat, and tilted his head as a sword arc of profane light slashed through the castle. The prince shuddered, witnessing the very mana begin to wither before his very eyes.

"Master—" He turned to face her, his eyes twisting as he opened his spirit domain. Two swords crossed, sending shockwaves that blasted apart the very building they stood within.

Altair had no time to think of the lack of people or the screams of panic that never echoed as Iliana\'s monstrous sword dance began to weave like an endless ball of string, slashing and thrusting into arcs that made little to no sense.

Gashes began to line the flesh as Altair tried to defend. His domain aided him the best he could when, just like before, Iliana vanished from his perception. He felt her blade slide through his gut, threatening to spill his entrails out.

Madness erupted through the prince\'s young eyes as he grabbed the sword, staring deep into Iliana\'s smiling eyes.

"What a lovely look. But you can do better than that," Iliana said, ripping her sword from his palm as she retreated in a blur.

"You\'ve too little experience with a Spirit Domain to rely on it against me." She said, cracking her neck. "My little disciple. Channel the Nine Form and let it guide you. Fear not the madness, boy. Let it course through you. And I assure you… all those pesky limiters will break.

Throw away your morals; throw away those bottom lines. And let the seed of chaos breathe through you… if not." And her voice turned to ice. "I\'ll have to kill you here and now."

On one knee, he glared, coughing up mouthfuls of blood. He held his gut, spewing blood, shaken by how a wooden sword could do so much damage to him. It was as if his Almighty Resistance was nothing before Iliana\'s sword.

Altair had noticed it already but throughout it all. None of her techniques were complicated. In fact, they were the most basic that any swordsmanship could offer. Yet he could barely defend. He could not read her… He—

"What are you thinking about?" Iliana asked, appearing as a ghostly apparition, swinging her word down to over his neck.

Gave of Night: Devouring Night

DING!! DING!! DING!! DING!! DING!! DING!!

His eyes widened as Iliana easily parried with a few sword strokes that even he could barely perceive with ease. He gasped when a sudden seething force shattered his rib cage, blasting him off the ground and through the castle. His body skipped across the earth like a stone.

"Astral Qi is pretty handy," Iliana muttered, flicking over his flying body, slashing her sword that bled a deadly iridescent red. A gruesome gash several inches deep swept across his chest, cutting through ligaments of bone like nothing.

Erupting in a pillar of Vale Qi to push Iliana back, Altair coughed up a mouthful of blood, watching his master land like a fairy without being untouched by even the dirt. "Stop! This madness! Can\'t you see there isn\'t any point!" he roared, tapping into the Ninth From as she asked. But against his best effort, aside from the hellish shadowscape of madness, Altair bore witness to nothing else.

\'Will he really make me kill him, or should I continue to drag on the battle?\' Iliana wondered. She thought for a bit and said, "My sister… Izalith is probably the only one who is capable of defeating me if we were to fight in a battle of death. But to do so, she must fall to madness. She must just purge the mind and the soul of useless emotions and morals. She must be a demon.

No… she must be an Abyssal. If you can\'t drop that false mask of yours… I\'ll really kill you, Altair Snow."

As panic began to slip into his heart, the Hellscape within his eyes began to dwindle. Cracks began to appear in space through his eyes, and like shards of glass, they began to fall one by one.

[Warning]

[Error]

[Warning]

[Orgin System is—]

[Error]

[( •̀ ω •́ )]

[Orgin System Authority Is Being Stripped]

[Heart of Darkness is awakening]

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Watching as trendlines of darkness billow as ethereal ribbons formed from off his body, Iliana shook her head.

"What a waste…" she closed her eyes and, with a single step, crossed the bounds of space before the young prince.

Altair saw the disappointment as she pressed her sword against his chest. She tilted her head almost mournfully when she suddenly smiled. "I know! I\'ll kill that girl instead. I\'ll kill the girl you love. Yeah, let\'s go with that instead."

A sudden ringing sensation pierced from out of the viel through Altair\'s eyes as he stared at the woman he called Master.

Iliana backed away the instant that peculiar radiance cut across his eyes. Like a blade with infinitely sharp edges, two sigils began to weave themselves through his eyes. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise.

She gulped, bearing witness to arcs of bloodstain red lightning that began to rise not from the mana around him or the essence of the vale but something else.

"The First Stage of Aeron," Iliana muttered. "Baptism of Blood."