Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 110: The Vampire Tournament (2)

Chapter 110: The Vampire Tournament (2)

Two figures now stood facing each other in the exact center of the black circle.

One, my daughter. Motionless, yet tense with an almost invisible concentration. Her bare feet barely touched the smooth surface of the stone, as if she still refused to belong to that ground, as if she didn’t quite recognize the arena as her own. There was something strangely fluid in her stance — neither frozen nor rigid — like a dance yet to begin, but whose every step her muscles already knew.

The other, Gayar.

Tall. Slender. With a calm as impressive as her presence. She carried the bearing of ancient lineages, that discreet nobility which doesn’t seek to show itself, yet emanates from every detail — the tilt of the head, the measured breath, the way her hands rested alongside her body, ready without being threatening. Her combat attire was simple, effective: a fitted robe, unadorned, light bandages wrapped around her wrists, and not a single trace of jewelry. Nothing sparkled. Everything was designed for precision, rigor, movement.

Her eyes, black and deep, fixed on Lysara without hostility, but with almost surgical attention. The gaze of a hawk about to dive — not out of cruelty, but because that is its nature.

They stepped toward the center.

Then, in a shared motion, without anyone needing to give the order, they presented themselves aloud, as required by the old rite, the one even forgotten lineages had never dared to break.

— Gayar Astralis, descendant of the Great Naraphin, Keeper of the Oaths.

Her voice resonated, deep but smooth, like metal polished over centuries. She placed her hand on her heart, then raised it to the sky, palm open, an ancient gesture of loyalty known to all present.

— Lysara Thalaris Von Eskarionh, Daughter of Lust, Lysara replied, upright, proud, unwavering.

Her tone no longer bore any youth. It carried a new nuance, difficult to define, between defiance and recognition. It was the voice of an heiress. Of a warrior. Of a will matured too soon.

Two names had been spoken.

Two lineages. Two visions of the world. Two convictions that could not be reconciled.

And between them, only one place. Only one possible victory.

Ornée, still standing in her high box, simply raised her hand.

A clean gesture. Straight. Without the slightest flourish.

— Begin, she declared in a clear, calm voice, sharp as a blade laid flat.

At that precise moment, Lysara’s kimono transformed.

Not violently. Not with a crash. But with an unreal fluidity.

The fabric seemed to liquefy, collapsing in on itself in a silent cascade of shadows and metallic reflections, as if her skin had suddenly decided to become armor. In a fraction of a second, her body was covered in a living mantle — a cuirass of Noctifer, black, dense, shifting, bristling with flexible spikes, organic layers, and engravings that pulsed faintly, like an ancient language breathing just beneath the surface.

Everything disappeared. Her skin. Her breath. Her expression.

Only her eyes remained visible.

Two pale slits, without pupils, two glimmers of mist in a living mask. And even that... seemed almost too much.

Gayar, on the other side, didn’t move at first.

She frowned slightly, barely.

But that faint crease was all she gave to surprise.

Then she leapt.

Rapier already drawn, perfect posture, a direct charge — a straight line through space, fast, surgical, taut like a cord ready to snap. In an instant, she crossed half the arena, unshaken, as if the world around her no longer existed.

But she was no faster than Lysara.

Because Lysara didn’t block.

She pivoted.

Simply. Almost lightly. Her movement was so precise it became strange — not violent, not abrupt, but playful. A perfect dodge, driven not by fear, but by pleasure.

Her armor creaked in a metallic shiver, rippling as if it too reacted to the fight. And even though her face was hidden, I knew.

She was smiling.

I knew that smile. The one she wore when she was barely holding back from crossing the line. The smile that said I could go further. And she wore it now, under that visor of shadow, dancing between attacks with almost insolent grace.

I had forbidden her from altering her body for this tournament.

No muscular mimicry. No enhancement. Just her base body, reinforced only by her natural extensions. The minimum. What would not betray her fundamental nature as a Mimic.

And even so... she toyed with her opponent.

She circled around her like a laughing shadow, fluid, untouchable. Every movement seemed prewritten. And suddenly, her laugh split the air.

High-pitched.

Distorted by the echo of her visor.

A child’s laugh, perhaps. Or a nightmare’s.

I couldn’t quite tell anymore. But in that sound, there was something too light... to be entirely sane.

Suddenly, without a scream, without warning, Lysara summoned her weapon.

A hammer.

Not a replica. Not an illusion. A block of raw mass, sculpted from a black, vibrant, almost living material. It pulsed for a split second between her hands, like a heart too dense, then she swung it slowly, in a first wide arc that sliced the air like a warning.

Then she struck.

A lateral blow. Wide. Carved through space with magnificent brutality. Gayar leapt back, breath short, saved at the last second by her reflexes.

But there was no reprieve.

A second strike, faster.

Then another.

Lysara began to spin on herself, carried by the momentum of her own body, swept into a spiral of perfectly controlled motion. It was a dance — but a dance born to break, not to seduce. Her hammer drew circles, her feet slid, pivoted, never losing axis. The blows rained, heavy, precise, ever faster, ever fiercer. Each impact lifted a gust. Each vibration left a mark in the dust. Every gesture bore the weight of a collapsing world.

Gayar dodged. Just in time.

But she was losing ground.

Her face had tensed. Her jaw clenched. Sweat already beaded along her temple. She moved well — very well — but she was no longer attacking. She was surviving.

And then...

A smile. Subtle. Controlled. Silent.

She leapt back in a single motion, crouched, channeled her energy into a short gesture, and drove her blade into the ground.

The impact was clean. Sharp.

And a giant rune burst instantly beneath her feet, a complex form etched into the stone by a glowing red light, spreading at once to the edges of the arena, enveloping everything in an ancient halo, alive, almost painful to look at.

I couldn’t grasp its meaning.

It was old. Very old. A high-level invocation, perhaps drawn from forbidden, forgotten knowledge, reserved for noble bloodlines.

But I felt it instantly. It would change nothing.

Lysara let her hammer fall.

Simply.

The weight crashed into the dust with a dull rumble, but she didn’t even look at it. She raised her arms. Slowly. Palms to the sky, as if offering herself to the rune, as if surrendering — not to the enemy, but to something vaster. To magic. To fate. Or to herself.

Her smile, still lingering on her lips, faded.

And then... she laughed.

A high-pitched laugh, unsettling, almost childish, but filled with something darker. A glint of desire, of defiance, of something troubled, almost disturbing. She laughed like a girl too full of life, too full of power, too full of that Lust I knew by heart — and in her laughter, I felt my own reflection.

And I laughed too. I couldn’t help it.

A deeper laugh, rougher, born from a place I preferred to forget, a laugh I hadn’t planned, hadn’t wanted, but that escaped me nonetheless. I looked at her, there in the center of the circle, arms raised, face drowned in shadow, and I thought... what have I done?

What had I created?

Her body began to change. No more skin, no more flesh, no more metal. Just pure Noctifer.

A black silhouette, dense, absolute, erasing the contours of the human. She was no longer a vampire. No longer a fighter. She had become a shape. A flow. A myth twisting itself into being.

And as the rune activated, as the light pulsed through the amphitheater like an old heart awakening... everyone held their breath.

All but two. Two sins.

Two mistakes. Two remnants of a world that had never wanted them. Me — the enemy of the gods, the thirteenth on the list, the link no one knows where to place — and her, the rejected child, the slave forged in shame, the creature who should never have become a weapon.

Us. Two abominations in the making.

And we laughed at this battle.

Because we were the only ones who understood this was not a fight.

It was a declaration. A declaration filled with Lust.

Then, without cry, without warning, the beam shot forth.

A pure fire, vertical, screaming like an ancient judgment, sculpted from light and fury. It burst from the rune in a mad flash, an incandescent column that seemed to split the sky itself, and the arena was drowned in blood-red light, violent, absolute.

But she didn’t move. Not an inch.

She didn’t try to flee. She stayed there, arms open, in that almost crucified stance, and the beam enveloped her, swallowed her whole.

Then vanished. As quickly as it came.

And when the light faded, when the dust and heat dissipated, she was already walking.

Calm. Unharmed.

Hammer in hand.

The metal dripped with dark vapor, as if even the weapon breathed its anger. She moved without haste, without expression, in a silence heavier than everything that had come before. Nothing stirred. Even the wind seemed to hold its course.

And Gayar...

She stepped back once, then again, then fell backward, her eyes wide with terror, hands groping at the ground, throat tight with panic. All the poise, the rigor, the nobility she bore at the beginning was gone. Only one thing remained.

Fear.

She was crawling now, pathetic, fleeing on her knees from what she could no longer name.

She no longer saw a child.

She saw a monster.

Lysara stopped. One step away. Just one.

The hammer rose in near ceremonial silence. Slowly. With the perfect precision of gestures repeated a thousand times in the shadow of a dream.

And then, in a flash of mastered strength, she brought it down.

The blow should have shattered her. Flesh. Bones. The arena.

But there was no impact.

Only a suspension.

The hammer stopped a few centimeters from her head, vibrating with restrained energy, with a breath that could have killed — but was contained.

A shockwave burst forth nonetheless.

A brutal, circular breath that scattered the dust, made the flames tremble, and stirred a shiver in the crowd.

Gayar remained frozen.

Body gripped by fear. She trembled. And finally understood.

Ornée, still standing in her obsidian box, didn’t allow a single beat of superfluous silence.

In a neutral, straight, almost dry voice, she sliced the moment with ceremonial precision.

— First match. Winner: Lysara.

Nothing more. No comment, no praise, no pointed glance. Just a truth, spoken like one closes a rite — or records a fact in a story already written.

Lysara returned to me without haste.

Her step was steady, her face expressionless, her breath controlled. She wasn’t smiling. She didn’t seek my gaze. But I felt, in every gesture, the perfectly channeled tension. She didn’t return a victor. She returned... in silence.

Her armor shifted the moment she sat. Like a familiar molt, it liquefied in a slow trickle, an organic retraction folding back into itself to reform the dark kimono she wore like a second skin. Threads of obsidian snaked through it discreetly, tracing light, living, almost nervous arabesques on the fabric.

I reached out without a word. And slowly, I stroked her hair.

The metal of her mimicry reacted instantly, softening under my fingers, becoming almost silky, as if it too sought to relax, to breathe after the effort. The gesture was brief, but full. Neither demonstrative, nor cold. It said: I’m here.

— You did well, I murmured softly, for her ears only. But stay alert. Don’t let your guard down. And above all... don’t become too sure of yourself. Understood?

— Yes, Father, she replied, without turning, eyes still fixed on the arena, as if already reading the movements to come.

— Focus on the next match. The winner will be your opponent in the second round.

She nodded slowly, emotionless, but with that new solidity, that maturity taking root. The fire of excitement had faded. It was giving way to a colder, sharper focus.

And in that controlled silence, I understood she was moving forward.

And that nothing could make her go back.

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