Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 87: Father and Daughter: The Dance of Venom

Chapter 87: Father and Daughter: The Dance of Venom

My body was growing numb. Slowly. Insidiously. As if the universe itself sought to wrap me in an invisible shroud, woven of soft mist and icy chains. The wine, that nectar offered with an almost sacred tenderness, gradually weighed down my head—not with boisterous drunkenness, but with a subtle dizziness, as if each sip further diluted the contours of the world around me. And the poison... ah, the poison. It did not strike like an executioner. It crept in, subtle and patient, freezing my limbs with the precision of a cruel sculptor, erasing every sensation one by one, without ever breaking the rhythm of my breath.

And yet...

I was still dancing. Standing, staggering, but still standing. Beneath this starry sky, vast and indifferent, I let my slowly betrayed body continue its final steps—like a warrior refusing to fall before the last note, like a flame that flickers but refuses to die. The warm sand beneath my boots seemed to welcome me one last time, a silent accomplice to this suspended moment. Every star above, every speck of golden dust around me, bore witness to this silent resistance. And in this sway between the fall and pride, between paralysis and honor, I danced still.

Lysara struck with a restrained, almost sacred rage—a cold, disciplined anger, sculpted by months of training and accumulated silences. Her hammer traced blazing arcs through the air, each strike carving the void with lethal precision, as if she sought not just to win... but to etch into space the irrefutable proof of her superiority. The weapon sang, screamed, vibrated between her fingers, fueled by her fierce will. The metal ignited, living obsidian crackling with every movement, leaving behind trails of almost visible heat—like the remnants of a fire that refuses to die.

And I, facing this storm... I dodged.

Halfway.

Just enough.

Enough to survive, enough to watch. Each strike brushed past me too closely, hissing past my temples, biting the void a breath away from my skin. My wounded arm, still warm with blood, was slowly closing, with the silent obstinacy unique to my nature. My blood, capricious and ancient, refused to let weakness settle. My regeneration never slept. It devoured the pain like a starving beast, sealing the flesh as one shuts a door on a secret.

And yet, despite this strength, I could feel it—the slowing. My breath, usually so steady, so controlled, began to shorten, as if caught in an invisible vise. My movements, once sharp as thought, lost their clarity. I was still fast, yes. With a speed few could match. But I was no longer the wind. No longer that fleeting, elusive presence that tore through battles with a single step.

And yet...

I was still faster than her.

A whisper.

A breath.

A heartbeat stretched into silence.

And I vanished.

Not fleeing. Not retreating. But slipping—into shadow, into the moment. Into that in-between where few dare to look, even fewer can reach. Where light hesitates, where perception falters.

Stealth.

My skill activated as naturally as a reflex carved into the depths of my bones. It didn’t erase me. It detached me. From the world. From sight. From the very logic of battle. And in that perfect void, I was no longer a man. Nor a father. Nor an opponent.

I was absence.

I was the gap.

I was what you don’t see... until it’s too late.

My shadow slid across the sand like a promise of death. A breath. A formless presence. It moved behind her, fluid and unnoticed, blending into the undulations of fire and night. I reappeared at her back, emerging from the shadow with the precision of a blade drawn from a forgotten sheath. My arm rose in a clean, controlled motion, a simple backhand—not meant to wound... but to sweep her down. The aim wasn’t to kill. Just to make her yield. To remind her, one last time, of the silent hierarchy of our roles.

But Lysara...

Ah, my Lysara.

She no longer yields.

Instead of giving in, she turned. Not out of reflex. By choice. By control. Her body pivoted in a magnificent twist, guided by the inertia of her legendary hammer, as if the weapon itself dictated the laws of gravity around her. It wasn’t a mere defensive move—it was a pre-written response, a choreographed reply, heavy with meaning and power.

She didn’t just dodge. She danced.

Her body, sculpted by war, forged by my hands and her own will, turned with a contained brutality, almost elegant. Her feet struck the ground in a muffled crash. The shock lifted a breath of sand, but she didn’t stop. She continued her motion, carrying the momentum to the inevitable. Her hand, firm, clenched around the hammer’s handle, guided the metal beast like an extension of her silent rage.

And then...

She struck.

The hammer fell, straight into the earth, with a rage no longer human. A telluric violence. A mute scream transmitted directly to the land. The impact was total. Brutal. Final.

And the desert...

The desert exploded.

At the impact, the ground contracted, then cracked with a dull groan. A geyser of incandescent sand erupted, casting around us a burning rain, a hurricane of golden dust and shattered debris. The dunes rose like angry waves, the very horizon seemed to bend, bowing under the resonance of the blow.

A shockwave surged in every direction, sweeping everything in its path—the air, the silence, my thoughts.

And I...

I flew.

A wave of sand burst around us, exploding like a ruptured bubble of silence, launching into the sky a miniature storm—blazing, scorching, blinding. The world turned to dust and gold. The dunes shattered into sprays, fragments swirling like fiery arrows. The sky darkened, the wind howled, and my eyes, for a moment, shut. I lost sight. Just one second. A fraction of eternity.

And in that suspended heartbeat, that breath of void between two flashes... it was she who reappeared.

Not all of her. Not yet. First her arm.

Outstretched. Extended. Stretched to the extreme by the centrifugal force of her momentum. It burst from the whirlwind like a prophecy of war, like a warning from the desert’s depths. The hammer was affixed to it, more than a weapon: an extension of her being, a comet of controlled violence, a divine mass streaking toward me at a speed the eye refused to accept.

She wasn’t attacking. She was punishing.

The blow cleaved the dunes, carving the air like an invisible blade, and I heard it before I even saw it—that rumble, that deep, telluric note, the song of living metal shattered by the force of pure will.

Then, without thinking, without even breathing, I reacted.

My twin sabers were there in the space of a breath. The steel sang. Two crossed blades, perfectly aligned, a shining X of silver in the golden furnace of the storm. And the impact... came.

A pure crash. A dying star’s cry. A shockwave so violent it made the ground tremble beneath us, made the air itself quake, fractured the moment’s very stability. The dunes recoiled. The wind fled. Silence shattered.

I was thrown backward. Not just pushed. Propelled. Torn from my stance by the sheer force of her strike, by that raw power, greater than mine, faster, hungrier. My legs buckled under the impact. My arms... my arms screamed. Muscles stretched to the limit, bones struck by resonance, every nerve vibrated like an overdrawn bow. But I held on.

And I smiled.

A broad smile. Honest. A smile of pride and recognition. Because she was there. She had arrived. She no longer struck to learn. She struck to win.

And I... I loved that.

So, before she could follow through, before she could strike again, I slipped into the night.

One last time, I disappeared.

Not to flee. But to begin the dance again.