Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion
Chapter 204: Dancing Shadows

Chapter 204: Dancing Shadows

Blackrat swallowed hard. "That was the Oathbreakers you spoke off?" he whispered. "The Sanctum sent it. Slipped it through. Even without their seat, they’re still—"

"They’re still desperate," Eli interrupted. "And desperation makes monsters."

Ian said nothing. He just looked to the bloodstained sand.

And waited.

———

The Crucible still roared, unsatisfied.

Smoke curled upward from a thousand torches as the midday heat waned into crimson dusk. Vendors howled over one another beneath the outer arches, pushing charred meats and spiced wine into eager hands.

Children clung to rails, breathless with wonder.

Nobles leaned in velvet-cloaked shadows, laughing behind jeweled fans. The scent of sweat and blood soaked into the old bones of the arena, ancient and endless.

And above it all, Ian had returned and now sat in silence.

He watched with still eyes, still flanked by Eli, Caelen, and Rat. The crowd’s thunder had dulled to a simmer, but the atmosphere remained electrified.

What they’d witnessed—the creature with the blank eyes, the smile carved like a wound—it had left a scar in the air.

No one said it aloud, but every man and woman in the stands was thinking the same thing: Something has changed.

Below, a new bout began.

Steel grated. Gates opened. Another competitor stepped onto the sand.

"Next match—!" barked the announcer, his voice strained but functional again. "—A veteran from the Varn Cliffs! Five-time champion of the Riftmoor Gauntlet, with a kill count nearing three dozen—KARO OF IRONVALE!"

The man who emerged was broad as an ox, all muscle and fury. His armor was patchwork, but well-forged, clearly adjusted for years of personal use. A heavy battle-axe rested against one shoulder like it weighed nothing.

His opponent followed moments later: a direwolf, black-furred and scarred, with twin spikes of bone erupting from its shoulders.

A beast bred from the old wilds.

A roar followed. The wolf responded in kind.

"Mana beast of predator rank—Blackblood direwolf, captured from the forest’s outer ridges! Trained for slaughter!"

The gates slammed shut.

A horn sounded.

The fight was on.

---

Karo charged, slow and grounded. The direwolf was faster—flickering across the sand in bursts of raw muscle, dodging wide, teeth bared. But Karo didn’t play its game. He stood, pivoted, and waited.

Then, as the wolf lunged from his blind side—

CRACK.

A backhanded blow, perfectly timed, caught the beast under the jaw. Its neck jerked. A howl escaped. Karo was already spinning, the axe carving an arc that ended at its ribs.

Blood sprayed.

The crowd screamed in approval.

Ian leaned back, his voice quiet. "He’s smart. Not showy. Just effective."

Eli gave a noncommittal grunt. "Veteran work. Predictable, but reliable."

Caelen simply watched, his expression blank.

Blackrat, however, scribbled notes with manic focus. "We could slip him into the next wager rotation. Not top-bill, but reliable returns. No flair, but plenty of... wait."

The direwolf lunged again—but this time, it changed.

Its shadow peeled off the sand like a second creature, tendrils rising. Its jaw split wider than before. A sudden pulse of black flame leaked from its maw.

"Shit—" Rat hissed. "That’s not standard."

"It’s corrupted," Eli said, golden eyes narrowing. "Something pushed it. That wasn’t wild magic—that was guided."

Ian rose halfway from his seat.

But he didn’t need to act.

Karo, to his credit, didn’t hesitate. He roared, planted his feet—and threw his axe.

The weapon spun once—twice—then cleaved directly into the direwolf’s throat mid-lunge.

The crowd erupted.

The beast collapsed, twitching, its body boiling in its own shadow.

---

The next few matches came and went in a blur of blood and steel.

One bout pitted a spear-dancer from the Eastgate districts—slender, bronze-skinned, her braid laced with red thread—against a hybrid basilisk, a grotesque thing bred from rot-lizards and bone-serpents.

The creature slithered with a stench of decay, ribs exposed and tail barbed, its jaws unhinging with each hiss.

The dancer moved like wind through cloth—fluid, precise, impossible to catch. She baited the creature with feints, leapt from broken columns, and twisted midair to evade its lashing strikes.

When it lunged, she turned the momentum—vaulting off its snout and plunging her spear through the soft orb of its left eye. It shrieked, flailing, tail smashing the sand in chaotic fury. But she did not flinch.

She rode the convulsions, balanced like a phantom atop its spine, until the beast collapsed. Then, without breath or boast, she slid down its corpse, spun the blood from her spear, and dipped into a bow as the Crucible howled.

Another fight saw a twin-blade duelist lose both arms in the first thirty seconds, only to bite through the beast’s windpipe before he bled out.

Ian did not comment. He simply watched. He judged. He remembered.

"Half of these beasts," he muttered eventually, "shouldn’t be here."

Rat hesitated. "Imports?"

Ian nodded. "No local collars. No house stamps. These are smuggled."

Eli exhaled through his nose. "Then someone’s tampering. Again."

"It’s not the council," Caelen said quietly. "We’ve had inspections. I would’ve seen."

Rat looked ill. "Unless they came through the tunnels."

Ian didn’t respond. His mind was already drifting.

Someone was feeding chaos into his city.

He would deal with it soon enough.

The sun dipped low. Shadows grew long. The games entered their final stages for the evening. That meant named fighters. Champions. The real draw.

And there were few names with more intrigue than Lyra.

The announcer stepped forward again, emboldened now. "For our closing bout of the day—" he boomed, "—a fighter born of flame and silver! The Firebird of Black Fall! The silver shadow of the first Reach!"

"LYRA!"

The crowd roared.

Cheers, whistles, stomps, chants. Ly-ra, Ly-ra, Ly-ra.

She emerged in silence.

Hood drawn back. Pale, silken hair wild in the wind. Her frame small but unmistakably dangerous, the tension in her limbs like a dancer’s before the leap. Her twin daggers gleamed in the torchlight—simple blades, but deadly in the hands that wielded them.

She didn’t wave. Didn’t smile.

Just entered the sand and rolled her shoulders, head cocked, loose as a cat.

"And her opponent..." the announcer said, a touch of unease in his tone, "—a new addition from the Wraithlands. No confirmed classification. Designation: Reaver."

The crowd quieted.

The gate opened.

And something... dripped out.

At first glance, it looked like a human, almost like what Ian had just killed.

Tall, emaciated. Limbs too long. Its spine curved like a bow, its skin slick and raw. Its face was mostly mouth. The eyes were wrong—pits of rot and distant light.

It made no sound. Just... twitched. Then began to walk forward, stuttering like a broken marionette.

The crowd did not cheer.

Even the announcer stepped back from the edge.

"That’s an Oathbreaker too?" Caelen asked.

Ian’s fingers twitched. "No. It’s a Hazard-ranked."

Caelen said nothing. His eyes were locked on the field.

Lyra didn’t move yet.

The Reaver lunged.

Fast. Erratic. A mess of teeth and clawed limbs that reshaped mid-motion, bending reality around its strikes.

Lyra blurred.

She spun sideways, slipping through the assault like water. Her daggers snapped out—one across the arm, the other toward the thigh. Sparks flew. The Reaver’s limb buckled—but didn’t sever.

It turned on her.

She grinned.

Then vanished.

Not invisibility. Just speed. Movement. Light turned to blur.

She was behind it.

Both blades sank in.

It shrieked. The sound was a jagged wall of nails and broken glass, echoing off the Crucible’s stones.

It twisted. Screamed. Lunged.

Lyra let herself fall backward—onto the sand, blades held wide—and kicked up with both feet.

The creature soared over her head, twisted midair—

And she was already moving.

She rose through the fall, a dagger catching its throat mid-twist, dragging it down.

It landed hard.

But it wasn’t done.

The Reaver cracked open—literally. Its chest peeled, revealing a core of writhing shadow and fleshlight.

A tendril lashed at her.

It caught her across the shoulder—she rolled with it, hissed, but came back on her feet.

Blood trickled down her arm.

Ian sat forward slightly.

Eli, beside him, grunted. "She’ll figure it out."

Rat muttered something.

Lyra stood still.

The Reaver paused too, sensing something.

Then it charged.

So did she.

At the last moment, she dropped low—slid under its limbs, carved both daggers upward in an X.

One hit the core.

The other found a gap beneath its chin.

Then she twisted.

The Reaver froze.

The crowd held their breath.

And then—detonation.

The thing didn’t scream this time.

It howled. The light inside it flared black, then crumpled inward. Like a star dying. Like a soul giving up.

And then it was just... gone.

A scorch mark. A crater. A girl, standing in its place, bloodied and smiling like a wolf.

The crowd lost it.

"LYRA! LYRA! LYRA!"

She raised a dagger, winked at no one in particular, and turned toward the high seat.

Ian watched her approach with that same calm, unreadable stare.

And nodded.

She’d earned her name today. Again.

The Crucible, it seemed, would never run out of shadows.

But neither would it run out of fire.