She raised her sword slowly, her arms trembling but unyielding. Her lips moved, soft and steady.
"One slash."
The black smoke that had been leaking from her body suddenly surged upward, crawling and coiling until it wrapped around her entire weapon.
It swallowed the blade whole, devouring the steel until the sword itself vanished from sight. In her hands it no longer looked like a sword at all, it looked like fire. Not flames of warmth, but dark, suffocating fire, as though she gripped a burning piece of the abyss.
Her body shook as she drew the blade back. Then, with a cry that ripped through the battlefield, she slashed it down.
The strike came as a single, straight line at first. Clean, sharp, perfect. But halfway down the arc, the black fire on her blade exploded.
Smoke burst outward like a storm unchained. And then it wasn’t one slash anymore. It was countless.
Swords, all of them carved from the same black smoke, filled the sky until there was no sky left to see. They stretched in every direction, layer upon layer, turning the heavens into a storm of blades. Each sword radiated the same deathly aura, each one promising to cut Saturn down to nothing. They screamed forward together, rushing at him with unstoppable force.
My eyes widened. I had never seen anything like it. It was as though Hazel had ripped open reality and poured out her rage, her grief, her whole being in one strike.
But Saturn did not flinch.
He stepped forward, just once. And with that single step, his body burned even brighter. The transparent white glow that had coated him before now shone like the heart of a star. His greatsword lifted, glowing so bright it nearly blinded me to look at it.
His voice rolled out with a laugh.
"Moon God—Divine Dust."
The sword came down, and from it poured a slash of pure white.
The light was so intense I had to shield my eyes with my arm, but even through my lashes I saw it burst apart. The single slash split into thousands, each one shaped like a crescent moon. A rain of white blades, each heavy with divine power, cascaded forward to meet Hazel’s storm of black swords.
And then the world broke.
The two attacks collided, black swords against white crescents, shadow against moonlight.
The explosion that followed was beyond anything I had imagined. The clash tore open the air, sending shockwaves in every direction.
My ears rang, and the platform Edgar and I stood on shook violently beneath us. I had to dig my feet down to keep from being thrown off. Even the grandmasters watching on either side staggered back, their skills and defenses flaring just to hold their ground.
The sky itself seemed to shatter, painted black and white, ripped apart by their wills.
And then, slowly, the storm began to fade.
Saturn was still in the air, but half his body no longer glowed. The brilliance of his form had dimmed, leaving his right side charred and smoking. He still stood, but barely, and steam rose from his skin.
Hazel floated opposite him, her condition far worse. Her sword was gone. The weapon that had carried her through every battle of her life was nothing but dust.
She herself was deathly pale, the blackness consuming her body now except for one small patch of untouched skin, her face. Only her face remained human, the rest a shadow in the shape of flesh.
Saturn chuckled, though his laugh was ragged, full of pain.
"For a moment, I thought that was the end. But it seems you missed."
I clenched my fists tighter. My throat ached, but before I could speak, Hazel answered. Her voice was soft, almost tender.
"There was a skill I had to use a million times just to complete a quest."
My ears perked up the moment she said it. The words struck something deep inside me, and I felt my eyes grow hot, moisture threatening to spill. I knew what it meant.
She continued, her voice steady despite the blood on her lips. "Then ten million times. Let me show you the peak I reached. I am not that talented. Maybe someone will surpass me one day."
I swallowed hard. To me, she had always been more than talented, she was the standard.
Then her body ignited.
The black smoke roared outward, exploding like fire, until it surrounded her in a storm of death. The air itself thickened, heavy with the feeling that one wrong move could kill us all. My skin prickled, my chest tightened. Even breathing felt like a crime under that aura.
Her voice rose, echoing across the battlefield, carried on the smoke.
"Abyss Severance—Moon Slayer."
Her body unraveled, dispersing into the storm. And in her place, only one thing remained.
A sword. A single, immense black sword hovered in the sky where she had stood, silent and terrible.
Then it moved.
The blade fell, carving downward in a line that split the world itself. From the sky above to the ground below, a single slash erupted, joining sky to earth.
Saturn roared, lifting his sword to defend, but he was too slow. The black sword passed through him, slicing his body from head to toe in one perfect motion.
The strike didn’t stop. It cut the ground beneath him, stretching farther and farther until it vanished into the horizon. A thin, endless trench scarred the world where her attack had passed.
For a long, still moment, no one moved.
The battlefield was silent except for the whisper of smoke.
Hazel was gone. The sword was gone. But her final slash remained, a line etched into the earth and into all of us who had witnessed it.
And Saturn...
He hovered, trembling, his body split open by the strike. His glow flickered, his breath came ragged, and he dropped from the sky.
I couldn’t breathe. My heart pounded in my chest. I controlled myself from shouting and roaring.
Hazel’s life.
Her vengeance.
Her farewell.
It was done and she wasn’t with us anymore.
I clenched my fists as the last echoes of her power faded. Hazel had given everything, and I swore to myself then, I would carry her will, her resolve, her unshakable determination. No matter how deep the Abyss stretched, I would walk it to the very end.