They were separated cleanly: Eryndor and the Netherbreed veering towards Kieran and Vasa; the vice commander facing off against Bennet.

"Unfortunate pairing," the vice commander observed, his blade purring, "I had wanted the bigger bounty—but you will have to do."

"That's too bad…" Bennet said, weight settling over his tired legs like an apology he didn't intend to make.

The vice commander charged. He touched Bennet's guard and stepped off‑line, stitching a fast line across the outer bicep. Heat and air hit the cut at once; it opened wider.

Bennet didn't flinch. He answered with a square cut meant to trade, but the vice refused the trade, ghosting back a half‑step so the edge only kissed his cloak.

"Hurry up and die!" the vice commander shouted, impatience flooding his face as he wrote Bennet off as fodder, "I can still get the main bounty before it's claimed!"

Bennet hadn't yet shifted when the vice commander drew a breath and shouldered a crown of heat onto his crimson edge.

"Cautery Line," he hissed— a hair‑thin filament of white‑orange stitched the air first, the steel riding its own glowing scar as he charged.

The cut was a heartbeat from landing when Bennet's plain blade kicked to life—sparks blooming into a tight sheath of fire along the fuller.

"Forgeguard," he breathed—low enough to ruffle the new flame‑skin.

The heat didn't lick; it bit, sheathing the steel in a hard blaze that chewed sparks to ash on contact, a tight collar of burnt‑orange light crawling the fuller and warping the air in fine saw‑toothed ripples.

The white‑orange thread struck that skin and skittered, burning out along it like solder meeting cold iron, spitting bright flecks into the dust.

"What—" the vice commander blurted, shock cracking the smooth of his voice, eyes flaring with the reflection.

But before he could react, Bennet had moved.

"Scoria Step," he breathed—heat dumped into his soles until the stone sweated slick to glass and then seized, a violent grip that bit through his boots.

He slipped inside the man's arms on that stuttering traction and drove an upward palm straight to the sternum.

The impact thumped like a bell; plate rang, and a dull shock rolled through bone. Air left the vice in a hard cough as he stumbled back two paces, eyes wide, blade tipping.

For a heartbeat neither spoke—only fire breathing, steel ticking as it cooled, and grit settling like dry rain.

The vice commander found his voice, thinner, "I didn't think you could pose a fight... Good."

Bennet dipped his chin once, "You'd be better off surrendering now."

"Surrender? HAHAHAHAHA!" The vice commander let out a resounding laugh of disbelief as he stared at Bennet as if he had said a great joke but just as quickly as the laughter came, it disappeared.

Rage filled the vice commander's face as he slammed his sword into the ground, fury burning in his eyes as he shouted, "Don't get overconfident! You simply caught me off guard!"

As soon as he said this, he set his feet and lifted his blade until the purring edge became a held scream as the whole body of the sword began to glow red.

Heat shouldered up around him in concentric rings, embers rising like a crown.

"Watch closely," he said, eyes bright, "I'll show you my strongest cut as a result of catching me off guard."

He dragged the point in a shallow arc; fire licked across the ground and drew a burning sigil at his toes.

The air almost immediately thinned at the appearance of the sigil. Light gathered along the crimson steel until it looked poured, not forged.

He drew a breath as deep as a furnace and the ground cracked in fine spiderwebs beneath his heels.

Bennet just breathed once, the kind of slow exhale men take before sleep. His guard sank a fraction; the tip lowered. He brushed ash off his knuckles with the back of his thumb, composure written all over his face.

"Take your time," he said, "Pick your hour. I'll be here."

"Crown Pyre," the vice commander whispered, and kicked forward—

But he never reached the killing line.

Across from him, Bennet half‑closed his eyes and let aether run the old foundry routes through him—veins for bellows, bones for rails.

Heat bled from heart to wrists in ember threads that mapped themselves under the skin; the hairs on his forearms stood, his fingers hummed as if wire had been strung through them.

He drew a forge‑breath, slow and deep, until his pulse kept time with the hammer in his chest; the taste of iron slicked his tongue.

Then he spoke a smith's word he hadn't used in a long time, and iron woke everywhere at once—grit leaping from dirt, filings tugging free of his own mail, the vice's buckles and blade humming like a swarm riding a magnet‑pulse.

"Sovereign Draw."

The name hit the air like an anvil strike—bright, brutal, ringing metal.

In that instant, the world tilted for the vice commander.

An overwhelming force crashed down on the vice commander, driving him to one knee as he barely kept his sword braced against Bennet's.

In that single stunned heartbeat where balance deserted him, Bennet stepped through the door he'd been building since the first cut.

"Every action you have done since we started fighting..." Bennet said, leaning close, "has been to lead you here."

Something brittle clicked behind the vice commander's eyes; disbelief blew his pupils wide, the blaze in his face guttering to ash as he replayed everything that had happened in the fight earlier.

'This level of strength...' he thought, 'they were hiding it the whole time to catch up off guard.'

The more the thought, the more he realised the truth in Bennet's words and for the first time in those hollow battle-lusting eyes stepped fear—first a pinprick, then a blade—and for the first time he looked small inside his own helm.

"Anchor," Bennet murmured.

Zzzzzz!

Heat hammered up the steel; white riding red crawled from guard to tip until the edge sang—a taut, metallic keening that buzzed Bennet's teeth.

Air shivered around the blade like kiln glass, and flakes of dark scale lifted from the fuller in bright drifting motes.

He cut down once again—not a swing so much as the release of a held stroke.

When steel met steel the sound was two sounds at once: a brittle snap under a tearing scream.

Bennet's sword met the crimson edge and sheared it in a single, brutal pass; both halves of the enemy blade pinwheeled away, spitting star‑sparks that skated across stone.

The stroke didn't slow.

It followed the line he'd measured—through gorget, through collar, through the quiet notch where armor gives—and cleaving the man cleanly.

Fire pinched out as if a wick had been wetted. The last noise was the long, tired hiss of hot iron finding water.

Bennet let the blade hang.

Steam unspooled from the edge in tight banners; a faint red afterglow crawled and died along the fuller. He rolled his wrist once to bleed the forge ache from it, then let his gaze fall to the bisected man.

"They call you the Butcher," he said, voice dry, "So much for that title."

He stepped over the body and turned toward the roar where Eryndor pressed Kieran and Vasa wheeled in black arcs. Bennet set his shoulders, the banked glow along his blade deepening as he started forward.

Kieran's daggers wrote quick angles through the smoke, edges dull with dust and bright where they needed to be. Eryndor met him like a man correcting posture—minimal parry, fingertip shifts, authority weighting the air until every step felt one beat heavier than it should.

"You finally look awake," Eryndor said, blade barely moving as he stole another inch of angle, "Your aura…sets."

"I was being polite," Kieran replied, breath even.

Clang!

Steel clashed. Eryndor's pommel touched Kieran's ribs with the force of a hammer; pain bloomed like struck copper. Kieran answered with a short cut that left a slash on Eryndor's forearm— blood spewing immediately upon impact.

Eryndor smiled at the fresh sensation of pain and sight of blood,"Better."

Next to them, a new heat shouldered the air. The Netherbreed lunged from the flank, furnace‑breath building to a cone.

The raven tore free in a black arc and changed mid‑wing.

Feathers flexed, split, and scattered into a storm of glossy blades—the Murderform—a cloud of hard night that met the breath and turned it into red turbulence.

Some of the shards locked together mid‑fall, knitting like scales to slap against a descending foreclaw; others streaked past Eryndor's ear like thrown razors.

The commander trimmed two from the air with contemptuous economy; the rest re‑feathered and wheeled.

Kieran used the pressure.

He stepped past Eryndor's point on a split step, inside then out in the width of a blink, daggers crossing for the wrist.

Eryndor's answer was a half‑turn and a pulse—the air heavier—that bled Kieran's speed into the ground and turned the second blade into a scrape instead of a pierce.

"No wonder you managed to escape this far," Eryndor murmured, "You've actually got some strength."

The Netherbreed's tail swept.

Vasa snapped from scatter to one, slammed onto Kieran's forearm and hardened into a black gauntlet; the tail scraped off it in a burst of sparks, and the bird peeled away.

Kieran ducked the return and cut along the jowl seam. The beast growled, then shook it off as Eryndor lifted two fingers; the next step fell like a gate.

They broke apart by a pace, heat between them. Vasa circled tight while the Netherbreed reset on torn ground. Steel stayed steady.

Eryndor's mouth tilted, "It seems we can only push this to a standstill."

"Don't be so sure," Kieran spoke with a calm look and a slight smirk as he wiped blood with a knuckle,"You forgot something."

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