The crater was silent for a breath.
Then Tolok moved.
His foot struck the cracked stone, and it echoed like a drum. Bark-armored muscle rippled beneath jagged ridges, and his lone arm flexed once, digging into the ground as if he needed to anchor himself to reality.
Jackal didn't move. His body was a stitched mess of leaking mana and gnarled posture, but the hat still sat on his head. Still untouched. Still part of the Form.
Tolok rushed.
It was like a landslide. He didn't dash or leap, he tore forward, leaving a gouged trail in the floor behind him. When he swung his remaining arm, it wasn't with a weapon. It was the weapon. Bark had hardened into jagged blades, and his fingers had become claws.
Jackal ducked. Not cleanly. Not elegantly. He ate part of the strike along his shoulder, mana bursting outward from the fresh wound like smoke through cracked glass. But his grin never faded.
He twisted, and slashed back.
Tolok blocked it with his forearm, and the blow cracked part of his bark, but he didn't stop. He grabbed Jackal by the waist and slammed him into the wall of the crater, then again, then threw him through a shattered root-vein that jutted from the earth.
The crowd above was screaming. Some in awe. Some in confusion. A few in fear.
And above them, standing at the edge of the crater, was Xhan. Silent. Watching. His arms were crossed, but his stance was alert. Focused. As if reading deeper than the rest.
Down below, Jackal stumbled from the rubble, his body twitching with unnatural movement. His sword dragged behind him, the tip glowing faintly.
Tolok lunged again.
More strikes. Brutal. Animalistic. Each one heavier than the last. One carved through Jackal's thigh. Another caught his side. A third clipped his jaw, sending bits of mana and form scattering in a spray.
But Jackal didn't break. He kept moving. Kept smiling.
And the hallucinations began.
Tolok slowed mid-strike. His pupils contracted, his chest heaving.
He looked to the side, away from Jackal.
"You're not supposed to be here…" he whispered.
He swung at nothing. Not Jackal. Nothing.
A shadow. A flicker.
Something that wasn't there.
Jackal didn't speak. He didn't taunt. He simply stepped to the side, sword in hand, and cut across Tolok's exposed back.
The blade sank shallow, but it landed. Tolok snarled in confusion, whirling around, eyes darting.
"Stay away from me," he growled.
He saw someone else.
Someone else again.
And he slashed at them.
Jackal watched with eerie calm. Mindsplit was a passive wave now, flowing through him like a current. The fear in Tolok was compounding. Collapsing in on itself.
A mental fracture.
A crack spreading faster with each illusion.
Tolok stumbled back, clawing at his face, then growled and charged again, but it wasn't at Jackal.
He roared and tackled empty air, swinging wildly.
The crowd was silent again.
Jackal stepped in behind him and cut once more. A slice across the ribs. Much deeper than he could before.
And with it, more fear.
The illusion intensified.
Tolok screamed.
"Get away from her!"
He ripped apart a piece of stone from the wall and threw it at nothing. Then turned. Then struck again. Chasing ghosts.
Jackal was catching up. And the more Tolok fought, the more his mind broke.
This form of his came with a cost, and the worst of it showed against someone like Jackal.
Tolok stumbled back, clutching his head. He growled something, low and broken, but the words barely formed.
Jackal didn't wait.
He moved.
A blur of motion. No theatrics. No buildup. Just cuts, quick and exact.
The first tore through Tolok's calf, severing tendons. The second opened a long gash down his flank. The third bit into his side and dragged.
Tolok swung wide, but Jackal ducked under it, dragging his blade along Tolok's thigh as he passed.
Another miss.
Another cut.
The crowd above had stopped reacting. There was no rhythm left in them. Just a hushed dread.
Jackal pivoted behind Tolok, slicing across his back. Again. Then again. His movements blurred, his sword never still. Mana whistled with every pass. He was accelerating.
Jackal continued. And now he was faster than Tolok ever was.
He was almost flashing across my vision.
Tolok spun around, wild and off-balance.
Jackal jumped over the swing, grabbed the arm mid-turn, and used it as leverage.
He was already climbing.
One hand hooked over Tolok's barked shoulder. The other raised his blade, slow at first, almost reverent.
Then, he plunged it down.
Right through the top of Tolok's skull.
It punched through flesh, bone, bark, and everything beneath. A clean stab through the head, down and out through the jaw.
Tolok jerked.
His lone arm twitched upward, then dropped.
His body locked in place, twitching under the weight of a strike that didn't just wound, it ended something.
And Jackal didn't even blink.
It should've been over. But the circle didn't fade. Tolok was still alive.
Jackal rolled his eyes, hollow and bright with leaking mana, then took a slow step forward. Then another. Until he stood over the body.
He didn't hesitate.
He jumped onto it, landing hard, boots pressing into the twisted bark and flesh beneath him.
For a second, he just stood there.
Still. Thinking.
Then, he raised his sword, and brought it down.
Once.
Then again.
Then again.
The hits weren't clean. They weren't precise. He wasn't aiming. He was just cutting. Slashing. Digging in. Breaking what was already broken.
Then he crouched.
Sat right on the corpse like it was a throne, and kept going. Slow, deliberate motions. Blade to flesh. Over and over.
The ritual circle finally began to dissolve. The lines of light faded beneath the blood. But Jackal didn't stop.
The guards moved to intervene.
And froze.
The fear in the air was still thick. Coating them. Jackal was still drenched in it. Still feeding. Still radiating.
They didn't step closer.
And Jackal looked up.
His head tilted, grin sharp, eyes burning from behind the cracked black of his face.
"That felt really good," he said.
Then louder. "Now clap for me."
Nothing.
"What's this? What's with the horror on your faces?"
He stood again, blood trailing from his blade, breathless and calm.
"This is you. All of you. Don't look at me like I'm the monster. This ritual, you came to watch it. You cheered for it. You worship it."
He gestured wide to the broken arena, to the blood, to the crater beneath their feet.
"This city is peaceful, sure. But I know why."
He stepped once, slowly, toward the edge of the pit.
"It's built on this. On this violence. On the fear and blood and death you hide behind sacred words and ceremony. Whatever your Deities are, they're the ones feeding it. They're the ones pumping that peace into your veins."
He glanced up.
"That feeling I had when I got here, the calm, the stillness, the... harmony. That's why I never tried to leave. Right?"
He turned back to Tolok's mangled corpse, mana still hissing from torn bark and shredded flesh.
Then he looked at the crowd.
"Don't look away now."