Kaelith unsheathed her blade in a single, fluid motion. She signaled Leo to move back, her voice low and sharp. “Stay behind me. You’re carrying a child.”

  Leo nodded, his knuckles white as he clutched Sora’s small clothes.

  The opposing architect stood his ground, unnervingly calm. “What a peaceful life you lead here,” he said. “You can call me Riven. I prefer introductions before a slaughter.”

  Kaelith bristled, leveling the point of her sword at his throat. “Kaelith. But don’t get comfortable—this is the last introduction you’d desire.”

  She moved instantly, a blur of motion. Her blade lashed out in a series of shimmering arcs, each strike amplified by Primal Aether.

  Riven didn't flinch. “Pulse of Vibration: Intangibility.”

  His physical form blurred, his molecules oscillating until he became a living manifestation of sound. The sword slashes passed through him as if he were made of mist.

  “Your steel is useless against a vibration user,” Riven chuckled, his form stabilizing. “But I suppose an architect of your caliber already knew that.”

  Kaelith’s expression remained stoic, though a flicker of surprise crossed her eyes. She sheathed her sword in a snap. “A keen observation. My slashes should have bypassed that frequency, but you’ve refined your resonance well.”

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  She raised a palm, a sphere of energy condensing in the air. “Pulse of Radiance: Neat Light.”

  The sphere was a bruised, dark hue—far deeper than the stable techniques Leo had seen before. This was unstable, raw Aether. The air hissed as the sphere detonated, the shockwave shattering Riven’s intangibility. He was hurled back, his left arm and midsection scorched and mangled.

  He spat a glob of crimson just as a trail of blood escaped Kaelith’s nose.

  “Well,” Riven wheezed, pushing himself up. “Someone’s hitting their Neural Load.”

  Despite the bleeding, Kaelith looked no less formidable. “You aren’t exactly fresh yourself, architect. I still have a few tricks left.”

  Riven raised a hand, the air around him Beginning to thrum. “Pulse of Vibration: The Sound’s Bloom.”

  A translucent, razor-thin spear manifested in his grip. He lunged. The strike was silent and nearly invisible, aimed directly at Kaelith’s throat. Though strained, her reaction time was still superior; she twisted away, but Riven’s spear vanished into a flurry of secondary vibrations. She dodged the majority, but shallow cuts bloomed across her shoulders.

  Riven smirked, his confidence surging. “Speed and brute force only get you so far against someone relative to your—”

  He choked on his words as his own nose began to bleed. He dropped to one knee, his brain reeling from the feedback.

  Kaelith let out a ragged chuckle. “Looks like your hardware is failing, too. Pulse of Vitality.”

  The bleeding from her nose stopped instantly. The external wounds remained, but the internal pressure subsided.

  “You can’t heal yourself, can you?” she asked, her voice a mix of strain and triumph.

  Riven stayed on his knee, gasping for air. “Correct. But the Neural Load won’t be what stops me today.”

  He forced himself back to his feet. Suddenly, a voice echoed inside Leo’s mind—not spoken, but projected with desperate clarity.

  “Leo... I need your help. On my sign, give me Sora and take over. My Aether is dry, and I’m too strained to hold the line any longer...”