The King of Tula began to withdraw, yet something was amiss… something remained where the goddess had stood.
“Was it… light?” he wondered.
Tezcatlipoca turned back.
His suspicion was correct.
There, exactly where Ana had stood, was a colossal white sword adorned with golden tapestries. It shone like a sun, illuminating the vast darkness of the dimension he had created. Dark feathers drifted harmoniously around the blade.
“Has she become a teōtonalli?” the Toltec god murmured, stepping closer.
The sword was embedded firmly in the ground. Its hilt was gold with black bands. Along the guard were carvings of islands, trees, and golden apples. The blade gleamed like a celestial body, and faint luminous butterflies seemed to flutter about it.
Even within the suffocating void of his own realm, the weapon radiated light.
“I suppose this shall be my prize for killing that girl,” he muttered.
He grasped the hilt.
Pain seared through his hand.
He released it instantly.
Scowling, he coated his hand in dark energy and tried again—but the sword would not move even a millimeter. It was planted so deeply that not even a god could dislodge it. The dark energy shielding his palm began to evaporate, forcing him to withdraw once more.
“Bah. I do not need it,” he said dismissively. “I shall return to my task.”
He turned away—
Then heard a voice.
“Ana… Ana…”
It was the voice of an old man—Myrddin.
“You have finally awakened the sacred sword within you.”
The dark feathers coalesced, forming the shape of a human body.
Ana emerged behind the blade.
She was naked, her wounds still visible, yet she no longer seemed to feel pain. Her presence was ghostlike. Her eyes remained closed, and sorrow lingered on her face.
“Was this sword always within me?” she asked softly.
“When you trained with me, I knew you alone were worthy to wield it,” Myrddin’s voice replied. “I used your ability to render your body intangible and placed the blade within you under enchantment. Its sacred energy flowed through your veins, building resistance to the sacred element. Your body needed time to adapt—that is why you felt weakened.”
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“So I am worthy?” Ana asked.
“Take the hilt. It will accept you. Go, Ana—write a new page in the history of Avalon’s sacred blade.”
Ana gripped the hilt with her left hand.
With effortless grace, she lifted it.
A pillar of light burst forth, forcing Tezcatlipoca to shield his eyes.
Her totema returned to her body, transformed. Her armor, once dark violet, now shimmered with gold and blue accents—a harmony of light and shadow.
“This sword belonged to King Arthur, forged in Avalon and blessed with the highest sacred energy. Whoever wields it shall never fear the night. Ana, you are now mistress of Caledfwlch… Excalibur.”
“I feel it,” she whispered. “It speaks my name… and I feel lighter.”
“You have freed Excalibur from your blood. Its energy no longer drains you. You are stronger. Faster. You have overcome your weakness to the sacred element. You have been reborn.”
Tezcatlipoca lowered his guard and beheld her.
“I know not how you escaped death. But this time, I shall send you to Mictlán.”
He raised his obsidian mirror.
Before the smoke could gather—
Ana moved.
With impossible speed, she slashed Excalibur across the mirror, dispersing the forming vapor. The artifact did not shatter—but a deep crack split its surface.
“I did not see it… how can a mere weapon grant such power?” he muttered in disbelief.
He lunged.
Ana leapt back—then performed a double midair jump, redirecting herself and carving a deep gash across his chest. He staggered two steps. She landed gracefully.
Tezcatlipoca began to laugh.
When he lowered his hands from his face, his expression had changed.
Madness.
His eyes were bloodshot. Saliva dripped from his lips. His posture hunched.
“Filthy whore—you have brought forth my other face!” he screamed. “I will kill you and torture your fragile body until I am satisfied!”
His eyes glowed crimson.
“Necoc Yaotl (Enemy of Both Sides)!”
A shadow-clone emerged behind Ana and slashed her cheek before she evaded with a leap. The real Tezcatlipoca attacked midair, but she deflected him downward with Excalibur.
The shadow clone pressed its assault as she descended. Ana planted her feet against its head and chest, propelled herself upward, then split it in half with a clean arc.
Yet Tezcatlipoca had already gathered smoke in his mirror.
“Die! Die!”
A geyser of scalding vapor erupted.
Ana launched herself forward through falling feathers, cleaving the smoke apart while driving Excalibur through his body. A brilliant white line of light burst from the wound, splitting the obsidian mirror in two.
Still he laughed.
From the drifting dark feathers, another Ana emerged—wielding Gram.
This shadowed reflection plunged Gram into the same wound, cutting from the opposite direction. A stroke of dark light intersected the sacred cut.
The two slashes formed an X—light and shadow entwined.
The duplicate vanished as Ana whispered:
“Sgàile agus solas X-chros (X-shaped intersection of light and shadow).”
The X detonated.
Tezcatlipoca was hurled backward, blood erupting from a massive wound.
“She combined sacred and shadow… I have never seen one control both,” he thought as he crashed before the motionless bodies of Orniskem.
Ana advanced slowly, Excalibur drawn, expression unreadable.
“I underestimated her… Anat never warned me… They should not know how to function under anti-divine barriers…”
He touched his wound.
It did not heal.
“Is it the fusion of light and shadow? Is that why my body cannot recover?”
He realized the truth.
Without treatment, he would die.
Ana stood before him, blade at his throat.
“How do you know Rodrigo? Why does Anat command his death?”
“I admit defeat,” he said calmly. “But I will not yield my life. We shall conclude this another day.”
He opened his palm.
Dark smoke enveloped him as he chanted:
“Yohualli Ehecatl (Night Wind).”
Ana covered her face to avoid the fumes.
When they cleared—
He was gone.
The dark dimension shattered like glass.
The gray skies of Taltheilei returned.
Ana collapsed, strength exhausted.
Excalibur, still in her left hand, dissolved into a sphere of light and re-entered her body.
And she lost consciousness.
Caledfwlch was the name of the sword Excalibur in Welsh legends.
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