NOVEL NEXT Chapter 83: Their battle
The corridor split into a black cruciform and swallowed sound.
Chaewon and Tyler stood back to back.
Two shapes stepped out of the dark.
On her side, a man made beast. Shoulders like a doorframe, arms too long, jaw ticking as if relearning bite. It looked at Chaewon and never spoke.
On his side, an undead Tyler. Same height, same reach, eyes sunk and empty. It raised a spear and did not use it to attack. Black sigils crawled up its forearms like ivy.
Tyler breathed once.
\\[Command: Anchor] settled on Chaewon, a quiet weight at her hips that kept balance from sliding.
The undead mirror answered with \\[Mourner's Cant]. The beast's muscles tightened and healed where they should have failed.
Chaewon moved first.
\\[Aquasteel] pressured the edge until the blade hummed. She set a shallow cut along the beast's forearm to mark tendons for later.
It charged. No feint. No care.
She stepped off line. Two more marks on the same arm. One near the base of the thumb. One mid bicep where the big blood runs.
Undead Tyler lifted a hand.
\\[Grave Relay] poured through the beast. Weight increased. Footfalls hit like mallets. The floor rang and did not crack.
Tyler read the change.
\\[Command: Feather Step] bled into Chaewon's boots and softened contact until she barely kissed the stone.
The beast slammed the ground where she had stood. Obsidian shivered. Dust rose and hung.
She wrote along it again.
\\[Aquasteel: Threadline] stitched three cuts down the same track at the flank. The muscle began to separate.
Undead Tyler pressed a palm to empty air.
\\[Null Pain] drowned all feedback in the beast's nerves. It surged forward as if unhurt and caught Chaewon with a shoulder.
Her back met stone.
She rolled with it and came up low. The next hand passed above her cheek and burned her skin with air alone.
Tyler kept count.
\\[Command: Blood Quiet] dampened bleed in Chaewon's face and steadied her grip. The buff did not heal. It kept the hand useful.
The beast grabbed for her blade with a meat hand.
She did not yank. She turned her wrist and shaved its fingers off the edge. They tried to crawl back into the palm.
It lunged again.
\\[Aquasteel: Shear] bit behind the knee. The joint dipped and took weight anyway as growth fought discipline.
Undead Tyler darkened. A low field gathered at its feet.
\\[Ashen Weight] dragged the air. The beast gained more mass and turned faster than it should.
Tyler broke the field at Chaewon's ankles.
\\[Command: Guard Flux] shifted her center forward when she struck and back when she yielded. Her stance stayed true even when the floor tilted in the mind.
The beast clapped hands on empty space as she slid. The shock rattled her teeth.
She cut where the claps made tendons stand like cords.
Its hand weakened a fraction.
Undead Tyler touched its spear to the ground and set a ring that ate light.
\\[Hollow Chorus] gave the beast more reach in the next step. Its grab came from a body length farther than the limb deserved.
Tyler answered in kind.
\\[Command: Borrowed Breath] fed Chaewon a clean rhythm. Two in the nose, one out the mouth. Cuts on the out.
She obeyed without looking.
Her marks stopped being scattered lines and became a plan.
One to weaken grip. One to slow a shoulder. One to shave balance from the knee. All on one side.
The beast hit her three times for every one she landed.
She let bruises happen where they cost least and never where they would steal the hand.
It tried to wrap her.
She exhaled small, slipped pressure, and poured under the arms like water under a door.
The exit cost a line across her back. Warmth ran.
Tyler did not waste a buff on comfort.
\\[Command: Sever Regrowth] settled on the wounds she had already opened. Flesh that tried to knit slowed, then stuck.
Undead Tyler answered with \\[Rot Bloom]. Black flowers opened in the cuts and pushed at the edges from inside.
The flesh swelled then stalled against Tyler's lock.
Chaewon paid attention. She put the next cut where swell meets stopper. It hurt the beast more than the depth deserved.
The undead mirror raised both hands and built pressure.
\\[Dirge Mantle] wrapped the beast's ribs and made them hard to break.
Tyler split the mantle for a heartbeat.
\\[Command: Break] pulsed at the same moment Chaewon struck.
Her blade hit the rib and sang through.
The beast dropped to a knee and still tried to stand on it.
Undead Tyler layered more weight. Tyler thinned it with \\[Command: Margin], and she used the breath to cut a small triangle at the elbow.
Undead Tyler widened its field with \\[Hollow Chorus]; Tyler shifted perception with \\[Command: Blind Corner]. The beast lowered its center and began to bull through space.
She drew along the grain, \\[Aquasteel: Keel Cut] under the collar, and black dust lifted again.
The undead mirror sank a hand to the floor with \\[Grave Siphon], and Tyler returned warmth with \\[Command: Flowkeep] to keep her grip functional.
The beast learned the half-beat.
It slammed an arm high, paused, then changed height in the gap. The second strike came low and outside the line.
She refused the bait.
Her off-hand blade caught the low line with no flair and the main hand shaved the tricep where the great pull begins. \\[Aquasteel: Threadline] stitched into \\[Keel Cut] until the arm no longer agreed to lift fast.
Undead Tyler set \\[Barrow Oath]; Tyler answered with \\[Command: Step Share], so the floor moved for Chaewon and resisted the beast.
She walked it three steps on the bad side, each cut short and deepening the choice.
Undead Tyler shifted \\[Dirge Mantle] toward the back; Tyler held the seam with \\[Command: Linehold] and cut where it bent.
The beast bucked and stamped; the corridor didn't crack, but the sound rang in bone.
\\[Aquasteel: Needlefall] pinned the follow-up step. \\[Grave Tether] missed—\\[Command: Guard Flux] had already shifted her out of the net.
The beast tore free and charged; \\[Aquasteel: Lattice] forced a bad knee, \\[Ossuary Lift] tried to save it, and \\[Command: Break] dropped it crooked.
She advanced the first plan.
The corridor's angles felt honest again.
She closed and worked: \\[Aquasteel: Rill] connected the marks, she took the new bite away, \\[Hollow Chorus] added a false beat, and \\[Command: Borrowed Breath] kept her timing.
The arm on the worked side lagged.
The shoulder on that side rose when it should have dropped.
Balance fled the knee.
The beast dropped to a knee and still tried to stand on it.
She did not give it time.
\\[Aquasteel: Riptide] gathered into a straight line down the edge. Pressure built until the steel shivered without shaking.
Undead Tyler tried to steal her footing with a sudden pull.
\\[Grave Tether] latched her ankle to the floor.
Tyler cut the tether before the break point.
\\[Command: Snap Release] clipped the leash and pushed her heel a palm forward.
She took the gift.
Her cut traveled the stitched path she had been opening for a minute and a lifetime. The leg failed in sequence. Hip. Knee. Ankle.
The beast crashed and clawed.
It still tried to bite.
She walked with it and set her point under the skull where the spine begins.
She pushed.
The body stilled.
It did not speak. It folded back into the obsidian and left a slick that bled into the wall.
Undead Tyler's field wavered when its ally went quiet.
Tyler met his mirror with silence.
He did not stab. He did not close.
\\[Command: Dismiss] turned his buffs inward for a breath and broke the seeded links the mirror had set through the corridor.
The sigils along the undead arms flickered.
\\[Command: Claim] followed, a simple statement of measure.
The ring at its feet went out. The cants thinned. The grave weight lifted.
The mirror did not scream. It did not beg.
It thinned like fog in wind and was gone.
The cruciform returned to being only a corridor.
Chaewon wiped her blade and watched her palm steam.
Tyler rolled his shoulders and did not fall.
They did not smile yet.
Tyler let the field collapse in layers. \\[Command: Clean Circuit] brushed ankles, wrists, and throat, teasing out leftover drag. \\[Command: Quiet Pulse] steadied breath without stealing strength.
Chaewon rolled her shoulders once. \\[Aquasteel] rinsed her edges; pressure whispered, and the steel cooled without dulling. She checked her left side where stone had kissed; range held. The thin line across her back tugged and then forgot to.
The corridor adjusted with them. The reflections stopped lagging. The dark shed the beast's shape and kept only distance.
Tyler tested the ground with the butt of his spear. \\[Command: Measure] thinned false slope and corrected the tilt by a finger. Balance felt honest again.
He lifted a palm and let \\[Command: Heat Sink] draw ache from her shoulder into the air. It did not heal. It made use possible.
Chaewon reset her grip. A slow inhale. Two short exhales. The count settled where it belonged.
Obsidian breathed quiet. Dust gave up and fell. The crossroad waited with four equal mouths.
The path they had come from felt closed. The path to the left tasted like stale water. The path ahead held a faint pressure that pricked the skin.
They looked once, not twice.
Tyler set \\[Command: Lantern]. No light rose. The space simply chose to tell the truth.
They stepped.
Ready was a breath, not a word.