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A moment after Tom’s blade harmlessly passed across the spot Zeth had been standing in, he appeared next to Aleph, his icy-blue longsword clenched in his right hand.

Tom pivoted, only to be forced to watch as Zeth swung his rare artifact in a wide arc, the weapon too unwieldy to thrust with in close quarters. His breath froze in his lungs as he watched the blade near Aleph’s abdomen, only for her crystal armored form to drop to her knees, letting the heavy blade sail over her head without making contact.

Aleph lashed out with her blade, but before it could land, Zeth once again teleported away.

Her expression turned into a grimace, as the speed buff she had gotten from landing a blow on Zeth faded away.

Both of them scrambled to ready themselves for the next attack, but to their surprise, Zeth didn’t follow through immediately.

Every second that passed by Tom felt like an eternity, before his senses finally picked up on a disturbance in the atmosphere, to his right.

Tom’s teeth clenched as he pivoted to face the threat. As Zeth’s blade swept towards him, he was faced with no choice but to angle his sword defensively to blunt the impact. He was sent tumbling backwards by a few steps, while Zeth’s icy-blue blade had grown in luminescence after their short exchange.

Despite the distance that had opened up between them, Zeth swung his blade and an arc of frost erupted outwards, thin yet razor sharp.

Tom just about managed to summon mirror world in time, his Rare Card facing no trouble in absorbing the attack whole.

Zeth did not bother to pursue, as his form sunk into the shadows. Once again, all traces of his presence were erased.

The situation was worse than Tom had anticipated, but that wasn’t because of Zeth’s strength. Zirel hadn’t acted yet.

Tom had already dismissed the possibility that Zirel had betrayed them. Even if he dismissed all notions of camaraderie, the former prince had never shown a short-sighted side to him. Making an enemy out of Tom only made sense if he was up against an enemy that there was no possible way to surmount.

Because if Zirel gambled and lost, he would make an enemy that already knew his greatest strengths and weaknesses and was capable of growing at an exponential rate.

No, Zirel wouldn’t do that.

At the same time though, there had been over a dozen moments in the battle where his interference might’ve turned the tide of the battle.

But he hadn’t. Almost like… no, exactly like an assassin.

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‘Fuck,’ Tom thought, as the realization hit him. He could almost hear the prince’s smug tone in his head as he thought about the answer, ‘I need to find him an opening.’

Not an opening to interfere in the battle, but end it instead.

An idea sprang to his mind and Tom felt like cursing again.

He watched as Aleph managed to leap away as Zeth swung his annoyingly heavy blade, managing to dodge the lethal strike with some room to spare.

Apparently, that margin was wide enough for Zeth not to pursue her, as he appeared behind Tom.

Mirror world replied in his stead, firing off the arc of frost it had absorbed earlier, further amplified by greater reflection.

Zeth seemed to have anticipated the reaction, as he blinked away almost immediately as quickly as he had appeared.

He reappeared a little distance away from Tom, giving him a wide enough berth to make sure that the attack didn’t graze him.

Now, the act could finally begin.

Tom only had three advantages over Zeth. He was stronger than him, quicker both with a blade and without and debatably, smarter. Throwing Maya into the mix made the last bit a certainty, even if it was cheating.

Zeth had him in both the deadliness of his Rare Card and his control over it.

So Tom started charging at him, his gaze gleaming wide with desperation as he closed the distance between them and wildly swung, the power behind his blade enough to eviscerate Zeth.

It was true, after all. Against a power like this, anyone could be forced into desperation.

His blade met air, though Tom had seen a glimmer of surprise in Zeth’s gaze at his wild charge that abandoned all strategy, causing him to react slightly slower than he normally would have.

The blade in Tom’s hand disappeared almost as quickly as Zeth had vanished. His senses were stretched to his limits and his heart hammered in his chest as he angled his gaze behind him to detect if Zeth had taken the bait.

He had.

Tom leaned into the swing he had already committed to in an attempt to shift his exposed back away from the sword thrust Zeth had unleashed.

The headstart Zeth had gotten by teleporting to his blind spot after he had overextended himself ended up being too much even if Tom had orchestrated it. Pain flooded his mind as Zeth’s rare artifact grazed his side, the sheer strength and momentum behind the stab enough to shear through his armor and cause a wellspring of blood to erupt outwards.

Gritting his teeth, Tom did not stop for an instant and continued in the direction the wild swing would’ve originally taken.

Zeth’s eyes went wide with shock as he realized that Tom’s right hand had wrapped around his sword arm. Immediately, he defaulted to shaping a shadowy knife quickly, but Tom’s left fist was faster as it connected with Zeth’s nose with a loud crunching noise.

He had an inkling that Zeth’s survival instincts would let him dodge if he committed to summoning a sword, so instead he focused on stopping him from teleporting while disrupting his shadow shaping.

Tom hadn’t expected Zeth to try and shape shadows a second time after the first attempt had failed so miserably, but Tom should’ve anticipated it considering just how obsessed the man was with mastering his powers.

Tom punched so hard that his own fist hurt. Finally, Zeth’s eyes widened in alarm as he jerked his neck to the side while using his free hand to reach for a sheathed bone dagger that had been concealed with his armor.

He sliced at Tom’s palm with such panicked quickness that he wasn’t able to stop himself from flinching, even as Zirel’s blade of necrosis carved out a long gash across the right side of his neck, in what should’ve been a fatal blow.

Then, Zeth disappeared.