[Chapter 320. Shadow and Fog]

The Elite with the broken halberd lunged forward, its makeshift axe a blur of motion aimed at her chest. Iris met the charge, parrying the strike with the flat of her blade. The impact was jarring, a solid thud that vibrated up her arm as the creature's surprising strength pushed her back a step.

Before she could capitalize on the opening, the other Elite thrust its halberd forward like a spear, the tip aimed directly at her throat. She twisted desperately, her body a fluid arc as the razor-sharp point sliced past her ear, close enough to scrape the armor on her neck. The seamless coordination was unnerving; one Elite's attack flowed directly into the other's, leaving her no room to counter.

This grim dance continued—a brutal cycle of blocks and evasions. The close-quarters fighter pressed her with relentless, powerful swings, forcing her to keep her Zweihänder in constant motion. This left her vulnerable to the precise, stabbing attacks from its partner, who exploited every opening created while she defended against the flurry of blows. Sweat began to bead on her forehead, her muscles burning with exertion as the coordinated assault slowly wore her down. She was reacting, not dictating the flow of battle.

The King stood back, a silent observer. His single eye tracked the fight with chilling intelligence, his massive axe held casually at his side. He moved only once, with terrifying speed. As Iris dodged a sweeping attack from the close-range Elite, stumbling slightly on the slick floor, the King's axe whistled through the space she had just occupied. The sheer kinetic force of the near-miss sent a gust of wind that made her stumble further, the heavy weapon biting deep into the stone floor with a thunderous crack that sent shrapnel skittering against her armor. It was a calculated, opportunistic strike that spoke of a seasoned tactician, not a mindless beast.

With a guttural snarl of frustration, Iris seized a fleeting opportunity. As the close-range Elite overextended on a powerful downward swing, she dropped her center of gravity. Instead of blocking, she allowed the blade to slide past her shoulder, the weapon scraping against her pauldron with a shriek. In that same instant, she thrust her Zweihänder backward in a vicious, blind strike. The turquoise-edged blade punched through the Elite's armor and deep into its chest, the creature's surprised gasp cut short as she ripped the blade free in a spray of dark blood.

In the same fluid motion, the blood-covered blade parried the halberd of the second Elite, knocking it away before she drove her powerful leg into its chest, sending it stumbling backward. A heartbeat later, the King's massive axe came crashing down toward her position, seizing on an opening the moment her foot left solid ground.

All it hit was dark smoke and the fractured stone beneath. Iris materialized directly behind the second Elite, her blade already swinging toward its neck.

The Elite's halberd came up just in time to block the fatal blow, its body spun around to strike her with the shaft of its weapon. The impact wasn't particularly powerful, but it carried enough force to stagger her for a fraction of a second. With a swift flick of her wrists, Iris used the momentum of her sword to spin it mid-air. Grasping the blade of her sword, she slammed the heavy crossguard down like a makeshift hammer in a devastating backswing. The impact shattered the Elite's shoulder and collarbone, forcing it to drop its weapon with a howl of pain.

Before she could capitalize, the King brought his axe down once more, and this time she was too close to dodge completely. The heavy axe blade struck the ground a centimeters to her side, detonating the floor and kicking up a cloud of jagged stone fragments. The King immediately followed up the attack with the blunt side of the axe, slamming it directly into her chest. The force was overwhelming. Iris flew through the air, her armor groaning and cracking, before she crashed through a massive pillar. Dust and stone debris filled the air as the column collapsed, the turquoise stones embedded in its surface shattering like fragile glass.

With a pained grunt, Iris pulled herself from the rubble, stone fragments sliding off her cracked armor. Her shadow, cast by the flickering turquoise light of the remaining pillars, stretched unnaturally across the floor, elongating into a vast, writhing pool of darkness. A low, ethereal howl echoed through the cavernous hall, a sound that seemed to emanate from the very stone around them.

From this living shadow, a form began to coalesce. Muscles rippled under a coat of deep black fur as a massive hound pulled itself into reality, its eyes glowing with the same intense turquoise light as her sword.

"Kill," Iris commanded, snarling as she gestured toward the Elite with the shattered shoulder, who was currently fumbling to retrieve its weapon with its one good arm.

The Shadow Hound didn't hesitate. It lunged forward, a blur of speed that crossed the distance in a heartbeat. The Elite looked up, its eye widening in terror a split second before the wolf's powerful jaws closed around its throat. There was a sickening crunch of bone and cartilage, followed by a wet gurgle as the hound shook its head violently, tearing flesh and severing the creature's spine in a single, brutal motion. The Elite's body went limp, its weapon clattering uselessly to the marble floor.

As the Hound dispatched its victim, a sinister change began to overcome the hall. Ghostly white fog, which lined the castle's outer walls, began to drift inside through the shattered windows and the gaping hole where the pillar had once stood. It flowed with unnatural purpose, tendrils of mist snaking through the opening like searching fingers as the air grew suddenly heavy and frigid.

As the fog swirled around her ankles like water, a cold shiver ran down Iris's spine—a primal warning that screamed danger. She instinctively sprang deeper into the hall, her armored boots slipping slightly on the blood-slicked marble. The moment she looked back toward where the pillar had stood, there was only fog, thick and impenetrable as a stone wall.

Within seconds, the mist filled the entire space where the pillar had stood just moments ago. The turquoise glow of the remaining pillars became diffuse and muted, as if the light itself were being strangled. The air grew eerily still, the echoes of battle deadened by the fog, leaving only the sound of her own breathing, suddenly loud in her ears.

Iris was pulled out of her shock by a shrill whimper—a sound that cut through the silence with piercing clarity. As she heard it, she felt a sharp, phantom agony deep inside her chest.

Looking toward the sound, she saw her hound being mauled by the King. His heavy axe was buried deep in its dark, shadowy body, the blade's yellow-green glow seeming to corrupt the very essence of her summoned companion. The hound lashed out with its claws, raking them across the King's armored legs in a desperate bid to bite at his exposed thighs. But before it could cause serious harm, the King brought a heavy, iron-clad fist down upon its head.

The punch, delivered with the force of a battering ram, was a brutal display of overwhelming strength. The strike sent the large shadow hound flying several meters through the air before it crashed to the floor in a dissolving heap of fading smoke.

For a heartbeat, Iris stood frozen, her mind processing the scene before her. Her gaze darted from the rapidly dissolving shadow form to the advancing King. The coppery tang of blood filled her sensitive nostrils, mixing with the cold dampness of the encroaching fog.

In the next moment, Iris was upon him, a blur of dark fur and turquoise light. They traded blows in a furious exchange, their weapons ringing with each impact, every parry and block a testament to their formidable strength.

Her hound, despite its injuries, leaped from the shadows once more with renewed vigor, only to be cruelly seized by the throat and tossed aside like a ragdoll. Its yelp of pain was cut short as it crashed into another pillar.

With a snarl of pure fury, Iris swung her Zweihänder in a powerful downward strike. The blade burned with an intense turquoise light as it arced through the air, gathering power with every fraction of a second. Just before the Gatura King could raise his axe to block the obvious overhead attack, Iris executed a maneuver of incredible complexity.

She pulled the sword's handle toward her with one hand while thrusting forward with the other, altering the weapon's trajectory mid-swing. Releasing her grip on the broadsword just long enough to seize the hilt again as it completed half a rotation, she transformed what would have been an overhead strike into a devastating upward thrust.

The single eye of the Gatura King went wide with dawning horror as it watched the spinning blade, his mind unable to process the sudden shift in trajectory. The marble beneath his feet spiderwebbed with cracks as he launched himself backward in a desperate leap—only to collide hard with the shadow hound, which had materialized directly behind him, tackling him and stopping his retreat cold.

The black blade, burning with energy, cleaved through the King's torso from his thigh all the way up to his shoulder in a spray of dark, viscous blood.

The monstrous beast slammed his axe into the ground with a thunderous impact, using it as a crutch to prevent himself from collapsing. Dark blood ran in rivulets down his patchwork armor, pooling around his boots as he growled something guttural in the harsh language of his kind.