The ground was broken stone and silence. Dust floated, heavy with forgotten power.
We saw battle of Selnar.
She stepped forward. She had unique magic powers. Her bones regenerated fast and easily. She used her bones as weapons. She cast spells on the part where she wanted to break the bones, and without pain or cuts, bones ca outside. Outside bones also connected with her. She could change their shape according to her will, like in knife, blade, sword, etc. She could control it too by her magic. Mana was the key nutrition to her. In her bones, mana flowed, and her bones were made up of mana instead of calcium. When she cracked bone, her body started to absorb surrounding mana and made a new bone.
Bones hovered around her shoulders like moons, each one etched with glowing runes. Her cloak swayed with weightless grace, stitched from funeral ash and sealed mory. Her eyes, pale and unreadable, fixed on her opponent.
Across the ridge stood the woman of stories.
She shimred with half-truths and ancient song. Her dress was woven from golden script. Her feet never touched the ground. A scroll unrolled from her wrist to the horizon, forming weapons with every flick of her hand.
"My na is Eiral," she said, voice like a fable. "And I was the last tale told in the court of Vestiges."
Selnar did not reply.
She lifted her right hand.
The bone nearest her palm cracked. Its fragnts spun in the air, forming a bladed sickle. In her right palm, new bone ford within a microsecond. She had unbelievable regeneration power.
Bladed sickle ignited with black fla.
Eiral stepped forward. Her power was not abstract. It's a structured magic system where stories were converted into tangible effects, like weapons, creatures, or barriers. She accesses these through her scroll, which stores ancient tales, parables, and fables like a magical archive. Each story she invokes beca a spell with a defined structure and consequence. Every line was a prewritten script that she executes with exact control because every tale stored in her mory that she read in her past days or years.
She was limited by mory, clarity, and energy. She could create stories too, but she had one weakness. If her ink or scrolls were lost or over, then she was not able to survive. That ink was made up of her mories. So for ink, she must read stories every few months.
From the scroll around her arm, a spear made of sunlight stretched outward. It sang as it ford, a harmony from the beginning of ti.
She lunged.
Selnar t her halfway.
The sickle t the spear. No sound rang, only silence pulsed as the impact shattered the earth under their feet.
Eiral spun, scroll wrapping around her like armor. From it sprang chains of golden ink. They shot forward like serpents.
Selnar flicked her fingers.
A dozen bones snapped in unison, forming a wall of vertebrae.
The chains struck.
Exploded.
Selnar surged through the smoke, cloak trailing. Another bone clicked into her left palm, forming a jagged dagger. She moved fast, too fast for a woman in funeral robes.
Eiral twisted back, drawing a shield from her scroll.
It was shaped like a lion's head, roaring with forgotten prophecy.
Selnar's dagger struck it.
Cracks.
The shield splintered. Selnar slid beneath the broken shards and slashed upward. Eiral vanished into mist, reappearing above with twin blades now dancing from her wrists.
She dropped like a cot.
Selnar raised both arms.
Bones burst from the ground, spears of rib and fang, arcing upward to et Eiral's fall.
They collided midair.
Sparks of fla and dust rained down.
Eiral landed hard, one leg bleeding gold. Her scroll recoiled as if wounded.
Selnar landed beside her, bones orbiting faster now. Her voice ca quiet, slow.
"You create from tales."
A bone turned to a hamr in her hand.
"But I rember how they end."
She hurled it.
Eiral blocked with her scroll, but the hamr passed through it, ignoring the text, the glow, the myth. It struck her chest and sent her flying.
Selnar walked.
The ground behind her cracked with each step.
Eiral coughed. The scroll reford, now surrounding her like wings. Dozens of figures stepped out from its folds, heroes of fire, dragons of light, saints made of song.
Phantoms.
Legends.
They charged.
Selnar raised her hand. Her eyes glowed white. Now this ti she understood how Eiral's powers worked and what her weakness may be. She was not fully sure, but she could try it. She decided to do gamble. So she activated her powers.
The bones circling her flared with black fla and twisted downward. They slamd into the earth and ford a circle.
From the circle rose skeletons, none of warriors.
These were forgotten things.
A mother who died unnad. A child lost to famine. A thief executed and erased. Their shapes were fragile. But they moved with hate.
And they tore through legends. They all together attacked towards the Eiral.
Screams of paper and light filled the battlefield. Eiral watched that skeletons stepped towards her fast. Suddenly she stunned. They teleported from ground to near her by Selnar's magic. Before she understood, they reached her and then started to destroy her. She scread, shouted in pain as her stories unraveled under the touch of those who had no nas.
Selnar's cloak snapped.
She was in front of Eiral before the scroll could protect her again.
A final bone floated in her hand.
A spike. She stepped. Near the Eiral. So close.
The last scroll that remained unhard. Located in Eiral's forehead. Then she destroyed that last scroll by using that spike.
It pinned the stories shut.
The golden ink dimd.
Eiral gasped as the light left her mouth. Her form flickered.
Selnar leaned close.
"You never wrote the truth."
She turned away.
Behind her, Eiral's form scattered like torn parchnt, carried off by a wind that slled of grave dust.
The battlefield was quiet again.
Selnar stood among bones and silence.
The battlefield still echoed with the silence left by Eiral's defeat.
Selnar stood at the center. Bones floated in calm orbit around her, like moons around a dead planet. The one bone was small, delicate, with golden etchings, hovered near her shoulder. Eiral's story, reduced to a mory. Archived. Filed.
Her fingers twitched.
Another pulse of death mana rippled outward. The dust responded. Bones trembled.
But the air shifted.
A sound cut through the stillness, a low chi, deep and hollow. Not tallic. Wet.
Selnar turned.
From the edge of the cracked ridge, where the skies still burned with the dying echoes of inverted judgnt, a figure erged.
A skeleton, robed in black and crimson, walked through the ash like a pilgrim through snow.
Each step was silent.
His skull was polished and smooth, carved with golden runes that pulsed like a fading heartbeat. Around his neck hung a chain of preserved white and black stones, each one nailed to a copper coin. In his right hand, he held a censer made from ancient unknown elent. It swung slowly, releasing black incense that hissed as it touched the air.
The ground beneath him rotted.
Selnar's bones stilled.
The dead whispered a na through the dust.
Ezrakel. Priest of the End.
Death spoke his na with reverence.
★★★
Ezrakel stopped across from her. He did not speak. His jaw moved only to breathe vapor.
But the censer swung once.
The smoke poured toward Selnar, curling unnaturally, ignoring wind or space. It moved with purpose. With hunger.
Selnar raised her hand.
The bones around her glowed. A dozen skulls shattered, forming a do of bone and soulfire.
The smoke touched it.
Screeched.
But instead of dispersing, the smoke ford hands, clawing through the barrier, fingers made from regret. They tore at the shield like mourners at a coffin.
Selnar's eyes narrowed.
She clenched her fist.
Bones shot forward, spears of spine and rib. They flew like arrows, precise and silent.
Ezrakel didn't dodge.
He opened his ribcage.
Literally.
The ribs cracked open like a gate, and the bones vanished inside. The hole in his chest consud them, absorbed them, then sealed.
He moved forward.
The censer swung again.
This ti, bells rang from nowhere. The ground darkened. The sky dimd.
Selnar summoned a blade from a broken femur and slashed through the air. Her cloak billowed, and a storm of bone fragnts launched in all directions.
Ezrakel raised his left hand.
From the censer, wailing faces erged. They scread in silence, blocking her storm. Each face belonged to a dead priest, a martyr, a sinner. Their eyes glowed with dying faith.
They swallowed the attack.
Ezrakel finally spoke.
"Nice silly girl. You have so interesting powers. You defeat my loyal servant. It's not easy to defeat her. That ans you have so potential. I appreciate it. I know you archive the dead. But I bury them. I gave them peace. And I will give peace you too."
Selnar stepped forward.
"So finally you decide to co. In starting, I think you will my opponent. But like others, you also decided to hide behind female and observed our weakness and powers. And also you said you gave them peace. I gave them life after death through my bones. And I will give you too. It will honour to you. After that, you don't need to hide behind woman. I appreciate her instead of you. She was brave. But she chose wrong side. That's why she was died."
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