A blur—and both figures vanished, tearing into the treeline with such ferocity that only Weeping Phantom's eyes could follow.
"Ssssso fassst!" Yillhowyen hissed gleefully, forked tongue flicking out.
He barely slipped beneath the arc of Winter's axe as it cleaved through the air. Sparks spat off bark where it struck a tree trunk. Yillhowyen lunged low, claws whipping out toward Winter's ribs in a flash of bone and steel. But Winter was faster. He twisted, hooking the shaft of his axe beneath the incoming strike and wrenched it outward.
The demon's arm was violently thrown to the side. Yillhowyen grunted, off-balance, and Winter didn't hesitate—he pivoted hard and brought the axe screaming back around in a horizontal sweep aimed to bisect him.
But the demon folded unnaturally—his torso slipping around the blow like water slipping through cupped hands. His body bent at impossible angles, serpentine, almost boneless.
"As much assss I would love to brawl it out…" Yillhowyen hissed, retreating in a blur and kicking off a low branch to put distance between them. "I don't think that will end well for me."
He stopped, just at the edge of the shadows, closing one eye—the crimson one—while the pale gold eye widened and gleamed.
"Yessss. Thissss issss far better."
Winter exhaled, steadying the axe over his shoulder. "That will be your technique, I'm assuming?"
Yillhowyen's grin widened. He nodded once—then lunged.
Winter's eyes narrowed. He dropped his stance, bracing both hands on the haft of his axe as he brought it around in a powerful downward diagonal cleave.
It should have struck.
But it didn't.
Yillhowyen twisted mid-lunge, arching beneath the blow with impossible precision. Before Winter could recover, claws flashed. He moved to counter—but Yillhowyen anticipated it. One gauntleted claw slammed into the haft of the axe, stopping it cold. The other drove straight into Winter's abdomen with a sickening crunch of pierced leather and flesh.
"Not ssssso confident now, are you?" Yillhowyen laughed, hot breath curling past his jagged teeth.
He twisted the embedded claw before yanking free, already leaping back—just as Winter's returning swing hissed past the spot where his head had been, close enough to shear bark from the tree behind him.
Winter exhaled slowly and drew the axe back, the blade stained red. The wound in his abdomen still bled—but he stood upright, expression unreadable, as though the injury barely registered.
"What are you doing?" he asked, voice low. "Some kind of future-sight ability?"
Yillhowyen cackled in response, dragging one claw across the other to fling off the blood. "Who'ssss to ssssay?" he hissed. "Itssss not like it matterssss. You'll be dead ssssoon anyway."
Then he surged forward again—slithering low in a rapid, zigzagging dash across the jungle floor. His body weaved like a serpent threading through the roots, claws drawn back, ready to strike.
Winter didn't flinch.
He simply raised one hand.
Yillhowyen's eyes widened—his body jerked to a stop. A cold flicker of recognition crossed his face, and he instantly sprang backward.
Winter watched him without moving. "So it is a future-sight technique," he muttered.
Yillhowyen snarled, tongue flicking out aggressively. "You figured it out. Sssso what!?"
He vanished again, slithering around the floor, leaping between trees, his movements wild and erratic—trying to blur his trajectory through the dense jungle.
Winter rolled his eyes.
"The same trick twice in one day…" he muttered, shifting his stance. "I guess it would be the most effective here."
Then he hurled his axe—not at Yillhowyen, but high, toward the portal in the distance.
His hand clenched into a fist.
He vanished.
CRACK—
"Guh—!" Yillhowyen choked, claws flailing as Winter appeared mid-air beside him and caught him by the throat.
"You can see the future," Winter said calmly, "but if you're not fast enough to react to it…"
He reared back with his other fist.
"…it doesn't matter."
BOOM.
The impact hit like a divine hammer. Yillhowyen was slammed into the jungle floor, the shockwave tearing through the earth like a thunderclap. Trees cracked and toppled, birds scattered, and a crater erupted beneath them—wide and deep.
Winter dropped down from the air and walked toward the rim of the impact zone, brushing leaves off his shoulder.
"You deflected enough to survive," he said as he peered into the wreckage. "Managed to slither at the last second. Impressive."
Yillhowyen slowly rose from the debris, pushing aside split trunks and shattered stone, his gaze venomous. He didn't speak at first. Instead, he brought his hands together—claws crackling with dark energy as his horns began to glow.
Then he hissed:
"Hellscape: Realm of the Serpent King!"
The air around them rippled, then twisted—the jungle folding in on itself, warping and tearing apart like paper burning from the edges inward. Gravity flipped, the sky turned black, and chains burst from the void.
Winter stood still as the world reassembled.
They now stood on a massive circular platform suspended high in the void, held aloft by ancient statues—colossal stone sharaykthuns, their faces worn and cracked. Across the platform, Yillhowyen stood grinning madly, his aura surging.
Above them, something stirred.
Winter looked up.
An enormous serpent coiled in the dark—its body thicker than towers, its scales etched with infernal runes that shimmered faintly. It opened its mouth, revealing rows of curved fangs and a yawning void inside.
"That'ssss the Ssserpent King!" Yillhowyen shouted, voice echoing unnaturally through the realm. "He isss your doom!"
The beast lunged, mouth unhinging, fangs descending like blades as it came to devour Winter whole.
But Winter didn't move.
He closed his eyes.
And as the creature bore down on him, he whispered:
"Soul Chamber: Fallen Ones."