The Dark Syer spared no words. It cked the capacity for any sort of formalities or greeting gesture. It was a mere killing machine. The Dark Syer lunged at Rayne as soon as it was close enough. Its hands were bared, its fingers elongated and sharpened, cws of talons.

  Rayne felt a chill trailing down her spine. She was going to die if she treated the attack lightly. She clicked her tongue and dove to her side as the Dark Syer thrust its cws into the ground—or rather, the roof of the building. The force behind its attack was immense. The destruction spread across the entire roof. It trembled and crumbled at a pace that was far too quick for Rayne to move to safety. She ended up dropping along with the entire roof.

  Fortunately, she was accustomed to such happenings. She found her footing and bance in the fall. Using the piece of debris as footholds, she dropped to the ground without suffering any scratches or wounds. The Dark Syer’s fall was far more ungraceful. It fell through pieces of debris, even getting struck by a rge piece. However, none of it mattered. The Dark Syer was not harmed in the slightest. It dropped straight to the ground on two, causing a crater to form beneath its feet.

  “No sense of self-preservation,” Rayne mused.

  As if to affirm Rayne’s observation, the Dark Syer threw itself at the Zeva before she had finished catching her breath. The Syer’s cws slice through the air, nearly taking a huge chunk of flesh off of Rayne’s face. Before she could gather her bearings, the Syer twirled and smmed its foot into Rayne’s side. She couldn’t dodge that one. If she hadn’t been augmented by her status as a Dragon’s mate, her ribs would have been completely shattered, though she still heard some cracks as she went flying through the walls.

  The buildings must have been decrepit or simply old. Each of the buildings Rayne flew through colpsed to the ground until she hit the st building. It shook but it remained standing, though she wagered it would not stand for much longer.

  “Fuck,” she groaned as she pulled herself to her feet. Any other ordinary person would have been turned to smithereens from getting struck with that amount of force but the only injury she had was a slight bruise beneath her waist. It would heal in a few minutes. Rayne did not dawdle. Her pride would not allow her to be sck. She hopped down from the building and into the huge debris pile that were once buildings. The Syer had buried itself in the debris as a result of the buildings having colpsed.

  Something was amiss. Rayne had that thought when she descended to ground level, amidst the streets of the capital city. She had never been to a human settlement but she had read plenty about it. It was quite an interesting read. It was filled with details in the culture of humans and their interactions. That said, the streets were much too quiet and empty. There were no signs of life anywhere she looked. It was deserted. There should be people running around, screaming and crying. But there was none. Even the buildings appeared to be devoid of life.

  Then, Rayne grimaced. She covered her nose as she stepped off the pile of debris. There was a pungent smell in the air. It was the smell of death. It was then that she noticed the blood on the ground. It was damp but mostly dried. There were no bodies. There were skid marks. It didn’t take much for her to have an inkling of what transpired here. There were plenty of deaths but the bodies had been disposed of. As to who and how, Rayne didn’t care. There were other matters at hand that required her full attention, such as the Dark Syer.

  The debris pile shivered and the Dark Syer dug itself out from the foot of the debris hill. It had not even gotten itself fully out of the debris pile and it had already locked its gaze on Rayne before taking off in full sprint towards her.

  Rayne couldn’t slide in a snide remark before the Dark Syer was already upon her. Its arms had turned into giant bdes as it swung at her. Rayne dodged low and thrust a fist into its abdomen, but it had already flipped over her as if it had anticipated her means of retaliation. Rayne spun around with a backhand but the Syer responded with a raised arm. Rayne stopped midway. She didn’t want to find out how her skin would hold against a sharp edge, yet.

  Seeing Rayne’s momentary hesitation, the Syer lunged at her. Rayne threw herself out of the way to avoid being grasped and crushed by the Syer. The two tumbled to the ground. They scrambled to their feet. Rayne was faster. She lunged at the Syer in return. She dodged the arm-bdes that nearly took her head. She thrust her fist and it connected with the Syer’s jaws. It was frailer than she expected. The jaws flew off the hinges. The Syer staggered but it didn’t look bothered by the absence of its jaws. Rayne wondered why it even had a mouth, not that she was sure that was its mouth.

  The Dark Syer continued its assault. It rained down sshes on Rayne as it was taller than her by a head or two. Rayne could only dodge the bdes. The Dark Syer was truly formidable. Now she understood how Riva lost.

  Rayne found an opening amidst the Syer’s barrage. A drastic decrease in its speed whenever it made a cross-ssh, leaving itself vulnerable but only for a split second. Rayne went for it. Her fist went past the assault and straight into the Syer’s torso. At first, she thought her punch would only leave a dent but it went into the Syer’s torso and through it, destroying the Ether Core in the process. She didn’t punch as hard as she did during her first encounter with a Dark Syer. The Dark Syer was not as tough as they seemed. They only hit harder and faster but the integrity of their bodies remained the same.

  Rayne immediately retracted her arm and leapt away from the Syer. She expected to be stopped but she wasn’t. The Syer had dropped to its knees and its head hung low.

  “As if,” Rayne scoffed and tossed a huge chunk of debris at the unmoving Dark Syer. It immediately rose and sliced the debris chunk in half before it was struck by it. “I know your tricks,” she sneered.

  The Dark Syer’s movement became erratic as it threw itself at Rayne with its arm-bdes filing around like a madman. A final act of desperation before its end, or so it seemed to Rayne. Though its fuel had been cut off and destroyed, it had plenty of reserves in its body alone. Rayne figured it would cease to function on its own but that was not her way.

  Though unpredictable, the Syer had lost all of its precision. Rayne easily dodged the sshes with only her perception and intuition. She caught the right arm of the Syer as it went for her neck. With a twist, she yanked its right arm off. The Syer swung its remaining arm at her. She ducked and swung the arm-bde of the Syer itself at its left arm. As its left arm came off, Rayne snatched it from the air and thrust both of its arm-bdes into its torso, before ripping them out, tearing the Syer’s body apart.

  “Now we’re even,” Rayne smirked.

  It had been on her mind ever since that incident where she and the others were taken off guard by the Dark Syer's abrupt revival. It had been a thorn in her head. She shouldn’t let her guard down but she did. Had it not been for Henry, she reckoned most of the ones in the room would have been sughtered before the mangled thing could be taken down. It was a blow to her pride. She didn’t even get to deal the final blow. She always wanted another opportunity.

  “Now, where to?” she asked no one in particur. Obviously, Henry did not wait for her and she was gd. If he had stayed and watched, it would only mean that he didn’t have any faith in her strength and abilities. As she looked around for a sign or a direction, she noticed a Dark Syer approaching her from the other end of the street.

  The Dark Syer was not alone. There were others. Not syers, but humans. Six of them. Curiously, the humans had the same markings on them, their bodies covered in scrawlings of darkness. Even from afar, Rayne could tell how red their eyes were. Unlike the rogue soldiers she fought on the ramparts, these ones looked devoid of any human emotions.

  Instead of running, Rayne approached them in kind. She picked up the arm-bdes of the Dark Syer she had just sin and fashioned them into a pair of makeshift swords. She would need an edge if she was to take on a Dark Syer and a few humans. In her case, she had two edges.

  The humans charged first. The Dark Syer remained behind, watching. The humans rushed at Rayne with their weapons raised, screaming. Their expressions were hollow but there was zeal in their cries. It was an eerie sight to see them screaming from their heart but their faces showed none of the corresponding emotions. Eerie or not, such trivial matters had never bothered Rayne. She lunged at the humans and flourished her swordsmanship. To her surprise, the corrupted soldiers dodged her attacks. They were not completely mindless after all.

  Still, nothing changed for Rayne. Nothing fazes her. She changed her tactics. She threw one of the bdes into the air and the soldiers’ gazes followed. In that brief moment, she swung the other bde around. Three of the soldiers were fortunate enough to be standing far away enough but the other three were dead. Their heads flew off their necks. Before the heads could touch the ground, Rayne pounced on the remaining three. The soldiers responded to her assault but they were no match for her ferocity. She had not wielded such a weapon before but she was already wielding it as if it were a genuine part of her body.

  The fight didn’t even st ten seconds. It was no fight. It was a sughter. The fight came after the pawn. Immediately after finishing off the soldiers, Rayne turned to face the Dark Syer, who had already approached her. It wasn’t sneaking. It was simply striding up to her.

  “Just what are you?” Rayne mused. “No fear but there’s caution.”

  The Dark Syer did not answer. It brandished its cws and sprang at Rayne.

  She responded with a cross guard, which turned into a twirling ssh as a riposte.

  The Syer caught the riposte and returned in kind.

  Rayne parried the thrust but another one came before she could retaliate. The Syer knew her ruses and feints. It learned. Still, Rayne shrugged and received the Syer’s blows without a hint of distress. If the Syer could learn, so could she, and she had learned quite a bit of their weaknesses. Though efficient and deadly, there was a rhythm to their movements. There had been slight deviations but there was still enough consistency for her to exploit, and exploit it she did.

  The Syer swung at her neck after it parried her previous blow that knocked the bdes out of her hands. Her grip had softened. Her movements had been getting slower. Her bance was off. Her posture was breaking apart. She was getting tired… or so the Syer presumed. When it went for the kill, Rayne revealed her ruse. She lunged at the cws coming for her neck instead of dodging. The cws pressed into her skin but not her flesh. She winced but a grin followed. She grasped the Syer’s arm firmly with both of her arms before it could pull away. With a twist and a flip, she tore the Syer’s arm off.

  Without rest, Rayne spun and thrust the arm into the Syer itself. It tried to stop the thrust but its bance was off due to its missing arm. It couldn’t utilise its strength properly. Rayne won in this bout of strength and ultimately, the fight. As a precaution and assurance, Rayne proceeded to tear the Syer into small pieces to make sure it wouldn’t sprang back to life all of a sudden.