Anthesis of Sadness

It was a shock of magnitude. A clash like the world can only contain one of at a time. An intimate chaos, shattered beneath the gaze of a blind sky. A battle with no possible witness — for no one could have understood what they were seeing. There weren’t two enemies here. There was a father. A daughter. A sacred plague. A forgotten miracle. A confrontation between the being who had imposed himself upon the world as a living sin, a myth of blood and temptation, and the one who, despite her age, despite the fear, despite history, had found her place among the vampires — not through cunning, nor pity, but through merit, through sheer will. Fire and blood. Claws and hammer. And then, they unleashed.

Five seconds.

Just five seconds.

But in that tiny interstice, the world collapsed, reconfigured by the violence of a tragic love. In five seconds, dozens and dozens of blows were exchanged, so fast, so hard, that no mortal eye could have followed them. Not a single parry. Not a block. A chain of impacts, of flashes, of cries muffled in muscles, in weapons, in bones.

Lysara’s hammer struck relentlessly, in heavy arcs, precise, destructive. It sliced through the air like a fallen star, saturated with gravity, memory, contained rage. Each impact bore the weight of history. Each strike, the anger of a daughter who wanted to understand, but had to hit.

Lukaris responded, not with the claws of a monster, but with a beastly elegance, a style mixing instinct with calculation — each counterattack was fluid, sinuous, almost sensual in its cruelty. He slipped under the blows, slashed, withdrew, returned, pivoted, leapt. His arms were fangs. His legs, blades. He struck at the flank, the chin, the throat, chained three blows, stepped back a breath, then returned like a slap impossible to dodge.

The ground trembled beneath them. At each step, each pivot, the stone cracked, burst, sending up bursts of burning dust. The entire arena seemed to beat to their rhythm, panting, smothered by this miniature storm whose intensity erased everything else.

Bones cracked. Not once. But several times. Ribs, phalanges, clavicles. Lukaris’s body, for the first time, fractured — not because of magic, nor fire, but under the weight of the hammer. Under the impact of this weapon he should have shattered with a glance, but which, wielded by Lysara, became something else. A sentence. A hand extended, disguised as a projectile.

He was breaking.

Literally.