My Shard Bearer System - Elias's Legacy-Chapter 188: Calling Pains

She roared. Plasma flared off her spine—but it didn’t shoot straight. The mirrored plates on the harness caught the energy mid-formation, redirecting the heat loops inward.

Her Ikona’s radiant field stuttered like a jammed conduit.

The bands of light that had been orbiting her seconds ago collapsed inward, some cracking mid-air, others fragmenting against the containment angles.

Refraction Control shattered next.

No fade. No glitch. Just gone.

Her duplicated silhouettes snapped back into one solid form—no blur, no distortion. The system couldn’t even render the illusion anymore. Her body was too unstable.

"What—" she managed, voice already rising.

Then the field pulsed.

The induction mesh activated fully—copper tracers firing static feedback through the radiant pathways layered under her skin. Her Ikona’s glow stammered. Plasma gathered in her palms, but couldn’t hold shape. The mirror-strips bent it off-course again, forcing the light into opposing arcs. Her own output buckled under resistance.

She screamed and swung an elbow back toward Elias—more reflex than strategy.

He ducked, breath shallow, body screaming from effort. Her arm grazed his shoulder but didn’t land clean. He caught himself low to the ground, one knee half-buried in the hot sand. His chest heaved once.

Above his ear, Dot’s glow steadied.

Then came the whisper: "Now."

Elias stood. His knees protested. His vision flickered. But he kept the motion tight, arm steady.

He conjured a second blade—narrower than the last. Its edge curved slightly, built for redirection. The metal shimmered, mirror-coated along both sides. He stepped forward, slow and measured.

Kikaru thrashed against the harness. Plasma gathered at her fingertips, but it scattered too fast. Her Ikona glowed dimmer than it should have. The current was unstable—skipping pulses, leaking power.

He lowered the blade until its edge touched the space just under her chin.

She froze.

Both of them were panting. The air between them burned—not from hatred, but heat that couldn’t go anywhere. Sand hissed beneath them, molten in places. The veins in the arena floor pulsed low, barely audible.

"I won’t ask again," Dot said, quietly.

But Elias didn’t move. The blade didn’t press forward. It just hovered—edge gleaming, one twitch away from ending it.

Neither of them had anything left to give.

And still, Kikaru’s eyes didn’t blink. Her breath stayed steady. Her hands shook, not from fear, but from the muscle memory of someone still trying to kill the man above her.

Elias forced himself upright.

His knees gave a hard protest with every degree of lift, the tendons pulling against dried blood and scorched fabric. His chest barely expanded with breath now—each inhale shallow, constricted. His vision flickered as he rose, black edging into the corners of his eyes like the lights in the arena had begun to shut off one by one. But his arms still moved. Mechanical. Trained.

He reached out, hand open, and Dot responded without needing a word.

The blade that formed wasn’t the same as before.

It came together slowly—thinner, lighter, the handle already worn at the grip. Its edge curved just slightly, a taper meant to bend rather than break. No jagged lines. No brutal finish. The mirrored coating along both sides shimmered even before it caught the light—cut not for combat, but redirection. This wasn’t made to kill.

It was made to hold her still.

He stepped forward.

Kikaru hadn’t stopped struggling. Her knees were still dug into the sand, calves pressed flat against the ground, arms locked and shaking from the resistance. The harness had done its job—anchored her body, dispersed her output—but she was still trying to stand.

Plasma danced across her fingers again, weak, twitching at the knuckles like it was trying to build itself into something familiar. But the moment it reached her palm, the current broke. The mirror rig across her chest pulsed.

Feedback burst through the copper filaments, and the energy stuttered—flickered into shape, then collapsed with a snap of static. Her Ikona glowed under her shoulder blades, but it was dimmer now, unsteady. It pulsed too fast, like a heartbeat running from something it couldn’t outrun.

The radiant rings that once spun around her had vanished.

She was burning herself alive just trying to rebuild them.

Elias reached her and knelt. freeweɓnovel~cѳm

His knees hit the ground with a slow, deliberate weight, grinding into scorched grit. Every movement now cost something. He adjusted the blade in his hand—mirrored edge tilted downward, the tip angled just enough to find the space beneath her chin without touching.

Her body trembled under the harness. Not violently. Not from pain. From failure. From burn-out. Her limbs still flexed at the joints like she meant to rise again, but nothing answered. The plasma that had once wrapped her arms in gold now sputtered and hissed at her fingertips like dying embers.

She didn’t look at him. Not at first. Her head drooped slightly, chin tilted just far enough that the blade rested against her throat without pressure. Elias stayed where he was, one hand on the ground to brace himself, the other holding that mirrored line of steel with fingers raw from holding it too long.

Heat radiated between them—trapped, heavy. Her skin shimmered with residual glow. His shirt stuck to his chest, blackened from plasma residue. A slow drip of blood ran down his temple and caught at his jaw.

Kikaru lifted her head.

Her eyes met his.

No tricks. No feints. Just resignation.

The veins in the arena flickered again—no pulse this time. Just a soft, uncertain glow. As if the system itself was waiting for the last input.

Her lips parted, voice rasped raw. "If you’re going to do it..." she breathed. "Make it quick."

She didn’t blink.

Her hands were limp at her sides now, barely twitching. The radiant harness was still locked across her body, but she didn’t struggle anymore. Even the light behind her eyes was starting to fade—like her Ikona was still there, still alive, but no longer responding to her. Or maybe just refusing.

Blood trailed from a cut beneath her brow, carving a thin red line down her cheek. It dripped once from her jaw and vanished into the ash below.

The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel