Ragnarök, Eternal Tragedy.
Chapter 106: Fear.

Chapter 106: Fear.

The woods were quiet—too quiet, given the chaos still echoing from the checkpoint in the distance. Every now and then, a sharp blast or muffled roar reached through the canopy like thunder arguing with itself. But under the branches, beneath the twisted silhouettes of burned bark and wind-gnarled roots, it was still.

Amari moved carefully. His boots barely disturbed the undergrowth. The mask had come off somewhere between the fight and the tree line. Now his eyes were bare. Alert. Haunted.

He spotted them halfway up a low-sitting fig tree draped in moss.

Milo’s clone crouched on a thick branch, form flickering faintly in the chest where the binding glyph pulsed. The girl—still tied at the wrists and ankles—was curled near the trunk, pressed into the shadow of leaves. Her eyes were wide, but not crying. She was watching him approach like prey that had learned stillness.

Amari didn’t say anything at first. Just climbed up the tree, slow and silent, until he reached their branch.

The clone turned, head tilted like it was waiting for orders.

"I’ve got it from here," Amari said. No emotion. Just the words.

The clone didn’t argue. Didn’t blink. It shimmered once—like a candle guttering in the wind—and vanished in a low breath of air and light. The glyph snapped shut like a thread cut clean.

Amari sat down on the branch beside her.

The hall pulsed with heat and static as Rilah’s breath grew shallow. Her morphdrive had stretched thin—limbs shimmering between weaponry and muscle, every strike coming back slower, every counter a little less sharp.

She’d had enough.

Her eyes narrowed as her fingers clamped into claws—and then snapped wide. Light surged across her veins, red-hot, and her body convulsed once as if jolted by a raw circuit.

The floor beneath her rippled like metal under flame.

Then it hit.

Her body liquefied and reformed in a breath—sleeker, sharper, inhuman. Metallic sheen coated her skin from jawline to heel, and trails of red light spun like veins behind her as her back split open into blade-like constructs, hovering like wings. Her spine extended, tipped with a glowing spear tail.

Unco Awakening: Morphdrive → Apex Form

A massive shift.

She was no longer wearing her Unco.

She was the Unco.

Milo’s smile faded—not shattered, just shifted. His posture stiffened, that stage-performer looseness tightening into a duelist’s coil. The clones shimmered out. The tricks stopped.

Just him now.

Rilah caught the expression.

"What’s wrong?" she said, voice colder, layered. "No punchline?"

Milo didn’t respond. He just rolled his sleeves once and tapped two fingers to a glyph along his wrist. It flared silver.

And then they moved.

She surged forward—an alloy blur—limbs turning mid-swing into twin sickles. Milo ducked, dragged a palm across the ground, and flipped backward as a blinding glyph detonated at her feet. But she adapted, skidding through the blast with her wings shielding her core.

He flung a clone left.

She ignored it.

Went through it.

Straight for him.

He raised his hands, and five glyphs snapped open mid-air—hexagonal shields hovering in formation. Her blades broke through the first three before Milo kicked off the ground and spiraled to her flank.

His dagger struck clean into her side.

But it didn’t pierce.

The armor flexed—reformed around the blade—and she elbowed him with enough force to crater a support beam. Milo hit the pillar, rolled, and came up coughing.

Still on his feet.

Still thinking.

She launched again—her leg turning into a sweeping crescent blade.

Milo slid underneath, glyphs sparking at his fingertips as two new clones appeared behind her. They struck in perfect sync—one went low, the other high, aiming for joint folds.

But her wings twisted backward—impaled both through their chests before they could land clean. The clones burst into smoke.

Milo skidded behind her and slammed a glyph against the ground. A gravity fold collapsed the space behind her, pulling her movement off-center.

He rushed in.

Series of sharp strikes—two, three, four.

They landed.

But her alloy skin absorbed the impact like memory foam turned to steel. A second later, she copied the combo—same motion, mirrored. This time with claws.

He blocked most.

Not all.

A cut opened over his collarbone. He grimaced.

She grinned.

He flicked his blood onto a trap glyph.

"You’re improvising now," she said, voice lower. "No more rehearsed lines."

"Not true," Milo muttered. "I’ve just reached the climax."

The trap detonated, and the blast blew them both into the air. He caught himself on a collapsing beam, panting. She landed with a tremor, crouched low, tail flicking sparks across the scorched tile.

Still equal.

The ruined hall had become a crucible—warped beams, shattered tile, rune-burnt stone. Flamelight flickered off Rilah’s Apex Form: her entire body now sleek liquid-alloy, lined with living armor and backlit by red energy veins. Floating shards spun around her—weapon limbs in waiting.

Across from her stood Milo. No more grins. No showmanship. Just low breath and sharp eyes. He twirled his glyph-forged daggers once—silent, crisp—before sinking into a stance that wasn’t about flash anymore.

It was intent.

Rilah launched—wings splitting into twin scythes that curved in opposite arcs. Milo darted forward instead of back, sliding under the first and raising a dagger coated in mirror glyphs. The blade caught one wing mid-swing—

CLANG—CLASH.

Not to block. To redirect.

She staggered half a step.

Milo backflipped, hurling a dagger mid-air. The blade split into three—one real, two illusions, each tagged with a deafen glyph. Rilah’s sensors flickered as sound dropped from her world for a second.

That was the moment he struck.

Milo’s clone tackled her from behind while the real Milo dove low, slicing for her ankle joint with a rune-activated slash. Sparks flew—but the blade didn’t cut through. Rilah’s morphdrive reformed the metal, wrapped around the impact, and launched a retaliatory kick that barely missed his ribs.

She spun, her torso rotating independently of her legs, arms shifting into dual whips tipped in molten steel.

Milo raised his daggers—crossed them—activated a glyph—

BOOM.

A shockburst flared between them, throwing both back. Rilah landed in a three-point stance, plasma wings flared wide. Milo flipped midair and used a gravity rune on a ceiling beam to land upside-down, eyes still locked.

Rilah blurred forward—her spine detaching and forming a trailing spear that lashed like a scorpion tail. Milo ducked beneath, stabbed upward mid-slide. The blade grazed her midsection—but the armor flowed inward to trap the blade.

Her mistake.

A hidden glyph activated inside the blade’s handle—a localized EMP pulse.

Her armor glitched.

Milo yanked the dagger free and rolled as three clones emerged in a tight triangle formation. They struck as one—feet, fists, and glowing blades moving in exact sync with Milo’s real movements. Rilah blocked one, countered another, impaled a third—but the real Milo slid under her, drove his dagger up—

And she locked it with her forearm folding around the blade like liquid steel snapping shut.

"You can’t outdance the floor," she whispered.

And she detonated a proximity burst from her chestplate—blasting Milo and all clones back.

He grunted—for the first time in the fight.

They circled now.

Breathing ragged. Scorch marks on tile. Runes dimmed but still flaring. Alloy cracked at her hip. Blood at his lip. The space between them bristled.

She hissed: "You’re not as clever as you think."

He replied, voice low: "And you’re not as in control as you pretend."

They moved.

A dozen strikes in seconds. Blades. Whips. Glyphs. Clones bursting and reforming. Wall-flips and counter-morphs. Light fractured through the dust.