Chapter 574: Father vs Daughter
The white flas burned in the crater, reflecting in Samira’s golden eyes. She didn’t imdiately turn to her father. She let the silence drag on for a few seconds, the sound of the fire’s fury the only communication between them.
Dutch took a step forward, the heat distorting the air around his almost ethereal form. His eyes, twin suns, burned not just with power, but with sothing deeper—anger and a hint of… anticipation.
“Where’s Stella, Samira?” he repeated, his voice reverberating like suppressed thunder.
Samira finally looked at him. There was no tremor in her face. No trace of hesitation.
“You’ll know,” she said, each word sharp as glass, “when you stand in your place… and stop ddling in my life.”
Dutch narrowed his eyes. The fire around him pulsed, as if reacting to the affront. “I’m your father. I don’t have to ask permission for anything.”
“You stopped being my father the day you decided your power ca before anyone you loved,” she retorted, her voice still tight, but each syllable carried the weight of a blade driven into his pride.
Strax, beside him, remained silent, but he could feel the pressure building. The air felt heavier, as if each word exchanged were a spark in a cosmic powder keg.
“You don’t understand.” Dutch took a step forward, the white fire rippling like an ocean about to swallow the shore. “Everything I do is to protect my family.”
Samira lifted her chin, taking a step closer, until only a few feet separated them—and between them, the heat was almost unbearable.
“Protection isn’t imprisonnt, Dutch. And love isn’t control.” Her voice grew colder, more lethal. “You won’t touch Stella. Not while I draw breath.”
The fire behind Dutch roared, as if his own rage screaming. His hands slowly clenched, as if holding back the urge to attack in that instant.
Strax was already in position, ready to intervene. He needed only a glance to know that Dutch’s next move wouldn’t be conversation.
“So…” Dutch took a deep breath, and a cruel smile began to play at the corners of his mouth. “You’ll have to fight to the end to stop .”
Samira twirled the curved blade of crystalline light in her hand, the reflection of the white flas dancing on its surface. Her eyes didn’t waver for a second.
“You taught how to fight, Father.” She raised the blade to her face. “Now you’ll see how far I’ve learned.”
The world seed to shrink around them. Dutch’s white fire rippled like a living ocean, while the golden light in Samira’s eyes shone like two spears ready to pierce any darkness.
She didn’t wait. Samira advanced fearlessly, each step like the blow of an invisible hamr against the ground. Her curved sword sliced through the air, the sharp sound echoing through the crater like tallic thunder.
Dutch t it without flinching. His fingers closed around sothing that had previously remained hidden. With a quick twist, a long, irregularly shaped blade flashed, the blade covered in white flas that didn’t flicker like ordinary fire—they were fixed, dense, as if made of solid matter and light at the sa ti.
The swords t.
The impact was brutal. A sharp crash, followed by an arc of sparks and a wave of energy that pushed rocks and debris away. Samira pressed forward, blow after blow, using speed as her greatest weapon. Her attacks ca from unpredictable angles, seeking gaps in his defense.
Dutch parried each one with economical, almost lazy movents, but without ever losing precision. Her sword moved as if she knew, before she did, where the next attack would co from.
And then, the mont their blades t again, he did sothing different.
The white fla that coated his sword exploded forward.
It was as if his blade spewed the heavenly inferno itself. The white fire touched Samira’s sword—and she cried out in shock as she felt her weapon tremble and… lt.
The tal shimred, lost its color, and in less than a second, it shattered into pieces, consud by an energy that left no chance of resistance.
The sound of tal breaking echoed like a proclamation of defeat.
Samira took a step back, breathing rapidly. The void in her hand weighed more than the weight of the lost sword itself. Dutch smiled, raising the blade, still alive with fire, like an executioner raising an axe.
But his smile was short-lived.
Samira raised her empty hand, slowly clenching it into a fist. The gold in her eyes intensified, as if a solar storm were about to erupt. A tallic glow began to appear on her neck, spreading down her shoulders and quickly down her arms and legs.
Dragon scales erged as if they had always been lurking beneath her skin, each shimring between shades of gold and deep red, reflecting Dutch’s white fire as if mocking him.
“I don’t need a sword to deal with you.”
She lunged forward.
Dutch swung the blade in a horizontal arc, aiming to cut Samira in half. She raised her scale-covered arm to intercept.
The sound that followed was deafening.
The white-fire blade and the dragon scales t and exploded in a wave of energy that caused the ground to sink beneath them. The impact was so violent that a perfect circle of pulverized stone ford around it, as if a god had slamd a hamr against the world.
They were both thrown away.
Samira rolled across the ground, getting up as she moved, wasting no ti assessing her injuries. Dutch stabbed his sword into the ground to slow his own progress, the white fire slicing through the earth like butter.
They stared at each other again.
There were no more words, only the silent promise that the next clash would be worse than the last.
Samira launched herself first, sliding across the ground in a low run, using her newly ford draconic tail to propel her leap. She ca from above, her right arm raised to deliver a blow that could have crushed steel.
Dutch swung his sword to parry, but Samira dodged at the last instant, her blow aid at his flank. He retreated half a step, but not fast enough—Samira’s draconic claws ripped into his shoulder, slicing flesh and piercing part of the flaming shield.
The sll of burning flesh and hot iron filled the air. Dutch roared, not in pain, but in pure fury, and responded with a vertical slash that sent Samira scrambling back. The blow fell to the ground, and a fiery crevice opened, spewing white flas that advanced like living serpents.
Samira ran along the crater’s broken walls, avoiding the flas. She leaped from one piece of ruin to another, descending upon Dutch again with even greater speed.
The duel beca a whirlwind of movent.
The tallic sound of scales against the burning blade sounded like distorted bells, mixed with explosions and the roar of white fire. Each ti they collided, the impact created shockwaves that swept away dust and stone, illuminating the battle with blinding flashes.
Dutch began to attack more brutally, leaving less room for Samira to counterattack. He swung his sword in circular patterns, the white fire forming continuous arcs that could cut through anything it touched. Samira used her tail to block low attacks and her scale-covered arms to parry high ones, but the pressure increased with each passing second.
In an instant, Dutch thrust the blade hard against her, and white fire began to press against her scales like acid burning tal. Samira gritted her teeth, feeling the heat pierce through her defenses and into her flesh. With a scream, she pushed back, twisting her body and using her own strength against him.
The shock knocked Dutch off balance for a mont—long enough for Samira to slip under his guard and strike him squarely in the abdon with a direct blow from her tail.
The impact sent the old warrior flying backward, crashing through two stone columns before stopping.
But even so, he rose. The white fire around him seed more intense now, as if the fight were fueling it. He smiled, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
“You’re learning… too fast.”
Samira spat on the ground, the scales on her left arm still smoking. “Or you’re getting slow.”
Dutch didn’t respond with words. He simply advanced.
The next shock was even more violent.
Samira raised her arm and blocked the diagonal slash, but the impact generated an explosion so powerful that they were both pushed back, creating new craters where they landed.
They rose simultaneously, breathing heavily, and ran at each other again, their silhouettes disappearing and reappearing amidst the dust, in a duel so fast that even Strax, watching from a distance, had to strain his eyes to follow.
Dutch’s white fire and Samira’s draconic scales clashed like two primordial forces, each blow seemingly deciding the fate not only of them but of everything around them.
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