Kai tore through the sky, wind and fla coiling around his ankles as he pushed himself faster. The air scread around him, torn apart by speed and mana. Behind him, Selenia chased without slowing, rage carved clearly across her face.
Dark projectiles chased him like hunting beasts. Spears of shadow, warped claws, twisting arcs of dead mana—each one ant to tear him apart. Kai zigzagged through the air, changing direction in sharp, sudden turns. Ice walls blood in her path. Wind barriers snapped into place. He used everything he could to slow her down, even for a heartbeat.
It didn’t matter.
Selenia crashed through each obstacle without hesitation. Ice shattered. Wind barriers burst apart. Even when her skin split and black blood spilled into the air, she did not slow. It was as if pain barely registered.
Smashing her into the Archine Tower had made her show her true strength.
Even now, as she chased him, dead mana crawled over her body like living veins. Her form shifted with every second. Her wings stretched wider and taller, the edges jagged and torn. Her horns grew longer, curving back from her skull. Her eyes burned with a mix of red and black, glowing with hatred and chaos.
She looked like a devil pulled straight from hell.
Kai ducked hard as a shadow spear scread past where his head had been a second earlier. Heat and darkness brushed his shoulder, and he felt the sting even through his armor.
Behind him, her voice crackled through the air, layered and distorted.
“Why are you running like a coward?” she snarled. “If you can hurt , then face . Face the great queen!”
Kai twisted in the air and finally turned to et her.
Mana surged into his wand as he stopped retreating. A ball of molten lava ford at its tip, small at first, then growing larger and heavier with every pulse of mana he poured into it. The air around it warped, heat rippling outward in waves.
“I don’t know what queen you think you are. But at this point, I want every queen dead either way.”
His eyes hardened.
“All of you are a curse on this world.”
He hurled the lava bomb forward.
Selenia reacted instantly, her hand snapping up as she threw a gravity orb to et it. The two forces collided—
And the lava bomb detonated.
It burst apart in the sky, not as a single explosion but as a storm. Streams of molten magma rained down in every direction, burning through the air like falling suns.
A wall of darkness snapped into place in front of Selenia, catching most of the molten rain. But not all of it.
Several splashes slipped past the barrier and struck her skin.
The magma sizzled and clung, burning bright against her body.
Selenia snarled, her wings beating violently as she shook off the molten streams.
Dead mana crawled over Selenia’s wounds, sealing them shut like previous tis. The scorched flesh darkened, smoothed over, and hardened again.
“Your tricks aren’t going to do much, human,” she said, her voice low and mocking.
Kai raised his hand again, mana flowing steadily.
“We’ll see about that.”
More lava balls ford in the sky above her. One after another, they dropped, glowing bright and heavy, falling like pieces of a broken sun. The spell structure was already complete in his mind, stable and efficient, and his mana reserves were still far from empty. He could keep this up for a long ti if he needed to.
But Selenia was faster than before.
She beat her wings once and glided between the falling lava, slipping through narrow gaps with frightening precision. This ti, she didn’t shatter them. She avoided them entirely, letting the molten spheres crash into the city below.
Kai clenched his jaw, his eyes flicking downward for just a mont. He could only hope the commoners had already been evacuated. There was no room to hesitate now.
Ranged attacks weren’t working.
Kai made his decision instantly. He pushed his wand back into its holster and let fire gather in his right hand. The flas stretched and sharpened, forming into a long spear of burning light. Heat rolled off it in waves as he kicked forward, wind exploding beneath his feet.
He closed the distance in a blink.
Selenia reacted, snapping her hands forward. Claw-shaped projectiles tore through the air toward him.
Kai swung his spear in wide arcs, and each strike detonated the projectiles midair. Explosions blood around him, but he didn’t slow.
He reached her and slashed.
Selenia caught the spear with her claws. Fire roared as fla t dead mana, the impact shaking the air around them. They hung there for a brief mont, locked together in the sky.
Kai pushed forward.
Selenia snarled and tried to pull back, beating her wings to gain distance. She clearly didn’t like fighting this close. But Kai didn’t let her escape. He followed every movent, stepping in again and again, forcing her back.
Her claws blackened and cracked where the flas licked them.
She hissed, eyes flashing with irritation, and a shadow spear ford beside her in an instant. She flicked it forward, aiming straight for Kai’s face.
The spear struck his wind armor and shattered, dispersing into smoke and sparks.
“You aren’t going to be able to cut ,” Selenia said coldly.
Kai tightened his grip on the flaming spear, eyes locked onto hers.
“I’m not trying to.”
At once, the wand on Kai’s back began to glow.
Selenia noticed it a heartbeat too late.
Mana surged, and a spell structure snapped into place. Thick fog burst into existence around them, rolling outward in heavy waves. In seconds, it swallowed the sky, spreading far and wide until the world beyond it vanished.
Selenia beat her wings and tried to flee.
The fog followed.
It wasn’t drifting. It wasn’t passive. Every ti she changed direction, the wind twisted and stretched the fog with her, sealing the path she tried to escape through. Up, down, left, right—it didn’t matter. The mist bent and folded, closing in on her from all sides.
It was a cage and Kai imdiately put the second part of his plan into action.
He reached back and pulled the wand into his hand. The air around it trembled as a spell he had been holding back finally unfolded.
Flas answered his call, but not the kind born in this world.
White fire poured out, blinding and intense, spilling from thin air itself. It carried no smoke, no flicker of orange or red. This fire burned hungrily.
Fire from the elental realm.
Kai shaped it without pause. The torrent split and twisted, forming massive chains of white fla that stretched across the fog, snapping forward.
Selenia tried to run again.
One chain caught her ankle.
She scread and struck back, forming a black spear and slamming it into the chain. Dead mana surged—but the mont it touched the white fire, it was eaten away. The spear dissolved, stripped apart in seconds.
Her eyes widened, terror cutting through her rage.
She lashed out wildly, throwing attack after attack into the fog, but the chains kept coming. They wrapped around her limbs, her wings, her torso. Wherever they touched, her skin burned. Dead mana peeled away from her flesh, torn out and erased.
Her scream tore through the fog, sharp and broken.
Kai stepped forward through the mist, his face lit by white fire. The chains held her in place, trembling as she fought them, but she couldn’t break free.
Flas gathered in his hand, condensing into a long, solid spear of white fire.
It was ti to end her once and for all.
Selenia lifted her head to look at him, even as the chains burned into her flesh. Hate blazed in her eyes, and her voice tore through the pain.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
Kai didn’t hesitate. “I don’t care.”
He drove the spear forward.
But just before the white fire could pierce her chest, sothing flashed around her stomach. The mana in Kai’s spell shuddered, and then vanished.
The spear dissolved as if it had never existed.
Kai’s eyes widened.
An insignia burned into Selenia’s chest, glowing red and gold. It was the shape of a dragon. One with its wings stretched out.
The mont it appeared, her scream changed. It grew sharper, louder, as if invisible blades were carving into her from the inside. Her body arched, tendrils thrashing wildly as she cried out in agony.
Kai felt it then.
His control over the chains slipped.
Not weakened, but overpowered.
Sothing tore through his spell structure with brute force, snapping his hold on the elental flas. One by one, the white chains shattered and faded, ripped apart by a will stronger than his own.
The next second, Selenia was free.
She staggered back in the air, clutching her chest, breathing hard. Panic flashed across her face as she stared at the glowing insignia, her fingers trembling as they brushed over it.
Kai hovered in place, mind racing.
There was no way she should have been able to cancel that spell. Not directly. Not sothing drawn from the elental realm itself. What he had just seen bordered on the impossible.
Selenia bared her teeth, pain and fury twisting her expression.
“You made waste a precious blessing, human,” she snarled. “I’ll rember this.”
The dragon insignia flared again.
Dead mana surged, flooding back into her body. Her wings spread wide, stretching farther than before, and parts of the damage on her flesh began to close, black and red energy knitting her together.
Kai reacted instantly.
Wind scread outward from his body, sharp currents forming a trap around her.
Blades of compressed air rushed toward her from every angle.
But Selenia was already moving.
She folded her wings and shot forward, flying low and fast like a wyvern, tearing through the sky as she fled toward the edge of the capital. The blades cut empty air behind her.
Kai stared after her for only a heartbeat before starting to chase.
After everything, there was no way he could let her escape. If she lived, this would never end.
And Kai would never forgive himself.
But he had no idea how to reach her. She kept pulling farther away, the distance between them stretched no matter how much Kai forced mana into his [Flight] spell. Whatever the insignia had done to her body, it was making her far quicker than before. The wind scread around his body, but he already knew the truth.
Without rebuilding the spell from the ground up, he would never catch her.
And he didn’t have the ti.
Kai’s thoughts raced as fast as his body moved. Spell options flashed through his mind and died just as quickly. Restraints wouldn’t reach her. Long-range attacks would miss. Another elental binding would take too long.
Then he recalled a spell that might work.
A sixth-circle one.
The realization made his stomach tighten. It was far beyond what he should be casting in his current state. It would drain him dry, maybe worse. His Mana heart would take the hit, and there was no guarantee he would be able to fight afterward.
But if he didn’t use it, she would escape.
Kai clenched his jaw and made the choice.
As he flew, he raised his wand and began forming the spell.
The first structure appeared—clean, simple, a standard foundation. Then another layered over it, lines bending and crossing in ways that made the air vibrate.
Circles stretched outward, overlapping like scales, each one feeding into the next. Sharp angles split into curves, curves twisted into spirals, and the mana around him thickened until it felt heavy, almost liquid.
The spell grew ssy and imperfect.
Kai didn’t slow down to correct it.
He let the wand compensate, filling gaps where his focus slipped, reinforcing weak points as fast as they ford. This wasn’t a spell ant to last. It only needed to work once.
Seconds dragged on.
Selenia was already nearing the edge of the city. The walls below shrank as she flew, freedom just monts away.
Kai finished the final line, pushed mana into it and released the spell.
The sky ignited the next second.
A bright red light erupted around him, swallowing his body whole. Mana surged violently, wrapping around him in roaring waves. The light expanded, stretching outward, shaping itself into massive wings, a long coiling body, and a crown of horns.
In seconds, the outline beca solid.
Kai scread as overwhelming power flooded him. It felt like his veins were filled with fire, like his bones were burning from the inside out. His body strained, threatening to tear itself apart under the pressure.
He forced the mana into motion, spinning it through his core in tight, controlled loops, holding the spell together through sheer will.
The world blurred.
And then—he surged forward.
The air split as Kai moved, no longer flying but charging, faster than any spell he had ever cast. The city vanished beneath him in a red streak.
Ahead, Selenia turned.
For the first ti, fear cracked through her expression. Her eyes widened as she saw what was chasing her.
A red dragon tore through the sky, scales of burning mana gleaming, wings spanning the sky as it closed the distance in a heartbeat.
Kai felt her terror like a spark in the air.
And he did not slow down.
***
Princess Amara lashed out again.
A whip of water snapped from her hand, cutting through the air and striking the group of soldiers charging toward her. It slamd into their faces and chests with crushing force, lifting them off their feet and sending them tumbling backward. They rolled across broken stone and loose rubble before sliding through a wide hole torn into the wall.
Their screams followed them down.
Then they stopped.
Amara didn’t know if they were dead or alive. She didn’t check.
Two hours ago, that thought would have haunted her. Now, it barely slowed her breathing.
She had killed more n today than she had in her entire life. Before this battle, she had killed no one.
Yet the wall never seed to empty. More soldiers kept climbing up, more Mages rushed forward, hurling spells with wild, reckless abandon. They threw themselves at Arzan’s forces like beasts driven mad, even as bodies piled around them.
Amara didn’t understand it.
She hadn’t seen her brother anywhere on the walls. She didn’t know if Eldric was even alive. Most of the nobles were gone, either dead or hiding, yet the soldiers fought on without hesitation. Half their numbers were already gone. Duke Blackwood had offered them surrender more than once.
None of them took it.
The reason beca clear the mont Amara t their eyes.
They were wrong.
Red-tinged. Glassy. Empty of reason. The n fought without fear, without hesitation, as if pain and death ant nothing to them anymore. They didn’t retreat. They didn’t break. They only charged as if they were beasts.
The thought sent a cold twist through Amara’s chest.
Whatever Regina had done to them, it had stripped away their will. Their instincts ruled them now, nothing more. And because of that, Amara had no choice.
She raised her hands again.
Water surged forward in a heavy wave, wrapping around three enemy Mages in mid-cast. It crushed the air from their lungs and slamd them to the stone. Before they could recover, Eron and Tiara were already there, blades flashing. The Enforcers cut them down without pause and moved on.
Amara swallowed and forced herself to breathe.
She knew they were winning. She could feel it in the way the enemy lines were thinning, in the growing presence of Arzan’s forces on the walls. But that didn’t make it easier.
She wanted it to end.
She wanted it to end now.
As she drew in more mana, movent caught her eye. Duke Blackwood was striding toward her through the chaos, his armor dented and cracked, his blade soaked red from hilt to tip. Blood streaked his gauntlets and splattered his cloak, but his posture was straight as always.
When he reached her, Amara t his gaze.
He stepped closer to her and spoke over the clash of steel and spells. “Princess Amara, I believe we should head down to the castle. Killian went after Regina, and I have a feeling he may need support. It has been a while. The others can hold the walls. If we deal with her, we can see how to aid Arzan.”
Amara nodded at once.
Her eyes moved on instinct to the sky.
High above the city, Duke Arzan was still in battle, chasing a winged creature she had never seen before. From the ground, she could only tell that the creature was female by the shape of the body, but beyond that, she had no idea what she was. Whatever the creature was, she was clearly strong. If she weren’t, Arzan would have already ended the fight.
Amara had stolen brief glances at the battle before, and every ti it had made her chest tighten. Spells collided in midair, exploding into light and shockwaves that rolled across the city. Even from this distance, the force of it was frightening.
Then as she watched, sothing changed.
Amara’s breath caught.
Duke Blackwood stopped beside her, staring upward, and muttered under his breath, “What’s going on…?”
In the sky, streams of fla suddenly burst out from Duke Arzan’s wand. They didn’t scatter or fade. Instead, they wrapped around his body, layer after layer, growing larger and brighter by the second. The fire thickened, shaping itself with terrifying precision.
Horns ford first, rising from the mass of flas. Then a long tail tore free from the fire, whipping through the air. Wings followed, vast and burning, spreading wide across the sky.
In the space of a heartbeat, Duke Arzan was gone.
In his place hovered a massive, glowing red dragon.
The roar that followed shook Amara to her core. It rolled across the battlefield like thunder, so powerful that even the fighting on the walls slowed for a few stunned seconds. Soldiers on both sides froze, heads tilting upward as the sound echoed through stone and bone alike.
Amara could only stare.
What kind of spell could do that?
Before she could even begin to understand it, the dragon surged forward. Flas trailed behind its body as it picked up speed, closing the distance to the winged creature in an instant.
The creature scread and hurled orbs of darkness in desperation, but the dragon answered with a torrent of fire. The orbs detonated in the air, swallowed by a massive explosion of light and heat.
Then the dragon reached her.
Its claws closed around the creature, and with a brutal motion, it hurled her downward. She fell toward the city like a blazing star.
***
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