Amalia couldn’t believe what had just happened.
How could she have misjudged that man so catastrophically? Never in her wildest sches had she imagined Thalion would have the audacity to launch an all-out attack—so openly, so rcilessly.
She had worried briefly when she failed to dominate the captured vampiress, but why attack now? That had seed unthinkable. At the mont she was paying the price for her complacency and it was steep.
If she could manage to land a fully empowered ntal strike, even Thalion might succumb to her charms. Her lips curled into a sly, wicked smile at the thought of kissing that man, binding his soul to hers like a chained puppet.
Securing Jim, a man blessed with a legendary gift, had already been a stroke of unimaginable fortune. But Thalion? He stood even higher than Jim. She had never suspected that the smallest of his forms, the eagle would be so nightmarishly powerful.
Now, most of her followers lay dead or dying, while Thalion showed no signs of exhaustion.
Any ordinary warrior would have been out of mana by now. That ant only one thing: his soul was abnormally powerful. Harder to dominate, yes—but not immune. Not if she struck in unison with the others. The only problem was landing the blow. The eagle refused to co close, instead circling high above, bombarding them with deadly precision, eliminating her allies one by one with ruthless efficiency.
Amalia still didn’t understand where the blue flas had co from—why every fire, even those conjured by her own mages, now burned with that unnatural azure glow.
And both portals—shut down. That was a serious issue. Not a single mber of her coven had stayed behind in the city, thanks to Maike, that relentless bloodhound. The woman had hunted down every last one of her girls, forcing them to regroup. So people still remained under Amalia’s control, but without constant reinforcent, their minds might begin to heal. That would take ti—and worse, it ant they might recover fully. Amalia doubted there were any ntalists strong enough to repair the kind of soul damage she’d inflicted before the natural healing did the job.
The most terrifying part of her abilities, however, was how her soul fragnts lded with her victims’—making them seem like an organic part of the soul.
Even severe damage would heal in ti. Normally, she consud their essence entirely, eliminating any risk of rebellion. With Jim, she had tried sothing different—feeding only partially, allowing him to grow in strength. It had proven quite interesting. Under her command, warriors like him progressed rapidly, their devotion fueling their evolution. But even now, with the formation enhancing him, Jim wouldn’t be a match for Thalion. That man... he was sothing else entirely. Amalia couldn’t fathom how he had grown this powerful so quickly or how he was still fighting at full strength without the slightest hint of fatigue.
Even those devastating lightning beams didn’t seem to drain him.
A normal mage would have collapsed after firing two. Yet he kept blasting ship after ship with no sign of slowing. Now, the skill she was charging was ready. Power surged through her body, her veins glowing faintly beneath her skin with dangerous light. She sent out a signal: all remaining fighters were to gather at the flagship. If they could concentrate his attention, they might finally draw him in.
But Thalion allowed no one to reach the main vessel unchallenged.
The last few ships were shattered mid-air, bodies flung into the void. Over half of her remaining fighters were already dead. Still, the eagle refused to show itself. Whatever ability he possessed to blend into the background made him nearly invisible—especially amid the surreal, flickering light of the blue fire that seed to burn the very air.
Then suddenly he was there.
He surged upward from beneath the skyship like a storm incarnate, lightning already gathered in his beak. The blast vaporized fifteen fighters in a single, blinding instant. All of them had been looking the other way—unprepared, unaware. Amalia nearly released her attack into thin air, but by the ti she refocused, Thalion was already soaring over a hundred ters above them, charging yet another cataclysmic strike.
“We need to bring him down!” she shouted at her inner circle, but none had an answer.
Another lightning beam shook the flagship, throwing burning wreckage into the sky and sending the next group of defenders to their deaths. Ti was running out. If she couldn’t halt him, couldn’t stall him for even a mont, she would be forced to use her ergency escape token. And that would an admitting failure.
“Activate the portal!” she scread toward the shield team.
“You just need to insert the control rune—it’ll go live!” If they could bring the portal back online, it would force Thalion to act. He’d have no choice but to descend. Otherwise, they could vanish into the city and wait out the remainder of the tutorial. They still had plenty of pawns embedded in the civilian population. It was a gamble. But at this point, it was the only move left to play.
It seed Thalion saw it the sa way.
The eagle form didn’t dive again—instead, he soared above the battlefield, slicing through the air with wind blades aid at the fighters sprinting toward the portal. None struck true. Jim hurled himself into their path, intercepting each blade with his sword, which pulsed with radiant light. But this display of gallantry only seed to irritate Thalion.
With a flicker of mist, Thalion shifted back into his human form and reappeared directly in front of the portal. His sword glead as he unleashed a vicious arc through the air, cutting down those trying to activate the portal.
Perfect.
With Thalion grounded, focused on the skirmish at hand, Amalia seized her mont. She unleashed the ntal assault she had been charging this entire ti. Just before she released it, Thalion had felled her last remaining supporters with brutal efficiency—and wounded Jim so grievously that the man collapsed to his knees, his strength rapidly fading. Without the support buffs, he stood no chance. He would die within seconds.
A smile curled across her lips as her attack hit.
It landed fully—direct, flawless—and... nothing. Thalion staggered slightly, pausing just short of finishing off Jim, then shook his head as if clearing a fog. His gaze lifted. His crimson, glowing eyes t hers—and a wave of raw ntal energy struck back. Amalia’s vision shattered like glass. Her knees buckled and she crashed to the ground, stunned.
How?
No one should be able to simply shake off a skill like that. Let alone retaliate with a counterattack of his own—especially not one that hit that hard. This wasn’t just unusual. It was wrong. Dangerous. She needed to flee before it was too late.
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With a ntal command, she activated the fail-safe.
Every cultist around her simultaneously pulled out their ergency escape tokens, vanishing in flashes of white light. Jim barely managed to trigger his own just as Thalion’s blade pierced clean through his chest—he disappeared mid-impalent. The last thing Amalia saw before the light took her was the demon in black armor, bathed in now crimson red fire, staring at her with those burning, unblinking eyes.
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