Ash fell like snow over broken spires. Smoke curled through shattered archways. The battlefield, once glowing with divine mana, was now silent as if choked in darkness, soaked in blood, haunted by the final gasps of a failed holy trap.
Archbishop Virell lay in the center of it all, reduced to a trembling heap. Her halo shattered. Her staff burned out. Her voice had faded into whimpers.
And above her stood Nidhogg.
Calm. Cold. Triumphant.
The bugs swirled at his feet in a slow, deathlike spiral. He raised a single hand, prepared to end her, not with a scream, but with the final, precise efficiency of a god culling a failing prophet. But the wind shifted. It was pure, sharp, and clean. Unlike anything in the rot and ruin around them.
The air trembled.
Then....
A spear of light crashed from above, shattering Nidhogg's bug spiral in an instant and slamming him back across the courtyard, a trench carved behind him as he skidded to a halt.
He stood, confused. The pain had come suddenly and with no chance for him to put up a guard. His arm was missing. Virell coughed, barely able to lift her head.
A voice cut through the smoke, quiet and focused.
"Step away from her, monster."
A girl no older than twenty strode forward through the dust. Her hair was tied into a loose braid, armor singed, but her stance firm. Two auras swirled around her body—wind and light, perfectly interwoven. Her cloak fluttered unnaturally, pulled not by mere breeze but by the mana in the air responding to her call.
Her eyes were locked on Nidhogg. And they were filled with rage.
Robin.
The sole survivor of the Greenwake Massacre.
She had been sixteen when Nidhogg came for her planet, on the very day of her elemental attuning. She watched him devour her parents, her neighbors, her mentor, all without mercy. Of course, he was way bigger back then, but she recognized his sinister aura anywhere. It was burned into her memory.
Until now.
"And just who are you?" Nidhogg murmured as his limbs began to reconstitute.
"You came for my world, devoured everyone. You took everything from me."
Finished recovering, Nidhogg flexed his regrown arm. "I've devoured hundreds of worlds kid. I don't even know who you are."
Robin raised her right hand. Wind gathered like a spiral above her palm. Her left glowed with blinding light.
"I swore," she said, voice hard and trembling with purpose, "I would become strong enough to make you bleed. Don't worry, you won't forget who I am again."
Robin lunged forward, faster than even most Fullbringers could react. Her wind wrapped around her body, accelerating her movement unnaturally, while streaks of light magic fired off her limbs in every direction, force-guided rays, pure and fast.
Nidhogg's bugs tried to swarm her, only for her wind magic to form a slicing cyclone around her body, keeping them at bay. His strikes were countered with radiant shields summoned instantly and shattered into needles of light in retaliation.
He was surprised, because he was struggling. In terms, this girl was on par with the Archbishop he just fought. But from the first contact, her spells were far more powerful. His ability was meaningless if his bugs didn't survive enough to return the mana back to him.
She hurled spell after spell at him, while simultaneously warding off his bugs. Her light and wind magic were on another level. He now had little choice but to gather mana from everywhere around him. His bugs spread out once more, searching for mana to consume.
Robin caught on to his ability quickly, She summoned a tornado, that drew in his bugs, keeping him from collecting mana. She wasn't just powerful, she was trained to kill him.
Annoyed, Nidhogg himself went in, remaining bugs shielding him, claws ready. She met him head-on wind to deflect, light to sear. They clashed, creating a shockwave that split the remaining spire in two.
For every move Nidhogg made, Robin countered. For every bug he sent, she purified it mid-air. For every angle he approached from, the wind whispered his intention to her. The battlefield below, paused and hid, as their fight spilled onto it. Rogue wind slashes and his bug Ceros didn't distinguish friend from foe. After three minutes, both opponents paused, mid air.
They both stood, panting, and wounded.
Neither had fallen.
Nidhogg stared at her. His body was riddled with holes from her light spells that he couldn't counter. Robin trembled, her arms shaking. Her breathing was ragged, her mana flickering but still, she stood.
He looked around. The battlefield, though ravaged, felt cold again. Silent. The moment had passed. He could press the attack. Try to win. But he would lose something. Dignity. Power. Maybe even control.
She was a child of light and wind; two elements pure in nature and untouchable by his abilities. If he pressed on right now, he would no doubt be defeated. She was… his antithesis. And so, for the first time in the campaign against the church....
He stepped back.
His mind replayed of memories, of her, growing up and the night of the attunement. No doubt resurfaced so suddenly from her parents he consumed. Now he remembered the one planet he ravaged where he knew a person escaped into the forest. He had devastated the forest and yet, it would appear that failed to kill her.
"Interesting." He mumbled to himself. "It would seem that I created a monster."
Robin didn't respond. She raised a spear of light again. But Nidhogg lifted a hand, not to fight, but to signal.
"Fall back," he commanded.
Across the battlefield, the Covenant began to retreat. One by one, the Fullbringers vanished through his Kumon, bruised but not broken. All remaining bugs returned to him. The skies cleared. Gerald was the last to leave, standing beside Nidhogg as he opened the gate.
"You sure?" Gerald asked. "We had them."
"She had me," Nidhogg replied. "And that's enough for today."
He turned away from her.
"Robin." She told him.
He met her eyes.
"I'll remember your name. Don't expect it to be like this next time." He warned.
She said nothing. And then he vanished. Virell groaned, barely conscious. Robin floated down, laying a hand on her. Virell began to glow as her mind came back to.
"Who are you." Virell asked quietly.
"Robin. I just joined the church months ago when that demon devoured everyone on my planet. As soon as I heard you guys were fighting him, I stopped training and rushed here."
Virell had witnessed their battle. She recognized when someone was attuned to an element when she saw it. But there was only one other person who was attuned to light magic...
"Were you by any chance training with Cardinal Raphael?" Virell asked curiously.
"Oh yeah. You know him?" Robin says nonchalantly.
Though her injuries, Virell arose. She forced herself to kneel before the girl before her. Priests and surviving paladins emerged from the debris and followed suit. Robin backed up, not used to this level of attention. She didn't realize that the church owed her a great deal for what she had done.
They no longer looked at Robin as a girl, but as a savior.