Sir Aethon took one down.
Now it was just the strongest left to go.
The air quivered again, and my breath hitched.
Kali's outline hadn't weakened. If anything, it pulsed brighter, not in chaos, but in focus. She was fighting seriously now.
Across from her was Lumos.
Still bright. Still laughing.
But his outline was tighter than before. His steps sharper. His strikes cleaner.
This wasn't a warm-up anymore.
I felt her voice more than heard it — like silk dipped in poison.
"…why don't you crumble like the rest?"
She sounded… confused. Curious. Almost entertained.
"Normally not even my own race can withstand it," she purred. "The pressure. The pull. The whispers. But you—"
Lumos laughed — bright, reckless, electric.
"I've reinforced every part of my body with mana," he said. "Been doing it since I was a kid. No whisper's getting into this head. No pressure slowing this engine."
He moved — fast.
"Sure, maybe I'm slowing myself down by doing it," he added, twisting mid-strike, "but what does it matter—"
The blades clashed — a scream of heat and steel. Then Lumos vanished mid-step.
"When I move at light speed."
The blow struck.
I felt the mana spark across the ridge — his outline blurring, breaking, then reforming just behind hers.
But he wasn't untouched.
A thin line of blood traced across his cheek. A whisper of red, barely there.
She'd cut him.
He didn't flinch.
"Behind you," he said.
Her outline turned, not fast enough.
Another blur.
Then the mountain cracked.
An impact thundered like a god slamming the sky. I didn't see it, not really…but I felt the pressure, the cold, the ripple of air shattering like glass.
A new shape had moved.
Not from above.
Not from below.
From behind.
Sir Aethon.
His mana surged in a single brutal motion.
Ice thick as armor, focus like the edge of the world. He didn't speak. He didn't warn.
He just brought the other ice hammer down.
Straight into Kali's skull.
Her outline went flying — a blur of force and grace slammed backward into the far ridge wall.
It didn't silence her mana.
But it staggered it.
I gasped. Even Rōko, beside me, flinched.
Salem stirred in my lap, still breathing, still hurting. William sat with his hands trembling beside mine.
"I don't understand," he whispered. "That power"
"They're monsters," Rōko murmured. "All Three of them."
I couldn't disagree.
Kali's mana flared again — bright and vicious. But now it flickered. Just a bit.
Not because she was weak.
But because for the first time, she had to work for her victory.
Two outlines now stood facing her.
One of lighting and speed.
One of frost and discipline.
And both were breathing harder. Fighting smarter.
This wasn't a duel anymore.
This was a war.
And they weren't backing down.
Kali stood again.
Her outline snapped back into place.
If the hammer to the face had shaken her, it didn't show. Her mana surged darker than before — more layered. A pressure like ink across the sky.
She lifted one hand.
Then spoke.
"Shadowbind: Consume and Echo."
The air cracked.
Every spell had weight — but spoken spells carried the voice of the soul. Most mages held back on them. Too draining. If your control wasn't perfect, they could rip away all your mana in one attack.
Kali didn't hesitate.
Her outline rippled — shadow spirals coiling around her like vipers. Even I could feel the strain. The pressure was sickening. Cold sweat slid down my spine.
"She's using chanting magic now," Rōko muttered beside me. "Damn, she's actually-"
"She's not playing around anymore."
Across the field, Lumos laughed.
He took one step forward — both swords still drawn, spinning slightly in his hands.
Then he called out:
"Blazing Arc – Scattershot!."
"Flashspark Lance!."
Flames burst out around him, each one honed to a perfect blade of heat — while lightning threaded up his arms like living veins. His outline blurred into motion.
Faster. Again.
He met her shadow with fire and light.
Strike for strike. Spell for spell.
But even I could tell that this was chaos.
And in chaos, one man waited.
Aethon's outline was steady. Calm.
He hadn't moved in seconds. Just paced slowly in a wide arc, positioning himself beyond Kali's main line of focus. He didn't throw out spells. Didn't charge.
He waited.
Sword sheathed. Hammer raised.
A patient frost behind the storm.
Then — a flicker.
Kali's shadow spiraled too far left, a spell deflecting one of Lumos' blades — and in that precise second, a second outline moved.
Fast. Silent.
No chant. No warning.
Just a spike of frozen pressure and the shape of death.
A pillar of ice exploded up from the ground beneath Kali's feet.
She twisted too late.
It caught her leg — not fully — but enough to stagger her back mid-spell. Lumos surged in with a sweep of lightning, striking her shoulder, sparks flying wide.
She shrieked, a sound that any regular person would get nightmares from.
But her mana darkened again.
The fight was tipping.
⸻
I swallowed hard.
The pressure of the battle had eased a little. Not much. But enough to show that we weren't losing.
So I turned my head slightly, toward Rōko's outline — hunched but glowing. She was still clutching her arm.
"How did you even get here?" I asked quietly. "You're… with them. Lumos and Sir Aethon. How?"
She was quiet for a beat. Her mana flickered faintly.
"Luck," she finally said.
"Luck?"
"I was on my way back to the academy. After you guys disappeared. I wanted to tell someone. Anyone. I felt like it was my fault, somehow."
"You…?"
"I ran into Lumos," she continued. "He was on his way to see his brother, Alven. I told him what happened. That two students were taken by devils — William being one of them."
She glanced sideways — I felt the motion in her outline.
"He didn't even blink. Just called william's father."
My breath caught.
"King Beren."
"Yeah. The king only had a couple teleportation stones left — ones that still work. He sent Sir Aethon with one."
"And then you came here?"
"I followed Salem's mana," she said, a little quieter. "I couldn't just sit around."
Neither of us said anything for a moment.
Then she added, bitter:
"Not that it mattered. You saw what happened to me out there."
"Yes, i felt it"
She sighed. "It's like I never mattered. One second I'm a prodigy. Now I'm just in the way."
I reached out — rested a hand near hers.
"You're not in the way," I said. "You're alive. So is William. So is Salem."
"Barely."
"Still, you saved us."
And on the field, the war raged.
⸻
Sir Aethon was circling again.
Lumos was trading blows so fast I could barely track them, sword to sword, fire to shadow, lightning to curse. Kali had started chanting again, voice rising — another spoken spell shaping around her like a stormfront.
But Aethon never joined in directly.
Not until the moment opened.
Not until the strike could finish what chaos began.
The world cracked open again.
Kali screamed her next incantation — voice raw, rasped with fury and fire.
"Cataclysm of Darkness!"
The field tore.
Shadow mana poured like a living tide — a jagged claw of screaming dark mana, lashing across the ridge in a crescent meant to end everything. Even from the outcropping, the pressure made me flinch, made the air burn cold against my face.
But Lumos was already gone.
His outline blinked sideways. Faster than i could think.
He didn't attack.
He didn't cast.
He didn't speak.
He waited — let her fury blind her. Let her stumble forward one step too far.
That was all it took.
A flash of movement, the blur of something metal.
Click.
Mana around Kali's arms snapped shut.
Her outline jerked. The shadow around her imploded.
"No—!" she snarled, too late.
Mana-restriction cuffs. Rank 0 grade. They were made by lincoln
She stumbled back, tripping as her magic collapsed inward.
Lumos caught her wrist.
Then yanked her forward by the hair.
"I just—" he said, voice cracking with laughter, "I just completely outsmarted you!"
He was howling now.
"Oh my—hahaha, you really thought you could win with a monologue and a evil queen spell! What is this, a stage play?!"
Kali screamed something guttural, wordless, powerless, and he just pulled her in closer.
"You're not even the strongest devil I've fought," he said, grinning. "You're just the prettiest."
He dragged her toward the horse waiting nearby — the one Sir Aethon had arrived on earlier, summoned back with that silent whistle only trained cavalry would recognize.
"Up you go," he muttered, half-lifting her like a sack of vegetables.
Kali thrashed, but it didn't matter. Her mana was locked.
By then, the field had begun to settle.
We walking towards the field. Slowly, one by one. Salem, limp but standing. William supporting her with one arm. Rōko just behind, still holding her arm. Me limping besides them.
Even Sir Aethon who seemed the least hurt, seemed to have a bad shoulder after all this.
The blood had stopped falling.
But the tension hadn't.
"What the hell just happened?" Rōko asked, breathing hard.
"What do we do with her now?" William added, nervous.
Lumos turned to us — still half-grinning, still half-deranged.
"Well," he said, shrugging. "If we wanted to go the evil route — y'know, like her people would — we could use her to breed ridiculously strong soldiers."
Everyone went still.
"Since we can't drain mana," he added casually, "we'd need a workaround. Just spitballing."
No one laughed.
"Or," he continued, whistling a tune, "we could torture her for intel, then kill her. Depends how boring we wanna be. Might ask Lincoln. He's been getting creative lately."
Sir Aethon stopped him from spewing more. We bring her to one of the Kings and we will go from there."
Lumos ignored him and looked straight at me.
"Nice to meet you, by the way," he said, bowing like he didn't just spew the most disgusting ideas i've ever heard. "Annabel, right? Heard lots about you."
I stiffened. "From who?"
"Lincoln. And my brother, Alven. You're a popular blind girl."
He swung onto the horse behind Kali, securing her with a quick bind spell.
The others moved to their own mounts. Four horses was just enough to fit us all, Aethon didn't speak again, but his outline passed close enough that I could feel the chill still rolling off him. Controlled. Measured. Lethal.
Kali's mana was dim now. Chained. Hissing like smoke under glass.
"Let's head out," Lumos said. "Back to the Blazewind gate. We'll guard the hell out of it. Devils won't be happy we walked off with a princess."
Salem exhaled — a dry, rasping sound.
"Let them come," she said.
Then William spoke up. "What about the third student we came here with, or Lycian for that matter."
I looked at the outpost and scanned every part with my mana sight enhanced with the drops of mana that had replenished. "No sign of anyone here." I gave an annoyed sigh. "They most likely fed the student to one if their animals, i heard them talking about dragon food. And Lycian rode off, that bastard. Next time I'll kill him."
"If i don't do it first." William and Salem said in sync.
"There's nothing for us here anymore, i wish we could look for the student but its to dangerous. Let's leave." I said quietly
Everyone agreed.
We rode.
We might have been injured.
But something had shifted.
We didn't just survive Blazewind.
We took something from it.
And this was the beginning to an all out war.