The leather of her boots kissed the scorched earth, the sound a soft thud against the heavy, suffocating silence at the summit. Areia stepped out from the skeletal shadow of the lone, dying peach tree, its twisted branches clawing at a sky choked with ash. At first, the harsh, bleeding sun blinded her, casting a searing glare across the horizon. But as her pupils slit and adjusted, the true scale of the devastation unfolded below.
To her left, Thranduil lay crumpled on the jagged rock, a broken groan escaping his blood-flecked lips. Areia's piercing green eyes locked onto his battered form for a heartbeat—unblinking, unreadable—before her gaze slowly rose to sweep across the valley.
An ocean of black, writhing creatures stretched for miles, a tide of pure malice rising from the depths of Hell.
In the distance, swallowed by the chaotic sea of monsters, Antrea and Cyra were locked in a desperate, suffocating dance of survival. The air was thick with the scent of ozone, sulfur, and burning iron. Even from the peak of the mountain, Areia's terrifyingly sharp senses picked up the truth instantly.
They were losing.
"Cyra! I think... I think Areia has returned!" Antrea gritted her teeth, her knuckles splitting as she launched herself through the smog. With a feral roar, she descended upon Satan's gargantuan, bloodshot central eye, burying a heavy, earth-shattering punch straight into the socket. The impact boomed like thunder, sending the towering deity of damnation crashing backward, tumbling out of sight into the fog.
Cyra's head snapped violently toward the mountain peak. Through the haze, the silhouette against the crest was unmistakable, yet profoundly alien. Long, midnight-black hair whipped around her like a living cloak, crowned by a pair of sweeping, obsidian horns. And those eyes—luminous, emerald pools glowing in the dark.
Worse yet, she was securely cradled a completely unconscious Dan against her chest, carrying him as if he weighed nothing at all.
*Is that really Areia?* Cyra's mind reeled in disbelief. She didn't have time to process it. With a fluid, desperate spin, she swung her gleaming blade, a crescent arc of silver light cleaving through a roaring horde of hellhounds, scattering their black blood across the dirt. *No, we can't get to her in time. Malakor is right there...*
"I see. So, you have fused with the demon of the tower."
Malakor's voice arrived like a chill in the air, smooth, untroubled, and entirely too close. He stood just paces away from Areia. She didn't flinch. She didn't even turn her head to acknowledge him.
Malakor's eyes, shining like twin, cold stars, stared intently at her transformed state. His pristine, ornate robes were immaculate, completely untainted by dust or blood, as if the war raging around them was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. He slowly stretched out a pale, manicured hand.
"I will need you to come with me," he said softly, his tone dripping with a terrifyingly polite malice. "For my grand plan, a perfect vessel is required—and the demon of the Tower fits the criteria. I highly plead that you do not resist, lest your precious master faces the ultimate consequence."
Areia's gaze remained fixed on the distant battlefield where Cyra and Antrea fought for their lives. "Are you the one who did that to Thranduil?"
Her voice was entirely calm, barely a whisper carried away by the mountain wind. But as her lips parted, her mouth revealed rows of serrated, razor-sharp teeth—a predatory grin that would make any god gulp in primal fear. "Do you own these creatures?"
"And if I am?" Malakor responded coldly, his starry eyes narrowing. "I expected you to resist." He let out a theatrical sigh and took a measured step backward, raising a hand to the heavens. "Break her legs and arms. Do whatever is necessary to completely incapacitate her."
At his command, the astronomical, suffocating weight of the underworld's army pivoted. Even the monstrous entities currently swarming Cyra and Antrea broke away, abandoning the battlefield to charge up the mountain slopes. Millions of snarling, ravenous beasts converged on a single point, a tsunami of claws and fangs ready to swallow Areia whole.
"Be careful what you wish for," Areia whispered.
She took a single step forward.
There was no incantation. No flash of light. No grand display of magical arrays.
Just a step.
In a microsecond, a localized, absolute vacuum of raw, terrifying force erupted from her position. It didn't just crush the monsters—it obliterated them on a molecular level. The surging tide of millions of demons, the towering monstrosity of Satan, and every single abomination Malakor had summoned simply vanished. Blasted into nothingness so precisely, so thoroughly, that not a single speck of ash or a drop of blood remained to prove they had ever existed.
The valley was suddenly, completely empty.
Areia took another step forward, the soles of her boots clicking against the bare stone.
"I don't know who you are," she spoke smoothly, the air pressure dropping so drastically that the wind itself died. Her long hair began to lift, floating around her head like a dark aura as her green eyes ignited with a blinding, radioactive glow. "But you seem to be causing problems here."
Malakor stumbled back, his calm exterior instantly shattering into a mask of pure horror. *She wiped out millions of high-tier demons in a single second?! I couldn't even perceive what she did!* Panic, cold and sharp, gripped his chest, but he forced his teeth to grind together. *No... I guess I'll have to do this myself. Even with the power of the tower's demon, she shouldn't surpass me!*
"Areia, watch out!" Antrea's frantic voice echoed from the valley floor. "He's got a nasty causality skill! It forces him to win every single outco—"
Before the word could even finish leaving Antrea's mouth, a arc of crimson spray painted the air.
Malakor's right arm went flying through the sky, spinning uselessly against the sun.
A pathetic, ragged scream tore from his throat, echoing wildly throughout the barren valley. The invincible sorcerer doubled over, clutching the ragged, bleeding stump where his shoulder used to be. *I'm supposed to be invincible! My passive skill—why didn't it trigger?!*
His heart violently stopped.
Right there, directly in front of his blurred vision, was the tip of a pristine leather shoe.
Trembling, Malakor slowly looked up.
Areia's face was cast in deep shadow, completely obscured except for two piercing, emerald eyes that stared down at him with a terrifying, absolute indifference. Her long hair fell around them both like a heavy, dark curtain, shutting out the rest of the world. Above them, her twin black horns cut against the sky.
Before Malakor's brain could even register the concept of fear, before he could think of a counter-spell, a skill, or a plea for mercy—he simply ceased to be.
There was no physical attack. No catastrophic energy blast. Areia's hands hadn't even moved; she still held Dan securely and gently against her chest. But whatever unfathomable concept of power she had just exercised, Malakor was gone. Erased from the present, the past, and the future.
He wouldn't be returning for all of eternity.
"Thranduil! Are you okay?!" Cyra's voice pierced the eerie, post-battle silence as she forcefully sheathed her blade. The moment the steel clicked into the scabbard, her brown eyes snapped wide with panic. She sprinted across the smoking cratered earth toward the fallen elf. Beside her, Antrea descended from the ash-choked sky, her massive, midnight-black wings folding and vanishing into her back the moment her boots touched the ground.
Cyra threw herself to her knees, desperately placing her trembling hands over the gaping, horrific wound tearing through Thranduil's guts. Light began to flicker from her palms as she tried to force her healing mana into his shattered body.
"He is not hurt, so stop that."
Areia's voice drifted over them like a calm, freezing winter wind.
"How can you say that? He's literally—" Cyra cut herself off, her words dying in her throat. She stared down at Thranduil. The gory, fatal wound was entirely gone. His pale skin was unblemished, and his long, silken blue hair was sprawled elegantly across the dirt as he snored softly, looking like nothing more than a sleeping prince. "I... I could have sworn..."
"Cyra. Look at me," Areia said softly, though the quietness of her tone carried a terrifying, unyielding gravity.
Antrea stepped closer, looking between them in utter bewilderment. "Areia, what happened to you? It's like... like you've mutated or something," she asked, her voice laced with awe and concern as she gestured vaguely to the sweeping obsidian horns and glowing emerald eyes. Slowly, Antrea reached out, gently brushing her fingers through Dan's messy black hair as he lay cradled in Areia's arms. Areia didn't object, her posture completely rigid. "He's okay, right?" Antrea whispered.
"I have healed Thranduil, and the both of you," Areia stated. Suddenly, the calm facade cracked, and a low, resonant growl vibrated in her chest, her anger finally bleeding through. "Stand up. And look at me."
Cyra rose slowly, her legs feeling like lead. She turned around, her anxious brown eyes locking onto Areia's blazing green gaze.
"After I got this overwhelming energy trapped within me, I began to see things clearly," Areia began, her voice dropping to a dangerous, predatory register. Cyra's eyes involuntarily trailed down to Dan, who was resting peacefully against Areia's chest. "You were under some kind of deep, twisted illusion that forced your mind to perceive everything around you as monsters. That is probably how you managed to activate your sword in the first place. I have broken that illusion. And now, I need you to do something for me."
"What's going on?" Antrea asked, glancing anxiously between the two girls, the heavy air pressing down on her chest. "Am I missing something here?"
"It is fine, Antrea," Areia's voice was stone-cold, her glowing eyes completely unblinking. "Cyra has made it abundantly clear in the past that she cannot activate her sword unless she views her target as a literal monster. Having sheathed her blade just now, she shouldn't be able to draw it again unless there is a true abomination standing in her presence."
The air pressure around them plummeted, turning heavy and suffocating. Areia's voice sounded more unnatural by the second, layered with a strange, demonic echo.
"I have always wondered why you suddenly decided to join myself and Master back in Stacy's village. But I am not very smart, so I couldn't figure it out back then. But now..." Areia paused, her slitted eyes boring into Cyra's soul. "Look at Master. And pull your blade. If your sword comes out of its sheath, it confirms my suspicions. But if it doesn't... we will pretend like this conversation never happened."
Antrea let out a nervous, breathless laugh, shaking her head. "What? There's no way! Cyra can't draw her blade against him—"
Before Antrea could finish, Cyra's hand gripped the hilt of her sword.
With a sickening, metallic shriek, the blade slid from its scabbard. An intense, violent hum of magical energy vibrated through the air, cracking the stone beneath their feet. Cyra's eyes were sealed tightly shut—the absolute, unyielding condition required to unleash her blade's true power.
The sword was drawn. And it was pointed directly at Dan.