The sky above Milim's domain shattered.
Columns of crimson Draconic magic, dense enough to warp localized gravity, erupted into the atmosphere as Milim brought both hands down. The shockwave stripped the forest canopy off the surrounding mountain peaks for miles, turning entire stands of ancient timber into airborne splinters.
Loki didn't counter. He backpaddled through the air using spatial steps, weaving between beams of disintegrating energy.
"Milim, cut it out! You're going to level your own city if you keep throwing around firepower like that!"
"Then give me Gaia and leave!" Milim screamed, appearing directly above him in a flash of red light. Her face was twisted in an expression of raw, agonizing betrayal. She brought her kick down like a falling meteor.
Loki raised his left arm, reinforcing his sleeve with three layered spatial cushions. The impact sounded like a thunderclap directly in his eardrums. The kinetic force drove him five hundred feet straight down into the valley floor, his boots plowing a deep, smoking trench through the stone.
He looked up, shaking his arm out with a nervous laugh. "Man, you really don't hold back, do you? I know you've been working out, but this is a bit much for a reunion greeting!"
It was his automatic reflex. The light, dismissive humor he had used for centuries to defuse tension, mask his own anxiety, and keep the world at arm's length.
To Milim, it was fuel on an inferno.
"A reunion greeting?!" Milim's voice hit a pitch that shook the earth beneath their feet. The crimson aura surrounding her flared twice as wide, burning away the atmosphere until the air rippled like liquid heat. "You bring my friend back in a box, locked up in dark seals, suffering in agony... and you make jokes about it?!"
"It's not a joke, it's just how I—"
"You think my grief is funny?!" She didn't wait for his answer. She lunged again, a blurred streak of absolute destruction. Every strike she threw was capable of erasing mountain ranges, yet Loki refused to fire back with lethal force or employ his absolute spatial severing techniques. He couldn't. To retaliate meant risking Milim or, worse, shattering the unstable soul container he was desperately shielding with his own body.
He was trapped in a defensive nightmare, forced to dodge, parry, and absorb blows from one of the strongest beings in existence while holding his hands behind his back.
High above the ruined courtyard, Frey's wings beat furiously as she rose into the upper atmosphere, her voice amplified by wind magic echoing across the entire territory. "All guards! All citizens! Evacuate the central district immediately! Fall back to the outer perimeter shelters! Do not engage!"
Below her, Carrion was already in motion. Shouting orders to the panicked Beastketeers and local garrison units, he physically threw two stunned guards out of the path of a stray shockwave before directing the fleeing civilian crowds toward the heavy underground bunkers.
"Move! Keep moving!" Carrion bellowed, his lion-like eyes tracking the blinding flashes of crimson and emerald light tearing up the valley. He gritted his teeth, his jaw tight with helpless frustration. "Damn it all... Loki, you idiot! What did you do to set her off like this?!"
Four hundred miles away, in the quiet office of the Demon Lord Rimuru Tempest, a massive spiritual pulse registered on the automatic magicule monitors.
Rimuru bolted upright from his desk, staring out the window toward the southern horizon where the sky was faintly glowing red. "What the... Is that Milim's magicule signature?! What is she fighting?!"
[Report,] Raphael's calm, precise voice echoed in his mind. [High-density spatial distortions and Dragonoid magicule surges detected in the heart of Milim Nava's territory. Energy signatures confirm a full combat engagement between Milim Nava and Loki.]
"Loki?!" Rimuru took a step toward the balcony, his face pale. "Did something go wrong with Jistav? I have to go stop them—"
[Negative,] Raphael interrupted firmly. [Intervention is strongly discouraged. Milim Nava's emotional state has bypassed rational threshold parameters. Entering the combat zone without understanding the emotional catalyst will only result in a three-way battle, drastically increasing the likelihood of destroying the territorial core.]
Far to the north, atop the frozen continent, Guy Crimson stood on the balcony of his ice palace, a goblet of wine held loosely in his hand. He narrowed his crimson eyes toward the south, feeling the distant shockwaves rattling the world's natural ley lines.
"Hmph," Guy muttered, taking a slow sip. "Loki, you brilliant fool... you finally stepped on the one landmine you couldn't talk your way out of. If I step in now, Milim will turn her rage on me for interfering. Figure it out yourself.'"
Back in the tearing storm of the valley, Loki's breathing was growing ragged. A glancing blow from Milim's aura had scorched his coat sleeve to ash, leaving a dark, smoking burn across his shoulder which closed up instantly.
"Milim, listen to me!" Loki's voice lost every trace of its earlier levity, turning hard and sharp. "I didn't steal Gaia! I found the soul in Clayman's subterranean vaults! It was bound in corrupted magicules, thrashed in agony, and completely unstable! If I hadn't contained it in this obsidian matrix, the soul framework would have fractured beyond repair!"
"And who gave you the right?!" Milim screamed, coming to a sudden halt fifty yards away, hovering in the sky like an avenging deity. Tears of rage streamed down her cheeks, glowing like liquid fire against her flushed skin. "Who gave you the right to decide what happens to Gaia?!"
The question struck Loki. He froze, his boots planted in the dirt, the obsidian cube resting heavily against his ribs.
"You found my friend," Milim sobbed, her voice breaking into a ragged, agonized cry that tore through the quiet of the ruined valley. "You saw Gaia suffering... and instead of coming to me, instead of letting me hold my friend, you locked the soul away! You examined it with your Ultimate Skill! You made plans in secret! You decided how to fix Gaia, when to fix Gaia, and how to present it all to me like a little trophy!"
She pointed a trembling, aura-coated finger at his chest.
"You always do this! You act like you're the only one who knows what's right! You treat everyone around you like children who can't handle the truth! You didn't leave Gaia in Jistav to protect him... you left Gaia there because you wanted to play savior all by yourself!"
Loki swallowed hard, his throat dry. The accusation cut straight through his pride, landing directly on the blind spot he had carried for centuries. His instinct to control, to shield, to solve every disaster in isolation before delivering a clean, painless outcome to the people he cared about.
"Milim..." Loki took a step forward, his voice dropping into a quiet, sincere register, stripped entirely of theater. "You're right. I should have called you the second I verified the identity. I was wrong to hide it. But please... look at the container. I am not hurting Gaia. I came here so we could restore the dragon together."
"Together?" Milim let out a bitter, hollow laugh. "You don't know the meaning of the word. You don't trust anyone, Loki. Not really."
She raised both arms to the sky. The crimson aura surrounding her exploded outward, not in a destructive blast, but in a massive, solidifying dome of absolute barrier magic. The translucent red wall expanded violently, tearing through the earth and shooting high into the stratosphere before curving inward to seal shut.
Frey and Carrion were forced to leap backward as the barrier slammed into the ground, cutting off the inner valley from the rest of the world.
Inside the dome, the air turned heavy, thick with the suffocating weight of Milim's absolute domain. Outside interference was entirely severed. Nobody could enter, nobody could leave, and nobody could reach into the shadow space to pull the cube away.
Milim dropped her hands, her eyes burning with an unyielding, terrifying resolve as she locked her gaze on Loki and the dark cube in his hands.
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