Eloise Josephine—the Lunar Shadow—hovered above the burning headquarters, his massive bat wings blocking the moonlight.
His eyes scanned the battlefield below, identifying the two threats.
"They're at the centre!" he shouted to the Order members who came through the portals.
He snapped his fingers.
Bright moonlight began flowing toward him like a river of silver, absorbed directly into his body. The light coalesced and formed into a glowing weapon—a rapier of pure crystallised moonlight.
The Glimmering Rapier.
His signature mana sword. A blade of compressed starlight and lunar energy, sharp as glass, beautiful as dawn. It was considered one of the strongest mana weapons in all three worlds.
The Order members didn't wait for further commands. They charged at Jecob and Paul.
Recognising the threat, Jecob roared in fury. He raised his newly formed mana-hand of fire and hurled a massive, flaming sphere toward the sky—aiming to knock the Lunar Shadow from the air.
With a powerful stroke of his wings, Eloise banked sharply. The heat of the explosion singed the air where he'd been a second before, but he was already diving.
The Glimmering Rapier left a trail of starlight in its wake as it descended like a falling star.
Below, the tide turned.
Order members rushed into the courtyard like a flood. Mana spheres whistled through the smoke as mages launched coordinated barrages. Some manifested heavy shields to protect the wounded. Others forged their own mana weapons, preparing for close combat.
The predators had suddenly become the prey—caught between a ground assault of hundreds and the shimmering blade of the Lunar Shadow descending from above.
Eloise gave a slash from his rapier as he dove.
The blade missed Jecob's head by inches.
Recognising the shift in power, Paul released his grip on Kaeli. He stood on blood-spattered ground. His arrogant sneer was faltering. He snapped his fingers and vanished in a blinding flash of yellow light.
He reappeared instantly in mid-air, hovering above the courtyard. Paul extended both arms, and a gargantuan glowing yellow mana dome manifested around him and Jecob. The barrier expanded rapidly, shimmering with arcane power, effectively blocking the Order members from entering the inner perimeter.
"Anyone here who can destroy this?" an Order member shouted, his voice nearly drowned out by crackling fires.
Jennifer was among the reinforcements, her heart hammering as her worry for Eloise intensified.
Seeing the barrier, she didn't hesitate. She channelled her mana, and a pair of translucent, razor-sharp daggers appeared in her hands.
"Use your dimensions to infiltrate the shield!" she urged the unit leaders.
A veteran officer shook his head grimly. "Jennifer, he's stronger than any individual in our unit. Using a Dream Dimension against him would be like sending one person to cage a lion. We need to work together, or we'll be picked off one by one."
"He's right," another member added, tightening his grip on his staff. "They always target high-level officers first. Once the leaders fall, the low-level members retreat in chaos. We must hold formation."
The veteran looked at Jennifer, his expression softening with respect. "I know about your contributions to the Order. As expected of the founder's daughter, you inherited a massive arsenal of mana techniques. That's why you're so valuable to us."
Jennifer's grip on her daggers tightened, her eyes flashing with determination.
"I didn't join the Order to stand around being 'valuable.'" Her voice was steel. "I joined to fight."
Without waiting for permission, Jennifer charged forward.
Rather than merely striking, she channelled her aura into the daggers' tips and impelled them against the dome with all her might.
To the shock of the surrounding officers, the barrier couldn't fully resist her. As her mana collided with Paul's energy, the dome began to groan and bend inward under the sheer weight of her inherited power.
The veterans watched in awe as visible distortions appeared in Paul's defensive magic.
"I don't think this is Mother Lina's power," one whispered, his voice trembling as he felt the sheer aggression of the mana.
"No," the senior officer replied, his gaze sharpening. "This is General Alexander's power. The Baros bloodline."
Inside the dome, Jecob watched the massive wave of Order members closing in. He let out a cold, mocking laugh.
"Come on! These officers are trained with harsh discipline, but we've crushed them like ants!"
Paul gave an evil smile as he looked down at the bend in his dome. He understood what was happening—it was pure Aura, the life force that flows through all living beings.
Suddenly, a barrage of mana spheres hit the dome like rain. Thousands of colourful, carved beams of light struck the surface, creating chains of deafening explosions.
Yet none of them worked.
Only Jennifer was making progress.
Because of the specific alignment of mana and aura, it acted like the same poles of two magnets, pushing through the resistance with raw force rather than finesse.
Wind began to swirl sharply around her as she drove her daggers deeper. Visible cracks began to spiderweb across the yellow dome.
Sensing his barrier was at its limit, Paul's eyes flared. He intensified his own aura, surging with force far more powerful than Jennifer's.
The sudden pressure was so intense it forced Jennifer to stop and stagger backwards, her breath caught in her throat.
Almost. I almost broke through.
But she'd reached her limits.
With a look of pure contempt, Paul stepped out of the dome, ready to crush the mages he considered nothing more than insects.
Eloise saw the opening and immediately attacked.
He swung his Glimmering Rapier at Paul's neck—a strike meant to end the threat instantly.
But with lightning speed, Paul closed the distance before the slash could connect. He reached out and grabbed the blade of the mana sword with his bare hand, the starlight energy sizzling against his palm.
"Speed is your only advantage," Eloise sneered, looking Paul in the eyes.
"As you'll soon discover," Paul replied coldly.
Before Paul could release the starlight stored within the blade, Eloise threw a punch at his face.
Paul dodged effortlessly.
But before Eloise could pull back, Paul's other hand shot out like a serpent, gripping Eloise's throat. He channelled a surge of yellow electricity through his fingertips.
The shock rattled Eloise's bones. He let out a strangled cry, his leathery wings beating violently to break the hold.
With a roar of effort, Eloise slammed his knee into Paul's midsection.
CRACK.
The impact was solid—the sound of cracking ribs echoed through the courtyard. Paul coughed up a spray of dark blood, his grip loosening just enough for Eloise to spin away.
Eloise didn't give him time to recover. He banked in mid-air and came back with a flurry of starlight-infused thrusts.
The Glimmering Rapier moved so fast it looked like a dozen blades attacking at once. Paul dodged and parried with his bare, mana-coated palms, but the intensity of the starlight was beginning to shred his sleeves and sear his skin.
A jagged cut opened across Paul's cheek. Another on his shoulder.
"You're faster than the others," Paul spat, wiping blood from his lip. His eyes held manic, murderous joy. "But speed won't save you from being crushed!"
Paul clapped his hands together, releasing a pulse of kinetic energy that sent Eloise tumbling backwards through the smoke.
Eloise recovered in mid-air, his wings steadying him. He realised he had no other choice.
He had to use his dimension.
The risk was enormous—entering a personal dimension with an opponent gave them access to your soul's landscape, your deepest power source. But staying in the open battlefield put the other Order members at risk.
Eloise snapped his fingers.
"Dead Forest dimension!"
A black sphere surrounded both of them, pulling them into Eloise's personal realm.
Paul's face split into an evil smile. "That's exactly what I wanted."
He'd been waiting for that exact moment of vulnerability.
On the battlefield, Jennifer was still desperately trying to break through the dome. Her entire support group was gathered behind her, healers channelling everything they had to keep her upright.
But the healing wasn't enough to sustain the sheer amount of power she was drawing from her bloodline.
"Jennifer, stop! You're killing yourself!" one of the mages cried out.
Suddenly, Jennifer's strength evaporated completely. She collapsed into unconsciousness, her body hitting the scorched earth as her mana signature flickered and dimmed.
"Jennifer!" Her companions rushed to her side, finding her pale and barely breathing.
"Call more healers!" the commander shouted. "She hasn't used her full power in years—her body can't handle the strain!"
"Oh, you're realising this now?" a nearby member said in fury.
Suddenly, a blinding flash of light erupted at the centre of the battlefield.
The Order members instinctively shielded their eyes with their arms. When the light subsided, a terrifying sight met them—a huge black sphere floating in mid-air, radiating dark, crushing energy.
Jennifer's eyes fluttered open slightly. Her voice was a faint, desperate whisper:
"...Eloise..."
Inside the dimension, the world was a nightmare.
A dead forest stretched into infinity, filled with skeletal trees devoid of leaves. A horrific, swollen full moon hung in a pitch-black sky, casting eerie pale light through thick, suffocating fog.
This was Eloise's dream manifest—the Dead Forest, domain of the Lunar Shadow.
Paul woke on the damp, cold ground and let out a manic laugh.
"Ha... haha! I like it! A cage built of shadows and death!"
He didn't waste a second. He cast his forbidden technique:
"Xishau!"
A vortex of yellow energy appeared around him, greedily absorbing the mana from the dimension itself. By stealing the very essence of the forest, he was draining Eloise's power source—making him weaker with every passing second.
The fog nearby began to swirl violently, coalescing into solid form.
Eloise emerged from the mist, but he was changed.
His hair had turned ghostly, shimmering grey. His canine teeth had elongated into jagged fangs. His eyes glowed with red, feral, predatory hunger.
He looked like a true vampire of legend—no longer pretending to be human, but embracing the monster within.
Eloise spread his massive wings and launched himself with deadly speed.
He was a blur of shadow and silver light.
Paul met him head-on, his hands glowing as he wielded the stolen mana. He began a barrage of high-speed punches, each strike creating massive shockwaves that shattered the dead trees around them.
The combat was visceral and brutal.
Eloise's rapier cut through Paul's shoulder, spraying blood against the white fog. But Paul didn't flinch—he countered with a bone-breaking punch to Eloise's chest.
BOOM!
The sound of the explosion was sickeningly clear in the silent forest.
Eloise was sent flying, coughing up dark blood that stained his grey hair.
But the pain only fueled his rage.
He disappeared into the fog and reappeared behind Paul, slicing through his thigh. Paul roared, spinning around to deliver a series of shockwave-inducing kicks that tore through Eloise's wings.
Feathers of shadow fell like black snow.
They traded blows in a cycle of blood, mana, and broken bone. Paul's speed was legendary, but Eloise was fighting in his own domain—and here, he had the advantage.
Finally, Paul gathered all the stolen mana between his palms.
"This is what I wanted!" he sneered.
In a searing beam of golden light, he focused the essence of the dimension on Eloise.
BOOM!
The beam hit with the force of a falling star, throwing Eloise's body back across the forest. The heat was so intense that his flesh began to sear and burn. He crashed through skeletal trees, igniting them into forests of bone-white fire.
Eloise lay in the ash, his breath almost stopped.
The world seemed to fade to grey.
Outside the dimension, Jennifer jolted awake, screaming into the chaotic night.
"ELOISE!"
Inside the burning woods, Eloise's hand twitched.
Through sheer, obsessive will, he forced himself to stand. His body was still wreathed in flickering flames.
He coughed, blood bubbling at his lips.
"Ha! If I die here...That white-haired rat would make my father crazy... and someone else would take my love, my Jennifer..." His voice was a ragged whisper.
The thought of Jennifer with anyone else ignited something primal within him.
Driven by pure, possessive fury, Eloise launched himself again—a burning man-monster flying through the dead forest.
Paul's eyes widened. A flicker of genuine fear crossed his face.
Fire couldn't stop him. Death couldn't stop him. Even Eloise's wings were now made of tattered flame and shadow.
Paul turned and ran, using his legendary speed to put a mile of distance between them in seconds.
But no matter how fast he ran, the burning shadow was right behind him—matching his pace with relentless, silent fury.
Paul spun around, preparing a final punch, crackling with stolen mana.
Eloise didn't even try to dodge.
He took the hit directly to his chest.
CRACK!
The sound of his sternum shattering echoed through the burning trees.
But the impact gave him exactly what he needed—an opening.
With the last of his strength, Eloise drove the Glimmering Rapier straight through Paul's heart.
The rapier shattered inside Paul's chest, releasing all the stored starlight in a singular, violent explosion of lunar energy.
Paul's eyes widened. Blood came from his mouth.
With a final, choked gasp, the elite member of the Diaftis Order fell still.
But Eloise didn't stop yet. He smashed his fists into Paul's face, over and over again. A monstrous rage was coming from Eloise. Untill paul's body began to dissolve into the grey fog of the dead forest.
The Dead Forest dimension began to collapse.
Eloise stood alone among the burning trees, his body broken, his wings in tatters, blood dripping from countless wounds.
But he was alive.
And his enemy was dead.
The dimension shattered like breaking glass, returning him to the real world.
He manifested above the battlefield, barely able to stay airborne. His wings beat weakly, struggling to keep him aloft. He was so weak that he couldn't hold him and fell to the ground.
Below the shimmering remnants of the yellow dome, Jecob stood his ground. His mana-hand of fire burned brighter than ever as he watched the Lunar Shadow return.
Alone.
For the first time since the battle began, uncertainty flickered across Jecob's face.
"I will have done my work."