Eloise Josephine was falling.
A broken silhouette against the moon he had once commanded, he plummeted from the sky like a dying star.
His body was a map of agony. The fire Paul had ignited within the Dead Forest dimension still clung to his flesh, though the rushing wind began to snuff out the external flames as he fell. His magnificent bat wings—once symbols of power and terror—were now nothing but charred, skeletal frames, useless for flight.
He hit the earth with a sickening thud. A cloud of ash and dust billowed upward, swallowing his broken form.
For a moment, all members went silent.
Then Jennifer moved.
She ran.
"ELOISE!"
Her scream tore through the smoke-filled air as she sprinted across the scorched battlefield, her heart screaming before her voice could form words.
She reached the impact crater and fell to her knees. What she saw made her breath catch in her throat. It was disturbing—a vision of death barely held at bay.
His body was unrecognisable. His pale skin was charred to deep, necrotic black in patches, cracked open to reveal raw, pulsing red muscle and gleaming white bone beneath.
His wings were skeletal frames of tattered membrane, still smouldering in the dirt.
"No, no, no..." Jennifer's hands shook violently as she hovered them over his chest, afraid to touch him, afraid she'd hurt him worse. "Eloise, please..."
"Rizas!" she cast her healing spell. She cried out, her voice breaking.
Dark roots spread around his body. Eloise's charred chest gave a shallow, rattling breath. But her mana was weakened. It was not enough to heal Eloise's deep wound.
"Please... no... not like this." Tears carved clean tracks through the soot on her face. She poured the very last of her life force into the spell, her own vision beginning to blur from mana depletion. "I won't let you go. Eloise, stay with me!"
His hand—a trembling mass of blackened skin and dried blood—twitched in the dust.
With an effort that seemed to defy nature itself, he reached up and gripped Jennifer's wrist.
His touch was hot. The friction of his burned skin against hers sent a jolt of reality through her panic.
His eyes fluttered open—no longer glowing with supernatural light, but clouded with pain and exhaustion.
"Jennifer..." His voice was a dry rasp, barely audible. "Please... go from here."
"I'm not leaving you!" she sobbed, pressing her palms harder against his chest. "Don't you dare ask me to leave you!"
Around them, the morale of the Order members began to crumble.
Seeing their strongest fighter in such a state—the legendary Lunar Shadow reduced to a broken, dying thing in the dirt—shattered the spirit of the remaining mages.
"We have to retreat!" one member ordered, backing away from the lingering smoke. "Now! Before they finish us all!"
"But the Master is still inside the dome!" a commander countered, pointing toward the ruins. "Jecob is still there—he's a grave danger to everyone! We can't leave while he's alive!"
"Look at what happened to our best warrior!"
"We need reinforcements! More healers! More combat mages!"
The argument raged as panic spread through the ranks like wildfire.
A group of high-level healers finally broke through the chaos, rushing to the crater. They knelt around Eloise in a circle, their hands glowing with a dozen different hues as they layered specialised healing mana over Jennifer's failing healing spell.
The air hummed with concentrated restorative energy. The temperature around them dropped as the healers worked to cool the burns and begin the agonising process of knitting flesh back together.
Slowly—painfully slowly—colour began returning to Eloise's charred skin. As the combined mana stabilised him, Eloise's voice gained a sliver of strength.
"Jennifer..." He squeezed her wrist weakly. "I'm okay now. The healers are here. Please... go to a safe zone."
Jennifer stood up slowly, her entire body trembling from mana depletion.
She looked down at him—at his burned face, his ruined wings, his broken body.
Then she looked toward the yellow dome still shimmering in the distance.
She was trapped in a crushing dilemma.
Every instinct she possessed screamed at her to stay by his side, to hold his hand until he was truly safe. Her love for him was an anchor, pulling her toward the crater with magnetic force.
But she could also see her comrades beyond the dome—officers who had looked at her with respect, who were now being slaughtered or forced into humiliating retreat. She could feel the heavy legacy of General Alexander Baros stirring in her veins, demanding she honour the warrior bloodline she carried.
If she stayed here, she was just a grieving woman watching the man she loved die. If she fought, she was the daughter of the greatest warrior the World of Souls had ever known.
She looked at Eloise's burned face one last time. A tear fell from her cheek onto his hand, hissing slightly against his still-hot skin.
I can't be useless anymore, she whispered.
The decision tore at her heart, but she made it anyway. Choosing duty over love, Jennifer turned away from the crater.
She wiped the soot and tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. Her daggers materialised in her grip, the blades humming with dark energy. Her aura began to flare once more—cold, aggressive, radiating the focused violence of the Baros bloodline.
She wasn't going to a safe zone.
She was going back to finish what they'd started.
Jennifer walked toward the yellow dome with measured steps, her silhouette cutting through the smoke and ash.
Dozens of Order members rallied behind Jennifer, their weapons raised, their mana flaring to life. Together, they charged toward the yellow dome.
Inside the dome, Jecob watched them coming. He raised his fire-hand, preparing to incinerate the charging Order members.
"Just burn them all."
A voice cut through the smoke behind him.
Jecob spun around, his eyes widening.
Richard stood up from where he'd been left for dead among the corpses. His armour was cracked, his face covered in blood and soot, but his eyes burned with defiant fury.
"Why aren't you dead yet?" Jecob snarled.
"To handle morons like you." Richard spat blood onto the scorched ground. "A man gave me this fucking duty, and I intend to see it through."
"Let's see if you can even save yourself." Jecob's fire-hand blazed brighter.
"I'm not that strong," Richard admitted, then pointed with his eyes toward something behind Jecob. "But that furious young lady over there has killed more enemies than you have—and she's half your age."
Jecob turned back sharply.
Kaeli was on her knees.
But she wasn't broken.
Glowing mana particles swirled around her entire body like a storm of light. Her hands trembled—not from fear, but from barely contained rage.
Her eyes blazed with the same fierce determination her mother was famous for.
SNAP!
The sound came from behind Jecob.
Richard had snapped his fingers. His Illumina Sword materialised in his hand, the blade of pure light blazing like a captured star.
Jecob was caught between them—Richard behind, Kaeli in front, and hundreds of Order members charging from all sides.
For the first time, genuine fear flickered across his face.
Kaeli stood slowly, her entire body trembling with power.
She thought about her father's worried face. Her mother's cold acceptance. The dead officers around her. Richard's battered but unyielding form.
All the fear, all the doubt, all the hesitation—it burned away in the furnace of her fury.
"Lumia!"
Multiple portals tore open around Jecob—six, seven, eight of them, each one a gateway to pure mana.
But these weren't like before.
These were bigger. More violent. Crackling with barely controlled power.
Intense, raw energy flowed from the portals, converging on Kaeli's outstretched hands. The concentrated mana sphere she formed blazed so brightly it hurt to look at it directly.
"This is for everyone you killed," Kaeli said, her voice cold as death.
She hurled the sphere directly at Jecob.
At the same moment, Richard charged from behind, his Illumina Sword raised for a killing strike.
But Jecob was an elite of the Diaftis Order.
He didn't reach his position by giving up when cornered.
His eyes blazed with defiant fury as Kaeli's mana sphere screamed toward him. With a roar that shook the air itself, he cast his counter-spell:
"VOLCAN!"
The ground beneath him erupted.
Five massive pillars of molten magma burst from the earth, surrounding Jecob in a pentagonal formation. The heat was so intense that the air shimmered and distorted, turning the battlefield into a vision of hell.
Jecob covered himself with an orange mana sphere—a barrier of concentrated fire energy that pulsed with volcanic heat.
Magma roots connected to the mana sphere.
Kaeli's attack struck the barrier.
BOOM!
The impact was tremendous, but the orange sphere held. The explosion dissipated harmlessly against Jecob's defences.
Before Richard or Kaeli could react, the magma pillars began to move.
From each pillar, massive fireballs launched into the air—dozens of them, streaking across the sky like falling stars before crashing down onto the battlefield.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions erupted across the courtyard. The ground shattered. Stone walls collapsed. Fire spread in every direction.
Richard grabbed Kaeli and dove behind a broken pillar as a fireball obliterated the ground where they'd just been standing.
"Richard, things are getting worse!" Kaeli shouted over the roar of explosions.
Richard's mind raced. They couldn't break through Jacob's defences from the inside. The magma pillars made close combat suicide. And every second they waited, more Order members were dying from the bombardment.
Then an idea struck him.
A crazy, desperate, probably-suicidal idea.
But it was the only idea he had.
"Kaeli!" He grabbed her shoulders, looking her in the eyes. "Protect me!"
Before she could ask what he meant, Richard sprinted toward the side of the dome where Jennifer was still trying to break through from outside.
"Have you lost your mind?!" Jennifer shouted when she saw him running straight toward the barrier that had repelled all her attacks.
"Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer!" Richard yelled back, dodging another fireball explosion. "This is the only way to destroy this dome sooner!"
"Where did you get this insane idea?!"
"Thanks to Johan, who created this method!"
Jennifer's eyes widened in understanding. She knew exactly what technique Richard was talking about—a suicidal tactic Johan had developed during a past mission, using attacks from both sides of a barrier simultaneously to create a resonance effect that would shatter it from within.
It required perfect timing.
And it usually killed the person on the inside.
Suddenly, a massive fireball streaked toward Richard's back.
WHOOSH!
Kaeli appeared, her hands forming a shimmering blue mana shield. The fireball struck her barrier and exploded harmlessly, though the force of the blast sent her skidding backwards.
"I've got you!" Kaeli shouted, maintaining her shield despite the strain.
Other officers who had been hiding in cover saw what was happening. They saw Richard's desperate gambit. They saw Kaeli protecting him with everything she had.
And they made their choice.
"Sir!" A veteran officer emerged from behind debris, his mana flaring to life. "We're here to do our duty! We can't let our comrades sacrifice themselves alone!"
"For the Order!" another shouted, adding his shield to Kaeli's.
More officers rushed forward, forming a protective wall around Richard with their combined barriers. Fireballs rained down on them, but they held firm—dozens of mages working as one.
Richard reached the dome's edge. He placed the edge of his sword against the yellow barrier, feeling its energy thrumming beneath his hands.
"Jennifer!" he shouted. "On my mark!"
Jennifer understood. She gathered every last drop of her remaining mana, channelling it into her daggers. The blades blazed with dark light—the full power of the Baros bloodline concentrated into two points.
"NOW!"
Richard released all his stored mana directly into the dome from the inside.
Jennifer struck from the outside with everything she had.
The two forces collided within the barrier itself.
CRACK!
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the cracks began to spread—not slowly, but explosively, racing across the yellow surface like lightning.