The towering figure loomed over Valerius, his piercing gaze cutting through the young warrior like a blade. Slowly, he crouched down, eye level with Valerius, studying him as if peering into his very soul. His eyes flicked to Eryndor, then Ziraiah, before settling back on Valerius.
"Your resemblance is uncanny," he mused, lips curling into a chilling smile. "Let's play a little game."
He turned his head toward Ziraiah, his voice deceptively pleasant.
"Take fifteen steps to the right."
Ziraiah's body moved against her will. Her legs carried her mechanically, step by step, until she stood fifteen paces away, frozen in place.
"Good girl," the man purred.
Then, with terrifying ease, he dug his fingers into the stone ground, ripping out a chunk of rock. His fingers worked with unnatural precision, shaping the stone into a sharp, deadly disc. He held it out to Valerius.
"Take it."
Valerius's hands trembled as he obeyed.
The man's smile widened.
"Now… use this to slice open your sister's chest. With all your might."
Eryndor's eyes bulged. "NO!" he roared, veins straining as he fought against the invisible force holding him. "Valerius, fight it! Restrain yourself! That is your sister!"
Tears streamed down Valerius's face as he took a shuddering step forward. "I… can't…"
Ziraiah's breath hitched as she stared at her brother, confusion and fear twisting her features. "Val? What are you doing?"
Eryndor thrashed, his voice raw with desperation. "DON'T YOU DARE, VALERIUS! FIGHT HIM!"
Valerius raised the stone, his entire body shaking. Tears blurred his vision as he stepped closer, his arm trembling with the effort to resist.
Ziraiah's lips quivered. "Val…?"
The man, still crouched, watched with rapt amusement. Then, just as Valerius's arm began its descent, he murmured, "You can move."
Eryndor exploded into motion.
With speed he had never before achieved, he vanished from his spot—he moved at nearly two hundred metres per second. He lunged, arms outstretched, snatching Ziraiah from harm's way.
But he wasn't fast enough.
The stone blade sheared through Eryndor's armoured leg, cleaving it clean off. Blood sprayed as he crashed to the ground, skidding across the stone with Ziraiah cradled protectively against his chest. His hand pressed over her head, shielding her even as pain wracked his body.
A guttural groan escaped him.
Valerius dropped the stone, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Relief flooded him—until he saw the severed limb lying on the ground.
The man patted Valerius's shoulder, his voice almost approving.
"That's quite the brother you have."
Then—BOOM.
The Black March moved.
In a blur of motion, they seized their chance, fleeing with desperate speed. Beily snatched up Eryndor and Ziraiah, vanishing into the distance.
Valerius remained, frozen in place, left behind.
The man sighed, closing his eyes as if disappointed. "I got so excited, my hold slipped. No matter… they'll all die anyway."
Then his hand settled on Valerius's head, fingers threading through his hair in an almost gentle grip.
"You're going to die here, little Elvhein," he murmured. "But before that…"
He tilted Valerius's head up, forcing their eyes to meet.
"Tell me… how do you have so much Bravo within you?"
The question hung in the air, heavy with dark curiosity.
And Valerius, trembling and broken, had no answer.
---
The Black March came to a stop, thirty miles ahead of the chaos. The air was tense, heavy with the distant echoes of war still raging behind them.
Omfry turned sharply to Beily, who was holding Eryndor and Ziraiah in his arms.
"What's wrong with you? Why did you bring them?" he snapped. "Didn't you see he was after them? He's going to come for them!"
Beily's grip tightened. "Dreados told me to protect them. I'm not leaving them behind."
Omfry's eyes narrowed. "But you left the other one behind. What's your excuse now, huh?"
Beily looked down at the ground, silent for a moment, then met Omfry's eyes with a hardened gaze.
"I couldn't save him," he said quietly. "That man had him."
His voice rose, raw with emotion. "You brought the leporid, so why am I the one getting yelled at?"
Omfry dropped Gustein to the ground and stretched his arms wide as he squatted, yelling, "The leporid is our personal healer! And that man isn't after him. Come on, Beily—think!"
The argument was cut short.
A shriek tore through the air.
A stone disk cut across the battlefield like a reaper's scythe, so fast that friction ignited it mid-flight. The force of its movement split the ground beneath it, the air itself parting in its path.
Omfry barely had time to react. His instincts kicked in—he fortified his belly just as the disk struck.
CRACK!
The impact was devastating. Omfry spat blood as he was blasted backward at sonic speeds, his body flailing like a missile. He crashed through wall after mountain-like wall, smashing through beasts and warriors alike, killing them instantly.
The second floor of the ruin was enormous—divided into massive sections by towering stone ridges. It was nine times the size of the first floor. Omfry hurled through several of them before finally slamming into a silver wall at the ruin's edge—an alloy wall forged of the same material as the ancient fortress. It didn't break, but it dented inward with a heavy, metallic groan.
Omfry and the stone disk fell to the ground.
He coughed, clutching his stomach. Blood poured from a 6 cm-deep wound carved into his abdomen. The strike had nearly split him open.
Beily, blown off his feet by the shockwave of the attack, landed shakily.
Then the beasts came.
They surged toward them—snarling, sprinting, ravenous. And where they stood wasn't far from the Elf King's last position.
One beast bolted toward Beily—unlike anything he'd seen before. It had gorilla-like arms, a huge bone club as a tail, rings of bone encircling its skull, long elbow spikes, a turtle-like armoured shell that let it roll like a wheel.
It did exactly that.
It tucked and spun—barreling forward with terrifying speed.
Beily barely had time to react. "What? Can beasts even move like—"
CRACK!
The beast's tail slammed into his ribs with bone-cracking force, obliterating his stance and hurling him through the air like a broken weapon. Ziraiah and Eryndor were torn from his grasp, their bodies crashing against the blood-soaked earth. Their suits carved deep, jagged trenches into the ground upon impact. Eryndor's skull split open as he struck the stone, consciousness slipping from him in a stream of crimson. Ziraiah's helmet shattered completely, fragments scattering like glass lost to the wind.
Gustein was caught in the same shockwave. He bounced across the ground, rolling until he finally came to a stop. Dazed, his vision blurred, his helmet interface fried. He yanked it off just as—
BOOM!
A massive foot slammed down next to him, shaking the ground.
Gustein screamed and scrambled up, his heavy frame sprinting faster than anyone his size should have been able to move. Behind him, a monstrous creature gave chase—thirty feet tall, red-skinned, with the body of a deep-sea fish fused onto two enormous humanoid legs. Its gaping mouth opened wide.
It nearly stomped him—once, twice, three times.
Then more beasts burst through the walls, joining the pursuit.
Gustein's breath came in ragged gasps as he ran for his life. "Damn it all!" he cursed, leaping over the corpse of a fallen warrior. "Ever since I met those damn kids, my life's been nothing but shit! Curse you, Quihote!"
A shadow loomed over him.
A massive beast lunged—its fangs just inches from his throat.
Then—
SLASH!
A single blade sliced the air, Anuels blade, cleaving the monster clean in half. The impact created a shockwave that rippled across the battlefield, sending bodies and stone flying like leaves in a storm.
The leporid didn't stop to look.
He just kept running, rage boiling beneath every step.
This isn't how it was supposed to go. I was supposed to be free.
---
Far away…
Ziraiah's eyes fluttered open, unfocused and dazed. Her helmet was gone—obliterated. Her suit lay in tatters around her frame, the plating cracked and scorched. Blood trailed down her temple in a thin, glistening line, warm against the cold breath of the ruin. Every breath hurt. Every sound was distant. But she was alive.
She looked around—chaos everywhere—and spotted Eryndor lying motionless on the ground.
Her heart dropped.
"Eryndor!" she screamed, scrambling across the broken stone toward him. "Eryndor, wake up! Please, wake up!"
She dropped to her knees beside him, her voice breaking.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, mixing with the blood on his face.
He didn't respond.
His right leg was gone—severed below the knee. A gap in his skull, brain barely visible.
His armour was shattered. His body—a mess of wounds and bruises—was barely recognisable.
She clutched him desperately, shielding his limp form from the chaos around them.
Then—
BOOM.
The ground erupted.
A shockwave thundered across the ruin, tearing the terrain apart. Ziraiah and Eryndor were thrown into the air like feathers in a storm.
Beneath them, the land cracked wide open—massive stone chunks crumbling into the abyss.
And they fell.
Tumbling into the darkness below.
---
Meanwhile, not far away—
Jeriana fought like a cornered flame, blood streaking down her face, armour cracked and dented. Her body crashed into broken pillars as she was hurled by the force of yet another monstrous blow. All around her, beasts circled—larger, more vicious than anything they had faced before. She gritted her teeth, her vision swimming, her legs trembling beneath her.
A shadow loomed above her.
A hulking beast raised its massive foot and slammed it toward her chest—She screamed in pain.
"Saly!!" Jeriana screamed.
Flames burst into the air.
Her lion spirit surged into existence with a deafening roar, pouncing onto the beast and knocking it aside in a blaze of fire. Jeriana gasped in relief, the heat of the spirit washing over her like a battle hymn. For a moment, she believed the tide had turned.
But then—they came.
More beasts. Bigger. Smarter.
They surrounded the flame lion with terrifying coordination. And to Jeriana's horror—they could touch it.
A massive snake-like creature with scaled arms lunged forward, wrapping its thick tail around the spirit's body. It spun in place and slammed the lion to the ground. Then again. And again. It hurled the spirit into jagged rock walls, then flung it through the air like a broken toy.
Before the spirit could recover—BOOM.
A humanoid beast leapt high into the air, its massive frame wrapped in matted green fur. It clenched both fists and hammered the lion down with a double punch that sent shockwaves through the ruin.
Jeriana staggered. "W-What… how can they touch saly?"
The spirit hit the ground hard, only to be met by another humanoid—this one wielding a great club of bone and steel. It grinned with jagged teeth and swung. The blow cracked against the lion's ribs, launching it across the battlefield.
They were massive—twenty feet tall, fur-covered monsters with intelligent eyes and terrifying strength. Some wielded primitive weapons; others moved with a wild precision that spoke of training.
One grabbed another by the arm, spun, and launched him through the air. The second beast tucked mid-spin and kicked the flame lion with both legs, sending it spiralling backward—
Straight into the path of another beast waiting with a two-handed sword.
Jeriana's heart stopped.
"No…!"
The blade rose.
And fell.
The ground split open from the force of the slash, fire and dust exploding into the air as the battlefield quaked beneath the fury.
Before Jeriana could react, a lance-nosed beast shot through her abdomen and burst from her back. Blood sprayed as she was lifted off her feet.
The very next moment—a blur.
A humanoid beast appeared beside Jeriana, massive and brutal, its fists already cocked back. With a monstrous uppercut, it drove its knuckles into her ribs.
CRACK.
Jeriana was launched skyward like a ragdoll, her scream ripped from her throat as her body slammed into a stone wall. The impact echoed like a cannon, and rubble rained down around her.
Before she could slide to the ground, the beast was already there.
Its hands slammed against her pinned form, claws carving through the wall like paper. Jeriana barely had time to react—she caught both claws inches from her skull, her fingers trembling with effort.
But she was weak.
Wounded.
Bleeding.
The beast pushed harder.
And then—searing agony. One claw punched through her defences, piercing her left eye.
Her scream shattered the air.
Blood poured down her face as her vision spun. Through the blur, through the haze of pain—she saw them.
Ziraiah.
Eryndor.
Falling into the abyss.
And she screamed again—not in pain, but in defiance.
"We can't let them die! Save them, Beily!!"
Anuel bolted forward, a blur of fury and grace. With both legs, she struck the humanoid beast square in the chest, the impact launching it backwards through the air—away from Jeriana. She didn't pause. Her momentum flowed into the next assault. Drawing her sword in a fluid arc, she tore into the second machine with ruthless precision. Throats split open. Hearts were pierced. Ligaments severed mid-motion. She moved like a storm wrapped in lightning—silent, surgical, and too fast for the eye to follow.
---
Across the battlefield, Beily lay crumpled amidst shattered rock, his limbs twitching, breath ragged. But Jeriana's voice—sharp, raw, real—reached through the haze like a beacon.
His eyes snapped open.
His body surged.
One heartbeat, and he was gone.
His silhouette blurred into motion, tearing across the battlefield with renewed fury. Beasts stood in his way—they fell. Some he struck down in a blur of fists. Others he flung aside like toys, clearing a path in a storm of blood and broken bodies.
Then—
BOOM.
He leapt.
The ground cratered beneath his feet from the force of his takeoff. Dust and debris erupted as his four powerful arms smashed through the ruin's ceiling. He launched himself like a missile—stone crumbling in his wake—as he soared toward the lightless void below.
And then—he fell.
Straight down.
Through the abyss.
His keen eyes locked onto their forms, tumbling like dolls into darkness.
Got them.
His arms wrapped tightly around Eryndor and Ziraiah, bracing them to his chest.
As the three continued to plunge, Beily thrust one foot down—summoning a glowing green energy disk below.
The moment it appeared, he launched upward.
The force of the ascent cracked the cavern open like thunder. Columns shook. Dust spiralled.
And then—
A blur from the shadows.
A Lycan.
He had felt Beily's ascent. Anticipated it.
With a roar of vengeance, he hurled himself forward.
"You're going to pay for killing my comrades, you bastard!"
Just as Beily burst out of the abyss—
The Lycan struck.
SHLK.
Beily gasped.
He looked down—a wolf-like hand had pierced through his chest. One of his hearts destroyed.
Blood splattered into the air, the momentum freezing for one heart-stopping instant.
Behind him, the Lycan grinned. Savage. Triumphant.
But Beily wasn't finished.
Not yet.
Beily turned his head, breath ragged—and saw him.
The Lycan.
Smiling.
Maliciously.
The beast's snout curled in a sneer, his fangs bared with vicious glee. "After you die," he growled, "I'm going to take those Elvheins. Every... last... one."
Blood burst from Beily's mouth in sputtering coughs.
But his eyes—his eyes were burning.
With fury.
With resolve.
With defiance.
Without hesitation, Beily slammed his forehead into the Lycan's face with a crack that echoed like a war drum. The beast reeled back, stunned.
Beily bellowed, voice raw and desperate:
"ANUEL!"
Then—he threw the siblings.
With every ounce of strength left in his shredded body, he hurled Ziraiah and Eryndor into the air like precious cargo aimed for salvation.
The Lycan's eyes widened.
Beily twisted in midair, grabbing the arm still lodged through his own chest.
He gritted his teeth, blood dripping from his chin.
"I guess..." he snarled, "our time in this world is finished."
The Lycan's expression faltered. "What? What are you doing?!"
Beily grinned through the pain. "Going out… with a bang."
---
Anuel moved.
She exploded forward—so fast the very air cracked.
Her figure blurred through smoke and ruin, bounding off the shattered stone, momentum building like a blade of lightning. She twisted mid-leap, arms outstretched—
Caught them.
Eryndor in one arm.
Ziraiah in the other.
She landed and kept running—her feet barely touching ground, her figure streaking through the wreckage like a phantom, racing against death itself.
---
Above the abyss—
Beily hovered.
For a moment, he looked at the void below.
Then—
Beily, still clutching the beast's limb with both hands, eyes burning with grim resolve, twisted mid-air, his body rotated violently, until his back and the Lycan faced the depths below. His feet pointed skyward as a glowing green disk formed beneath them—solid, pulsing with gathered force.
With a final roar, he pushed off. The disk erupted beneath him in a shockwave of green energy, propelling him like a missile. He hurled himself downward, dragging the Lycan with him, deeper into the abyss.
The Lycan shrieked, claws flailing.
"LET GO! YOU'LL KILL US BOTH!"
Beily's veins began to glow—a deep, burning red—as his laughter shook the wind.
The Lycan screamed, "CURSE YOU, YOU SUICIDAL BASTARD!"
Beily's voice echoed as the abyss swallowed them:
"SEE YOU IN HELL!"
Sumshus sentinel tingled, he felt what was happening to Beily and used his twister to blow Jeriana way from the blast radius.
The explosion that followed shook that entire section of the ruin. A sphere of crimson energy expanded outward, vaporizing everything within a thousand meters. The shockwave tore through stone and flesh alike, sending Anuel and her precious cargo tumbling through the air like leaves in a storm.
For one blinding moment, the battlefield was consumed in red light. Then silence.
When the dust settled, only devastation remained. The once-proud ruins now bore a massive crater where Beily had made his final stand. The beasts that had surrounded them were gone - reduced to ashes by the force of his sacrifice.
Anuel landed hard, her body curled protectively around the unconscious siblings. As she lifted her head to survey the destruction, a single thought echoed through her mind:
Beily was gone.
She turned her head—and there was Jeriana, tumbling helplessly across the ground, caught in the fading remnants of Sumshus's twister. Her momentum ended with a brutal crash as her body slammed into a massive boulder, the impact echoing through the ruin.
To be Continued...