Grey
The coppery tang of blood filled my mouth, a metallic counterpoint to the pervasive stench of smoke, charred wood, and something sickly-sweet—burning pastries from the ruined bakery. Pain was a symphony conducted by broken ribs, screaming leg muscles from the Burst Step recoil, and the deep, throbbing ache where Dawn's Ballad's rebound had hammered my shoulder.
Agony was fuel, yes, but it was also a relentless fog threatening to cloud my focus. Through it, Draneeve's mocking voice cut like a rusty blade.
"Oh, Great Vritra, forgive the… unorthodox tactics." He gestured theatrically towards the hooded figure who had materialized the crimson shield—the Shield.
The Alacryan's smile was back, wider than ever, tinged with a manic relief that curdled my blood. He hadn't expected that defense either. He'd been as surprised as I was. That meant uncertainty. A variable I could exploit.
'Papa! I'm coming!' Sylvie's mental cry, fierce and protective, was a lifeline in the storm.
Good, I sent back, the thought sharpening my resolve through the haze of pain. I take the Shield. You hit Draneeve. We end this. Her answering hum vibrated in my mind, a draconic growl of assent.
Draneeve, sensing the shift, snapped his fingers. A wall of superheated air, visible as a rippling, distorting curtain, erupted between me and the Shield. An attempt to cut me off. Predictable. Pain screamed in my legs as I pushed off the rubble-strewn ground, leaping over the burning barrier.
The heat seared my boots, the updraft threatening to throw me off balance. My ribs protested violently, a white-hot spike driving into my lung with every jarring movement. Ignore it. Move.
I landed in a roll that sent fresh waves of agony through my battered body, coming up within striking distance of the Shield. He was already turning, hands weaving, crimson runes flickering around his fingers as he prepared another defensive spell. No time.
Rotating my torso, ignoring the grinding protest of cracked bone, I channeled wind mana downwards, pushing off the air itself. I became a human projectile, Dawn's Ballad leading the charge.
Ice and Soulfire. Opposing forces, bound by sheer will. Frost spread from my hands up the teal blade, intricate fractal patterns forming, while simultaneously, the chilling, soul-erasing black flames of Soilfire ignited along its length. The fusion was volatile, unstable, demanding absolute focus I could barely spare.
Thunderclap Impulse surged through my nervous system, sharpening the world into painful clarity. Realmheart painted the scene in overwhelming hues—the Shield's panicked mana signature, the dense crimson lattice of his defensive runes flaring to life, the sickly purple-black of Draneeve's corrupted power nearby. The Shield's mouth opened, the beginning of a chant forming in the vibrant blue of air mana.
He was too slow.
"Bloodfrost Hex!"
The spell wasn't elegant. It was raw, brutal expulsion. Dawn's Ballad slammed forward, not just as a blade, but as a conduit. A wave of pure, annihilating cold fused with withering soul-death erupted from the point of impact. It wasn't a cut; it was an unmaking.
The ice flash-froze the Shield's hastily forming crimson barrier, crystallizing it instantly. Then the Soulfire hit. The frozen shield didn't shatter; it simply… dissolved. Like smoke. The wave continued, washing over the Shield himself. His choked cry was cut off instantly.
I whirled, breath ragged, blood trickling from the corner of my mouth, Dawn's Ballad still humming with the residual, dangerous fusion. Draneeve stood frozen, his theatrical smile replaced by genuine, wide-eyed shock. His gaze flickered between the spot where his Shield had ceased to exist and me.
"You…" he stammered, the smooth confidence shattered. "You actually killed an Alacryan… Great Vritra." The title now sounded hollow, almost questioning.
The dam broke. The pain, the fury, the relentless pressure of Agrona's shadow, the violation of my own blood—it erupted in a snarl that tore at my raw throat.
"You finally understand?!" I deflected a half-hearted combustion blast aimed at my head with a contemptuous flick of Dawn's Ballad, the ice shearing the fire apart. "I will kill every single one of you! I will carve a path through your pathetic legions until I stand before Agrona himself! And I will make him pay! For Sylvia! For every life he's shattered! For everything!"
Draneeve flinched. Genuine fear, primal and instinctive, flashed in his eyes. He unleashed a barrage of combustions now, frantic, desperate, no longer aiming strategically at civilians or structures, but at me. Wild, panicked blasts of superheated air detonated around me, forcing me back, shattering rubble, turning the street into a cratered moonscape.
He was fighting not to win, but to survive the monster—the Vritra scion who defied his Sovereigns. The conditioning of a lifetime—fear, reverence, awe for the blood—warred with the terror of annihilation.
Through the smoke and explosions, I saw her. Sylvie. A streak of pure, radiant white against the hellish backdrop. She descended like a comet, wings folded, claws outstretched. Draneeve, sensing the new threat, tried to bolt, scrambling towards a still-standing alleyway. He didn't get three steps.
THOOM!
Sylvie slammed down with earth-shattering force, her powerful black dragon claws pinning Draneeve flat against the shattered cobblestones. He screamed, a raw sound of pain and terror, struggling futilely against the immense, ancient power radiating from her young form. She wasn't Sylvia, not yet, but the primordial fury of dragons, the protective rage for her 'Papa', thrummed in the air, making the very flames seem to cower.
I limped forward, every step sending jolts of agony through my leg. Dawn's Ballad, its teal light flickering erratically, the fused ice and Soulfire finally dissipating, pointed unerringly at Draneeve's forehead. The tip rested against his skin, cold steel promising oblivion.
"Recall your attack," I ordered, my voice a low rasp, thick with pain and iron will. My boot pressed down on his pinned leg, eliciting another choked cry. "Withdraw the magic caging the Academy. Now."
He writhed, spitting blood. "Gr-Great Vritra… traitor!" The word 'traitor' seemed foreign, blasphemous on his tongue. "I should… inform you… Lukiyah is moving… on the elven princess…"
Lukiyah. The name struck like a physical blow. Lucas. Of course. The pieces clicked with horrifying clarity. The enhanced power, the madness, the timing. Draneeve hadn't just unleashed beasts; he'd unleashed a corrupted weapon inside the Academy, targeting Tessia. My blood ran cold, colder than any ice spell.
"WITHDRAW THE BARRIER!" The roar tore from me, raw and desperate. I leaned weight onto the sword, the tip breaking skin, a bead of blood welling on Draneeve's forehead. I pressed my boot down harder on his leg, feeling bone grind beneath the sole. "NOW!"
"I am afraid… I cannot… do th—" he gasped.
I didn't let him finish. With a savage twist of my wrist, I drove Dawn's Ballad downwards, not into his skull, but angling it towards his core region, nestled beneath his ribs. Alacryans used runes, yes, but the core was the anchor, the wellspring. Sever it, damage it critically, and the runes were useless.
The blade sank in an inch, just enough to pierce flesh, to graze the outer layers of that vital energy center. Soulfire flickered faintly along the edge, a silent, chilling promise of what would come next. Draneeve shrieked, a sound of pure, animal terror. The fear of a man facing not just death, but the erasure of his very power.
"I need you alive," I hissed, the cold fury in my voice more terrifying than any shout. "So you will stay here." I met Sylvie's blazing golden eyes. "Hold him. If he so much as twitches wrong… end him."
Turning away from the pinned Alacryan, the agony in my legs and ribs flared into white-hot agony. Every breath was a knife. I swayed, bracing myself against Dawn's Ballad driven point-first into the ground.
'Papa! You're injured!' Sylvie's worry flooded the bond, thick with fear for me.
Don't worry, I sent back, forcing strength into the mental link I didn't physically possess. Tessia… the students… we have to get to the Academy. The red dome pulsed malevolently in the distance, a cage holding everything I needed to protect someone this time.
Gritting my teeth, I forced one foot in front of the other, a hobbling, agonizing march towards the barrier, towards the chaos within. The city burned around me, screams echoed, but my world narrowed to the pain of movement and the desperate need to reach her.
Then, I saw it.
A streak across the smoke-choked sky. Not Sylvie's graceful arc. This was… different. Blunt. Brutal. Like a cannonball fired from some celestial siege engine. It wasn't flying with purpose; it was falling. Plummeting with terrifying speed and mass, trailing smoke and fire like a comet, but its trajectory was unmistakable—straight towards the heart of the Academy, towards the pulsing red dome.
My exhausted mind, battered by pain and adrenaline, struggled to process. Not a Lance. Their flight was controlled, powerful. This was… ballistic. A missile. But the scale… it was enormous.
I squinted, Realmheart flaring weakly despite the strain. Through the smoke and glare, details resolved. Not just a falling rock. A shape. Angular, metallic, reflecting the hellfire below. Legs… arms… a crude, blocky torso. It looked… like…
Impossible.
A memory, buried deep from my life as King Grey, surfaced—ancient Earth fiction. Pulp magazines. Giant machines piloted by humans. Mechas.
And hurtling towards the Academy, wreathed in the fire of atmospheric re-entry, was something that looked terrifyingly like one.
Corvis?
The name slammed into me with the force of the falling machine. Only Corvis possessed that blend of impossible knowledge and sheer, reckless audacity. Only he would arrive not on wings, but by being catapulted across the sky. The sheer, absurd, terrifying spectacle of it cut through the pain, the desperation, leaving me momentarily stunned. He was here. Throwing himself into the inferno. In that.
Hope, fierce and desperate, warred with utter disbelief as I watched the impossible machine scream towards its impact point.
Corvis Eralith
The world outside the Barbarossa's reinforced viewport was a blur of rushing wind and gathering firelight as Xyrus City hurtled towards us—a floating island consumed by an inferno. Romulos's voice cut through the cockpit's low thrum, sharp with mock-concern.
"I'd tell you to brace for impact, but impact feels like a gentle euphemism. Are you absolutely certain this rust-bucket won't disintegrate on contact?"
My fingers flew over the control array, mana-charged glyphs flaring under my touch. "The frame can't withstand the kinetic transfer alone," I admitted, the words clipped. Adrenaline sharpened my focus into a needlepoint. "But the protective runes can reroute the force. We channel it outward—through the air and ground. Turn collision into controlled expulsion."
"Someone below is going to be paste if you miscalculate—"
"Everything is controlled," I snapped, cutting him off. The ghost of Arthur's training with the Dicathian Elders flickered in my mind—especially the lesson on kinetic redirection by Elder Buhndemog.
"We're not hitting the dome. We're punching a hole through it. A kinetic cannon blast, focused. Pure physics, not magic. The runes hold as long as the opposing force isn't actively enchanted beyond their threshold."
Like Olfred's dying strike. The unspoken comparison hung heavy. This was a gamble, but kinetic force… it was raw, predictable. Brutal. And brutality was a language the Barbarossa understood.
Romulos chuckled, a dark, unsettling sound. "Oh, I adore this look on your face, Corvis. Pure, delicious desperation. Let's have some fun, shall we?"
I ignored him, the taunt washing over me like smoke. Sanity was a thread I clung to by sheer will. Below, Xyrus resolved into horrific clarity through the Dark Visor's enhanced display. Flames devoured districts, painting the floating island in hellish oranges and blacks.
Mana signatures flared like dying stars—Grey's dense, shadowed power and Sylvie's vibrant, ancient pulse were clear, battling near the city's edge.
"Sylv?" Romulos's voice turned glacial, devoid of its usual mocking lilt.
"No," I breathed, my own chest tightening. The Dark Visor scanned the pulsing crimson dome encasing the Academy grounds. Nothing. Its barrier wasn't just physical; it was a magical null-field, smothering signatures within.
My hand closed around the primary control yoke, the Mana Wreath's activation sequence humming beneath my palm.
Now. I ignited it. Pure, blinding white energy—Sylvia's legacy—erupted along the massive blade held in the Barbarossa's fist, transforming it into a searing lance of annihilating light.
"Are those… corrupted mana beasts?" Romulos murmured, genuine surprise coloring his tone as the Visor highlighted twisted, winged shapes swarming inside the dome's perimeter. Monstrous hybrids, feathered and chitinous, diving on panicked figures below.
No time for horror. I wrenched the Barbarossa's arm forward in a brutal, overhead hammer-blow. Not a cut. A strike. The Mana Wreath, blazing with raw, channeled power, slammed into the crimson hexagons. The impact wasn't sound; it was a silence that swallowed the world for a microsecond, followed by a deafening CRACK that vibrated through the exoform's bones.
The dome didn't just part; it exploded inward, shards of crimson energy dissolving like snowflakes under the sun.
The barrier fell. And the Dark Visor… screamed.
Familiar signatures flooded the display, weak, flickering, drowning. Claire's bright, determined spark—faltering. Curtis's steady, watery pulse—fading fast. Emily's unique hum—frighteningly faint.
And Tessia…
Tessia.
Her signature wasn't just weak. It was guttering. A candle flame in a hurricane, sputtering, dimming beneath a crushing wave of corrupted, fire-aspected mana that reeked of Wykes arrogance and something profoundly alien.
Dying. She was dying.
Something inside me—the cold strategist, the cautious prince, the boy who calculated every risk—shattered.
Reason didn't just leave my body. It was incinerated. Obliterated by a supernova of primal terror and white-hot rage that flooded every synapse, every muscle fiber, every shred of my being. The cockpit vanished. The controls vanished. Romulos's sharp intake of breath vanished. There was only the Visor's horrifying readout, the fading light of my sister's life force, and the all-consuming, volcanic need to reach her.
NOW.
The Barbarossa stopped being a machine. It became an extension of my fury, my desperation, a colossus plummeting not just towards the Academy grounds, but towards the source of that dying light, ready to tear the world apart to reach her.