Lia turned around—her tears filled eyes stared at the Sect master and Andre with pure hatred—This is your brother Damon, protect him. The kind smile on her mother's face appeared to her—besides her mother was her father, proudly watching over them.
I promised... I promised I'll protect you. Lia placed Damon on the ground and her flames carefully wrapped around him—She got to her feet and took slow steps towards the clearing where Borr and Andre were at, the blood flame pillar having disappeared when she unleashed the Phoenix—her wings flattered and multiple shards-like feathers rained on the two from the distance.
Borr commanded his blood art to create a shield around him to absorb the attacks—the shards pierced through the sphere but something he did not expect happened, the shield instead of holding up began to crumble—Borr was forced to drop the shield and quickly deflect the shards with his sword.
Andre was not fairing better than his father—the feathers were not giving him time to prepare for spacial jump, spatial cleave was slow as well as the barrage came too fast for space to work—forcefields were useless from what he observed, the shards would just destabilize the core holding the shield, the only thing to do was to blast the shards and he did just that.
The barrage stopped and Lia let out a bird-like call—the flames around her shot outward In a wall of blue that covered the entirety of the front in front of Borr and Andre.
CRESENT BLOOD CLOT
SILVER CHARIOT
Both Andre and Borr prepared to face the incoming blast—Borr swung his sword from top to bottom sending a compressed wave of blood which split the wave of fire coming at her into two—Andre charged the blast again and punched the air sending a blue beam at the flames causing them to explode—the explosion released a massive backlash that uprooted the trees, uprooted the buildings sending them flying and it flung all three people away from the center.
Lia ceremoniously came to a stop—tears flowing down her face. She gave command to the flames that cradled around Damon's body to fly up and she flew beside it. She clutched her head and let out a loud screech that was felt throughout the mountain and the valley below—it created a ripple in the leylines causing a temporary deactivation of Neuro-Qi—turning her gaze to the two, she commanded her wings to shoot massive spheres of fire using them as a cover and flew away, subconsciously flying to where the person in her heart was located.
The power-levels warning flashed up before Andre's eyes and he clicked his tongue—a bad time for the gauntlet to lose Neuro-Qi, he still wanted the old man to die by his hand—Andre lowered his hand and contacted his members. Retreat for now! he gave the order to everyone who was alive—it was then he saw the information panel that showed Falcon had gone red. He turned to look at Borr. "Next time, I will kill you." He said and opened up a portal stepping through it.
His retreat marked the conclusion of the invasion—each side having incurred massive losses and their numbers cut in half from the battle—however among the casualties, they had discovered a silver of hope for Sunderfall itself—The Phoenix, and the shard-like feathers that it threw at them were were the first corner stone to Borr's ultimate goal, to cease the heavens themselves.
Snow-Peak
A week had passed since the disappearance of Edith—during that week, Yuanchen had began his training under the supervision of Jinx, his learning has grown him by leaps and bounds. He could now hold the first floor of Null World for over five minutes—his maximum was seven minutes and thirty seconds, quite small but a massive improvement.
When he was not training with Jinx, he was with Serena studying more on technological construction—Mecha beasts and doing exploration of hidden caves that behaved in manners such as dungeons for minerals needed to create special artillery weapons—his life in that week had become hectic, he could barely get time to himself.
Yuanchen sat on the balcony, hands leaned over the railing to balance himself—his eyes stared into the distance but internally he was berating himself. Stupid, why did you not tell her that you will be gone? Shengyuan merely chuckled at the thought—the boy he inhabited was rather interesting, but at the same time annoying to deal with. His emotional turbulences were starting to rub off Shengyuan and the latter hated that.
Something flashed in the distance and Yuanchen sat upright, he strained his eyes to see what was that only for bird-like feet to land on the guardrail—he looked up and was shocked to see Lia, but she was covered in blue flames that had a likeness to a Phoenix, he was about to ask what happened when Lia sat down the shroud of fire and it slowly parted revealing Damon's lifeless body.
"Lia—" Yuanchen whispered when he saw Damon's body. He turned to look at Lia who had tears staining her face and he brought up his hand trying to touch her—the flames around Lia flared up causing Yuanchen's hand to stop inches away from touching the flame.
"Why... Why... Why." Lia choked on her sobs as she staggered side-by-side.
Yuanchen gritted his teeth. This is going to hurt . he reached out and to his surprise, the flames were not hot, nor were they cold—they were warm and filled with an abundance of life. "Why what Lia, what happened?"
Lia turned to look at Yuanchen in the eye as fresh tears bursted out of her eyes. "You left us... You left me! And now my brother is dead... You said you'd protect me but when I needed you the most you were not here." She half-spoke, half-yelled as her hands beat on Yuanchen's chest.
Yuanchen pulled the woman into a hug and watched as the flames around her body slowly started to fade away. There was truth in her words—he did say he would protect them, he had already done it when Yakeen attacked them but when she needed him the most he was not there—His hands tightened around Lia who had eased up on her crying and her breathing evened out.
Yuanchen stole a glance at Damon—he then fixed his eyes on the blood red moon in the sky watching over the earth—a fire was lit inside, and the flames of determination intertwined with that of revenge reflected within his eyes as he made a vow, a bow to himself, Damon and most importantly Lia.
Everyone involved in Damon's death was going to pay and he would be their personal executor.