"You weren't fighting me seriously, were you?" Vanica called out, grinning wildly. "Come on—show me more love, little El! I can feel it… our battle will be legendary!"
Without a word, El straightened midair and drew his arms outward in a cross-like stance, hands extended in opposite directions.
What happened next shocked everyone.
The army of blood monsters that had been ready to advance across the Heart Kingdom suddenly halted. Their massive bodies trembled in place.
"This is impossible…" Vanica hissed. "I'm losing control of my blood magic."
Their bodies began to distort, their forms flickering as if caught between two opposing force. The blood composing them writhed unnaturally, resisting her commands and slowly withering under El's blood bending in the Avatar State.
Snarling, Vanica retaliated.
A barrage of hardened blood spikes and exploding blood spheres tore through the air toward him but layers of stone, spiraling water, and rotating fire shields materialized around El, intercepting each attack before it could touch him.
Undine seized the opening.
A colossal sphere of compressed water engulfed Vanica, trapping her within. The pressure intensified rapidly, crushing inward from all directions.
Gaja appeared above the sphere and thrust down his arm.
A supercharged bolt of lightning struck the water prison, electricity surging violently through it in a blinding flash.
Even those watching through Undine's broadcast winced at the sheer intensity of the combined spell.
For a moment, it looked like it had worked.
El tightened his grip.
Across the battlefield, the blood monsters dissolved completely into crimson mist.
Cheers erupted throughout the Heart Kingdom. Through broadcast, the people watched their guardians overpower the devil host.
"I hate to admit it," Kirsch muttered, staring at the broadcast, "but their magic is absurdly beautiful."
El hovered at the center of a storm of elements. The glowing markings across his body shone brilliantly as wind, water, fire, and earth revolved around him in perfect balance. It seemed as though nature itself was shielding him.
'Of course it is,' Dryad thought quite proudly. 'He is the savior of this world, after all.'
"El…" Lolopechka whispered weakly. Still being healed by Dryad, she had barely regained consciousness. Watching the battle, a fragile hope flickered in her heart. "I didn't know you were this strong…"
Nearby, Mimosa clasped her hands tightly, praying for them to endure.
But on the battlefield, El, Undine and Gaja knew better.
After dispersing the blood demons, El had joined them in fully suppressing Vanica within the water sphere—but they were straining.
The blue sphere slowly began turning dark red from within.
Its surface bulged outward violently.
Black curse runes spread across it like cracking glass.
"Brace yourselves!" Undine shouted.
The sphere exploded in a massive shockwave.
The blast shook the entire region. El, still in his Avatar State, formed a layered Wind barrier just in time to shield Undine and Gaja from the brunt of it.
When the smoke cleared, Vanica stood at the center of a newly formed crater, breathing heavily.
She had changed.
Her horns were longer now, more jagged, exuding dense demonic aura. Half her body was coated in a black, curse-laced substance that pulsed like a living shadow.
Inside the water sphere, she had pushed further.
[Devil Union: 50%]
A milestone.
Her power surged violently—nearly tripling from before.
The eyepatch slipped away completely.
Megicula's eye opened.
The red pupil fixed itself upon the mages and spirit before her.
An ancient voice layered over Vanica's own.
[You humans are fascinating creatures… but this is as far as you will go]
"Come on, Megicula, I haven't played enough with them. Let me have some fun."
By now, Vanica had recovered thanks to Megicula's Curse-Regeneration Magic, dragging the battle back to square one.
[We are done playing… let me remind you what will happen if you fail this mission.]
Vanica's playful demeanor vanished. The shift in her mood twisted the very atmosphere.
[It's about time we end this little game of yours, Vanica… Curse-Warding Magic: Decaying World.]
A black aura of ominous magic spread across the entire battlefield.
Undine and Gaja felt it immediately—their mana weakened to the point that even forming a simple spell required thrice the effort. El, however, felt no change. His ability did not rely on mana in the first place.
[Truly fascinating… My Decaying World doesn't affect you? But can you alone stop me now?]
Curse Magic: Exploding Life.
El's danger sense screamed as he saw bodies scattered around them bulge uncontrollably.
He teleported beside Undine and Gaja, grabbed them both, and vanished.
A heartbeat later, the myriad corpses scattered throughout the Heart Kingdom began to detonate. Some produced small bursts, others massive explosions.
During the earlier battle—before El's arrival—Vanica had marked numerous individuals with her curse. Many had died while some had fled, unaware of the sigils upon them.
Those bodies suddenly bulged and exploded.
There was no time to understand. No time to react.
The blasts tore through the crowd, hurling citizens into chaos and multiplying the casualties.
Lolopechka's group was among the fleeing masses. But even weakened, the Spirit Guardians strained to suppress the blasts and shield as many civilians as possible.
[Originally, we only intended to abduct the Queen of the Heart Kingdom…] Megicula mused.
[But for the nuisance you humans have caused me, I will make an example out of you]
[Devil Union: 51%]
[This is all I can muster now without killing Vanica…]
As Megicula spoke, she seized full control of Vanica's body.
All the blood scattered across the Kingdom trembled—then surged inward.
It gathered.
Compressed.
Rose.
A seventy-meter tall pillar of blood formed, drawing even more from Vanica's magic and draining her dry. Half of her physical body shriveled as the demon megicula fed upon her power.
El and his group stared at the monstrous figure towering above them.
A colossal blood demon stood on two legs, nearly seventy meters tall. Two elongated arms ended in razor-sharp claws. Curved horns protruded from its forehead, its entire body forged from hardened, crystallized blood.
And at the center of its chest—within the heart of the demon—stood Megicula herself, controlling the titan from within.
"How evil…" Undine cried, gazing at the devastation across the Heart Kingdom—the slaughter Megicula had wrought to gather blood—before lifting her eyes to the Seventy-meter-tall demonic visage towering above them.
"I can no longer blood-bend. Her control has surpassed mine," El said, his eyes still glowing.
"But I have a way to stop her advance." He turned to the spirit. "Guardian Spirit Undine… will you allow me to channel your power to fight this demon?"
"I will. Let us repel these demons from our lands."
All banter and past enmity vanished. Undine took his extended hand, surrendering her power.
The moment they connected, she felt it—a bond unlike any she had shared with previous queens of the Heart Kingdom. As if El were neither fully human nor spirit, but a bridge between the two. Something dormant within her awakened.
Trusting that sensation, she relinquished control and fell into a deep slumber.
"Gaja," El said calmly, "get out of the range of her Decaying Magic. It's weakening you. Then prepare the most dangerous lightning spell of your life. When darkness consumes everything—release it. No matter the consequences."
Gaja disappeared silently and Water answered his call.
From lakes, rivers, the moisture in the soil, the sap within trees, the clouds overhead—even from the air itself—vast quantities surged toward the battlefield's center, spiraling around El.
The broadcasting screens dissolved into water and streamed back toward El. But the scattered citizens of the Heart Kingdom—Lolopechka, Mimosa, the Spirit Guardians, even Dryad—no longer needed the screens to understand what was happening.
They could see it.
At the heart of the battlefield stood two titans.
One—a crimson demon of hardened blood, nearly seventy meters tall, horns curved toward the sky.
The other—a towering blue water giant, sixty meters in height. Its arms ended in glacial claws of ice. Across its fluid body spread white markings like veins—patterns identical to those glowing across El's skin.
The hardened fists of the two giants collided.
A spherical shockwave erupted outward, flattening the terrain and hurling the water titan beyond the capital's region. Its arm shattered, ice shards the size of mountain boulders crashed down and devastated everything below. The blood demon staggered only a few steps in return.
Water surged again, reforming the missing limb instantly of the water titan.
The blood demon leapt, crashing down toward the water titan's head. El shifted at the last second. One arm condensed into a massive ice sword that cleaved through the demon's leg, sending it crashing to the earth.
Another counter came swiftly.
From the blood demon's palm, countless spheres of condensed blood spheres launched forward. They struck the water titan and detonated on impact, blasting chunks of its body apart. Blood invaded the water body, spreading like poison as innumerable curse runes ignited across its surface.
"Oh my… what kind of battle is this?" Dryad whispered from afar, supporting Lolopechka—who had refused to flee any longer. Mimosa and Kirsch stood beside them, staring in stunned silence.
Each clash between the two titans reshaped the land itself.
And the war for supremacy had only just begun as the clash continued.
"It is not Undine—but El. Through our connection, I can feel it. He is controlling her power… to a degree I did not think was possible."
They watched in silence.
The battle had raged for three full minutes.
By now, more than half of the water titan's body had been destroyed, its form riddled with black curse runes. But the blood titan was hardly faring any better—one arm gone, half its head shattered, its abdomen torn open and leaking hardened crimson mass onto the ground.
[You have certainly surpassed my expectations, human…] Megicula's voice echoed coldly from within the construct.
[You remind me of battles from ages past. But this is your limit.]
Her remaining hand morphed into a massive blade of condensed blood.
With a single downward thrust, she pierced the heart of the water titan lying at her feet.
The fusion unraveled instantly.
The water titan had always been smaller, less durable than the blood demon. It had never fought to win—only to stall and weaken its opponent.
The rune-covered body burst apart in a violent surge of water and light, flinging the injured unconscious Undine and El in opposite directions. The blood titan, too, lost cohesion and collapsed into a storm of red mist.
Vanica's true form became visible within the haze—shriveled like an old crone, utterly drained. Yet Curse-Regeneration Magic still pulsed faintly around her. It would only be moments before she recovered.
El's unconscious body floated toward Megicula.
Clothes torn. Tattoos dim.
She caught him by the throat, lifting him effortlessly as black curse runes crawled over his neck and face.
[I will make you my eternal slave]
The runes began to constrict but the tattoos across El's body flared up again.
His eyes snapped open, fury burning within them.
'He was only pretending to be unconscious.' Thought Megicula.
With both his hands, he grabbed Venica's both eyes, his thumbs digging into them pouring his energy directly into her body.
[Ughhh—what are you doing, human?!]
The black runes around his throat shimmered and vanished.
A blinding white radiance engulfed them both inside out.
A celestial eruption of opposing forces. White brilliance clashed violently against Megicula's suffocating black aura, like two cosmic forces devouring one another in the horizon.
Vanica and El's scream echoed across the Heart Kingdom.
A starry white layer spread across Vanica's body—covering her skin, her veins, her very being—creeping inward until it reached her eyes, as if rewriting her from within.
For a moment white dominated.
Then the black surged back.
With overwhelming force, Megicula's demonic power swallowed the radiance whole. Darkness flooded the battlefield, exuding an otherworldly presence that painted the entire kingdom black. El's body was engulfed entirely, save for a single eye still burning with white light.
The two forces reached a standstill.
And at that decisive moment a golden lightning bolt tore down from the heavens.
It struck both Megicula and El head-on.
The explosion separated them instantly, blasting them apart and carving a crater several meters deep into the earth.
The battlefield fell silent.
The smoke has thinned. The suffocating pressure vanished.
El's unconscious body lay at the edge of a shallow pool of water. The glowing tattoos had vanished completely—the time limit of the Avatar card had expired.
Gaja reached him first, lifting him carefully and checking for signs of life.
A ragged laugh echoed across the ruined battlefield.
He turned.
Vanica crawled across the scorched earth.
Her body was mutilated—half of it burned black, one arm reduced to charred flesh. She dragged herself forward with the other, leaving a thick trail of blood behind her. No regeneration followed. No curse mended her wounds.
"What was that last spell you used?" she rasped, laughing hysterically. "You almost had us there—hahahaha…"
[Vanica… run away.]
"Eh?"
Her gaze shifted sideways toward her left eye—the one El had nearly torn out. It hung loosely in its socket. From within it, Megicula's presence flickered weakly.
Run?
Why run?
Shouldn't they attack while regeneration recovered her body?
Then she looked down at herself.
Half her torso was gone. The rest was charred beyond recognition. Her Curse-Regeneration Magic had completely dispersed. Even the eye that housed Megicula trembled unstably product of El's spell and Megicula's overexertion of her body.
From the distance, multiple mana signatures approached rapidly.
And when the thought of killing El surfaced in her mind, her gaze shifted to Gaja—who, despite exhaustion, stood poised as if preparing another strike.
[That boy weakened our soul connection, reducing our Devil Union to thirty percent which we so painstakingly cultivated] Megicula's voice hissed.
[You must retreat. Now.]
For the first time, fear flickered through Vanica's madness.
Thirty percent?
That was impossible.
Screaming in frustration, she forced the remaining scraps of mana within her body to respond. A malformed blood beast formed beneath her, and she mounted it clumsily before fleeing into the distance.
Only once she vanished did Gaja relax his stance and immediately collapsed.
His final lightning spell had drained him completely. He had nothing left. The threatening posture had been nothing but a bluff.
Moments later, Lolopechka arrived with others. They stepped onto the devastated battlefield, searching through the craters, the scorched ruins of their capital.
The demon had retreated.
They had survived.
Yet looking at lingering smoke over the once beautiful heart kingdom, no one felt victorious at all.