War had a rhythm.
Cael had learned it over the past years.
The quiet before impact.
The tremor beneath soil.
The subtle thinning of air before something powerful stepped onto the battlefield.
This wasn't a random assault.
It was deliberate.
He felt it the moment he arrived at the eastern elven front.
The soldiers weren't just losing.
They were being dismantled.
Systematically.
The forest had been reduced to splintered ruin. Ancient trees lay uprooted, crushed not by flame or wind—but by something heavier. Denser. The ground itself seemed depressed inward, as though the world had grown tired and sagged under unseen weight.
At the center stood two figures.
Waiting.
The first was shorter, stiff black robes falling unnaturally straight down his thin frame. His dark eyes bulged slightly from his face, veins spiderwebbing beneath the surface as if pressure built constantly behind them. He looked like a scholar dragged unwillingly into war.
He wasn't.
Mana churned around him like a coiled beast.
Beside him stood his brother.
Bilal.
Tall and grotesquely thin, like a corpse stretched upright. His flesh was pale and bloated in strange places, yet drawn tight against protruding ribs and spine. Greenish strands of flat, lifeless hair clung to his hollow face. His eyes were sunken pits, shadowed and empty.
When he inhaled, it sounded like dry leaves scraping stone.
When he exhaled, the air bent.
Cael stepped forward.
The elven mages behind him struggled to breathe under the pressure radiating outward.
"So," the shorter one said, voice thin and rasping. "The anomaly."
Bilal tilted his head slowly. "Prettier than described."
Cael didn't respond.
He activated his eyes.
The world sharpened.
Mana particles separated like stars across a night sky.
The battlefield transformed into a map of motion and density.
Both Retainers smiled.
And attacked.
Bilal moved without speed—but space distorted around him.
The ground beneath Cael imploded.
Gravity collapsed inward violently, crushing everything at the epicenter into splinters.
Cael launched upward in a burst of wind, lightning threading his acceleration. The implosion swallowed only dirt and shattered roots.
The shorter brother blurred forward next.
Corrupted fire snapped outward—not wild flame, but concentrated, devouring arcs that hissed like starving beasts.
Cael answered with water and wind interwoven, redirecting the trajectory before freezing the edges with ice deviant precision. Lightning shattered the frozen remains mid-air.
The collision detonated.
Mana waves tore through the forest.
Bilal raised a skeletal arm.
The air thickened.
Gravity multiplied.
Cael felt his body pulled downward with crushing force. The earth cratered beneath him as invisible weight slammed him into the soil.
He didn't panic.
He adjusted.
Earth mana reinforced his footing. Wind spiraled beneath him, distributing pressure. Lightning pulsed through his muscles to keep them responsive.
His white core churned steadily.
Still stable.
Still controlled.
The shorter retainer appeared directly before him.
A narrow spike of corrupted flame formed at his fingertip and pierced toward Cael's chest.
Cael twisted just in time.
The spike tore through his shoulder instead.
Pain flared.
Hot. Corrosive.
Corrupted mana tried to cling to the wound.
His eyes brightened.
He isolated the foreign particles and severed their structure with surgical precision.
The injury remained—but the corruption died.
Bilal laughed softly.
"You're adapting."
Cael rose slowly.
"I usually do."
They pressed harder.
Bilal expanded his gravity field outward, not crushing but warping terrain unpredictably. Trees bent sideways. Air currents fractured. Projectiles lost trajectory.
The shorter brother layered corrupted fire into the distorted zones, creating kill corridors that forced movement into increasingly disadvantageous angles.
Coordination.
Efficient.
Retainers weren't brute enforcers.
They were strategists.
Cael felt something familiar stir in his chest.
Excitement.
He shifted fully into motion.
Wind and lightning fused beneath his steps, erasing distance. Sound deviant pulses disrupted casting timing, throwing the shorter brother off rhythm. Ice spears formed mid-air, threading through gaps in gravity fields before detonating on impact.
Bilal absorbed most of the assault with layered gravitational compression.
The forest paid the price instead.
Entire acres flattened.
Elven soldiers retreated under shouted commands.
This was no battlefield for them.
This was something else.
Minutes stretched.
Mana thickened.
Cael's breathing deepened but remained steady.
He hadn't gone all out.
Not yet.
But neither had they.
Bilal's hollow eyes narrowed.
"Enough observation."
The gravity field intensified sharply.
Not outward—
Inward.
Cael felt his organs compress subtly as localized singularities formed around him.
The shorter brother's corrupted fire changed color—deepening, darkening, fed by something more sinister than elemental affinity.
Agrona's touch.
Cael exhaled slowly.
White mana flared.
Not explosively.
Densely.
He extended his hand.
Instead of resisting gravity—
He seized it.
Absolute mana control overrode localized density shifts. He didn't negate Bilal's field.
He rewrote its directional flow.
The earth cracked violently as gravity flipped sideways.
Bilal's elongated body twisted unnaturally as he was hurled through shattered tree trunks.
The shorter brother screamed in frustration and unleashed a massive torrent of devouring flame.
Cael met it head-on.
Fire answered fire—but purer.
Refined.
Lightning threaded through it, destabilizing corrupted mana at the molecular level.
The clash tore open the sky.
For the first time—
The shorter retainer stumbled backward.
Blood trickled from the corner of his eye.
"You're not supposed to reach this level yet," he hissed.
Cael smiled faintly.
"Neither are you."
The battlefield was unrecognizable now.
Craters. Splintered earth. Flattened forest.
Bilal rose slowly from the wreckage, bones visibly misaligned before snapping back into place with sickening cracks.
Regeneration.
Enhanced.
Of course.
The shorter brother steadied himself beside him.
Their mana surged again—but differently this time.
No longer testing.
Intent sharpened.
Killing intent.
Cael felt it clearly.
Good.
He rolled his shoulder once.
Mana flowed through him smoother than ever before.
His white core pulsed steadily, but something deep within it felt… pressured.
Not cracking.
Not breaking.
But reaching.
Integration was distant.
But the path had begun.
Bilal spoke softly.
"Lord Agrona was correct."
The shorter brother nodded.
"You will either become useful… or necessary to remove."
Cael's sky-blue eyes glowed brighter.
"Try."
Both Retainers vanished simultaneously.
And the real battle began.