The battle above never ceased. Aelar and Virethiel fought like dying gods, their movements desperate and jagged, blades carving arcs of light in the bloodstained sky. But the invader—the wraith of orange flame and spite—held the upper hand, even with two against one.
He moved through the air like poison through a wound.
Virethiel lunged with her dagger, aiming for his eyes. He twisted, letting her blade skim past as his body lit up with a dark orange shield of violent energy. With a vicious snap of his foot, he kicked her away midair, and she spiraled, coughing blood.
CLANG.
Aelar's sword struck—but the invader's dark orange energy flared, stopping it mid-blow. In a blink, the enemy turned and drove his hand forward like a spear, tearing open Aelar's cheek. Blood burst into the air, a red mist hanging like ash in the wind.
"Master!" Virethiel shouted, flying toward him.
"I'm fine," Aelar said, dropping beside her, panting. Green light crawled over his wounds as Vital Surge, his special healing spell, activated. But the glow was faint.
Virethiel's brows knit. "Damn it… How is he this strong?"
"It's not just him," Aelar said, voice rough. "We're running on fumes. My mana is low… yours too."
She nodded grimly. "I can't even activate my magic circle fully. My mana arts are unstable."
"I might have three… maybe four more casts of Vital Surge, max," Aelar admitted. "Icariel's healing earlier helped, but it wasn't enough. I rose to this rank because of my technique, because of Vital Surge… But what good is it now, when I can't even pierce his defenses?"
His thoughts turned dark.
"Should I do it? Pour all my mana into my final technique? Enhance my blade until it shatters just to break through? But… if it fails…"
He glanced at the Tree of Life below, pulsing like a heartbeat in a sea of death.
"If I fall, it falls with me."
He gritted his teeth. "I can't even spare a second to look down and see if the others are alive."
The invader hovered effortlessly, orange eyes burning holes through the sky.
"You can't win," he said, smirking like a slit throat. "If you had someone your equal beside you, maybe. But this? This is just delay."
"What did you say!?" Virethiel shouted, fury cutting through fatigue.
"It's the truth," he said. "Below, the Crogs are already winning. They'll slaughter every last elf. Three portals—gifts from the higher-ups of the Godless Abyss. You'll fall soon, and when you do, everything ends."
He flexed his hands. "We lost some of ours too. So I'll return the favor… threefold."
His smile twisted into something feral. "Then I'll visit the one who killed my inside man."
Aelar and Virethiel both hissed.
"Come on," the invader growled. "I won't wait forever."
Near the elven homes, just past the town square, Crogs flooded from the second portal like a disease. The soldiers there were struggling—some dead, some screaming, some too wounded to move. Families huddled in corners, clutching each other while others ran, bloodied and barefoot.
The screams didn't stop.
Meanwhile, at the castle doors, the defenders held.
Elven blades glinted. Spears thrust. Crogs fell. Though tired and wounded, the soldiers held their line, their formation tight, their hearts steel. The damage there hadn't spread far—yet.
But at the edge of the yard, past where anyone dared to believe something good could still exist, there was a different kind of scene. A miracle born from madness.
A lake of blood.
A mountain of Crogs.
And standing at the base of it—still breathing, still casting, still fighting—was a boy.
Calven and the two royal guards held their position nearby, tasked with guarding Icariel if any Crog escaped. But none of them were watching the yard and the surroundings anymore because it was useless. Their eyes were on him.
Elif's silver eyes were wide enough to crack. Her voice trembled like a child's. "It's not possible… He's not normal. I'm sure now. He's… something else."
She was huddled beside her mother, who still hadn't risen from the ground. Elena trembled, sobbing, her face buried in her palms.
But the boy never looked back.
Icariel cast wind spell after wind spell. Fwoom. Fwoom. Fwoom. Each slash tore through more Crogs. Ten minutes. Then twelve. Then more.
His breathing was ragged, no longer human. Like a dying beast pretending it was still alive. His body, soaked—his clothes clinging to him like drowned fabric. His sweat steamed from his skin like vapor off hot steel.
His eyes were hollow.
"I want to stop. I can't anymore. Please… no more."
Fwoom.
Another spell.
His mind had long since cracked. But something still held him together.
A second mind. Cold. Steady. Unrelenting.
"Soon it will end," the voice whispered inside him. "You made your choice. See it through. Think of this like your training."
"When it ends… the fruits will be yours to bear."
And somehow, impossibly…
The boy breathed in again.
And cast another spell.
The boy did not stop.
To Elif's elven vision—and that of Calven and the two royal guards—it was all clear: his body cloaked in raw mana, head to toe, without a magic circle or a visible core. His mana was devoured by every cast, yet refilled itself with each jagged breath. It was unnatural. Terrifying. Beautiful in its violence.
Elif could barely breathe. "How is he still standing…? He said he would run. He promised he'd run. Why is he still here? What… are we witnessing?"
More Crogs leapt from the portal—six of them this time.
FWOOM.
A single wind slash cut them in half midair. Blood sprayed. Limbs hit the ground before their screams did. Their remains joined the grotesque pile of their kin. The portal, as if in surrender, flickered—then closed.
"AAAHHHHHH!" the boy screamed, his voice ragged, his chest heaving like a cornered animal. His heartbeat could have split stone. His eyelids drooped, heavy with exhaustion and horror.
Not a single Crog from that portal had survived.
He had become death's doorman.
They crossed over seeking conquest… and found only the reaper.
"Incredible," Calven whispered.
"Unprecedented," muttered one of the guards. "He… he ended it. All of them. It's real… we saw it with our own eyes."
The voice returned in Icariel's head.
"You did it. Good work."
"Yeah…" Icariel replied mentally. "I don't even know why I did it. But… I really did. These… unknown feelings have been messing with me lately."
"You'll adapt," the voice said.
"I sure will."
He began to collapse—but Calven caught him from behind, one arm around his chest.
"Look at this," Calven chuckled, half-breathless. "Now I can hold you without breaking my arms in two. I've grown stronger, huh?"
Icariel gave him a side-eye, his lips twitching with something that resembled a smile. "Sure you have."
"Thank you," Calven said.
The other guards knelt beside him. "Thank you," they echoed.
Elena still lay on the ground, weeping. Icariel, supported by Calven, limped toward her and gently rested his hand on her trembling shoulder.
"Hey," he murmured. "You okay?"
She looked up.
Tears had streaked her cheeks raw. But her silver eyes widened at the sight of him—alive.
"You're okay?" she gasped.
"Of course I am," he said, voice barely holding together.
She rose and threw her arms around him.
"I don't know how to say anything else since the day I met you except… thank you."
"You've thanked me enough," Icariel said.
"No, this time it's different. It's not that you defeated them—it's that you didn't die… and drag me back into that nightmare."
He blinked, confused. "Huh? What…?"
"Nothing," she whispered, tightening her embrace. "Just rest."
Above, the battle in the skies still raged. Around the elven homes, the Crogs continued to push forward.
But then—a spear tore through two Crogs in a single devastating arc.
"What—?" one soldier gasped.
Eldrin stood, drenched in blood but alive, spear in hand.
"Took them long enough to heal me," he muttered. "But I'm back. Time to be useful for once."
He glanced toward the blood-soaked yard where Icariel rested.
"Seems that overpowered human brat took care of the mess there. Guess I'll have to make sure I'm not left in the dust."
He stepped forward, voice sharp. "Everyone! We're closing that portal! Follow me! Save the civilians and kill them all!"
The soldiers roared in return. The Royal Captain had returned to the field.
Icariel sat now, breathing slow. His body trembled, muscles twitching in exhaustion. Elena and Elif sat beside him. The royal guards formed a protective ring around them.
His gaze drifted toward the castle doors. He could feel it.
"They're barely holding," he whispered.
Through his White Sense, a new mana signature exploded across his perception—fast, silent, lethal. It cut through the air like a phantom, streaking toward the third portal at the castle doors.
Then a whisper came.
"Assassin Art—Elven Chapter: Fourth Form… Phantom Blade Symphony."
Crogs died in silence.
She moved like death dipped in moonlight. Blurred. Precise. Gone before the blood hit the ground.
One soldier gasped, "What… was that…?"
She became visible—just barely. A hooded figure in a tattered black robe, covering her nose and mouth. Only her piercing silver eyes and green hair peeked from beneath the hood.
"Tessara," someone whispered.
The assassin had returned to the battlefield.