A few minutes earlier—

  Ziraiah stood amid the shattered ruins of Heful Palace, her eyes wide with disbelief. “I can’t use magic,” she stammered, voice trembling. “I don’t know why.”

  Queen Zeliona turned toward her, calm even in the storm. “Let me see.” She placed her hand over Ziraiah’s chest, threads of soft blue light spreading across the girl’s skin like veins of lightning. Her expression darkened.

  “You’ve been infected with Calethrin,” Zeliona said grimly.

  Juvian’s brows furrowed. “What is that?”

  Andrea, her face streaked with soot and blood, answered. “A restraint drug. It was made to capture high-level criminals. Calethrin blocks every Vitalis pathway in the body—mana, bravo, everything. In short, Ziraiah, you can’t cast, reinforce, or summon anything until it’s purged.”

  Ziraiah’s fists clenched. “Then get it out.”

  Zeliona nodded. “You’ll need to sweat it out—your body must force it through your pores. I can help with that but It will take a minute or two.”

  ---

  Now.

  Ziraiah looked down. Something streaked across the city streets—long, fast. She ignored it and turned to Omfry.

  She shot forward.

  BOOOOOOM.

  Her boots slammed into Omfry’s chest at Mach 2000. The impact thundered across the city. The barrier surrounding Heful blazed red, its energy field whining under the strain. Omfry screamed, his ribs cracking under the blow.

  Ziraiah didn’t stop. She blurred again, fists wreathed in flame. Each strike detonated with furnace-hot fury—ten, hundreds, thousands of rapid blows against the barrier. Them delivered a kick to Omfry’s face, launching him downwards, cratering the ground in ten-meter bursts. Omfry’s body ricocheted across the fortified streets, each bounce carving a fresh impact pit.

  He hit the ground hard, coughing blood. His jaw hung partly unhinged, teeth flashing through torn flesh. With a guttural roar, he drew his sword, red Bravo flaring along its edge.

  Ziraiah’s flames condensed in her hand, forming into a blazing sword.

  Their blades met—

  BOOM!

  The shockwave flattened the rubble around them. The fortified ground beneath cratered fifty meters, Valerius’s fortification holding the city together. Both combatants strained, locked in a deadlock, boots grinding sparks off the stone.

  Omfry yelled, “Who do you think you are?! You think you can beat me?! I am Omfry!”

  Omfry was being forced backward, his boots carving deep trenches into the ground. He gritted his teeth, muscles trembling as he growled through the strain—

  “You… can’t… beat me!”

  Suddenly, two colossal fists of compressed air materialized beside Omfry and smashed him from both sides. Then again—and again. He staggered, roaring in fury, before Ziraiah’s blade sliced across his chest in a clean, fiery arc.

  Blood sprayed. Omfry reeled backward, clutching the wound. He leapt away.

  “COME BACK HERE!” Ziraiah screamed, her voice echoing like thunder.

  She gave chase. The two streaks tore through the sky, zig-zagging at mach 2000, far beyound the realm of sound. Ziraiah stretched her hands; the air itself warped. Pressure currents formed an invisible net, halting Omfry mid-flight.

  The sky darkened.

  Clouds churned violently, twisting into a vast spiral. Bolts of lightning forked across the heavens, illuminating the battlefield in blinding white.

  Then—a massive cloud coalesced into a face miles wide, eyes of stormfire glaring down. Its mouth opened, glowing from within like a furnace.

  Omfry’s eyes widened.

  CRACK!

  Hundreds of spears of lightning descended at once, shredding the sky and hammering him into the ground below. His screams echoed across Heful as the bolts tore into him. His flesh charred; his skin blackened; even his aura flickered and cracked.

  His body convulsed, barely recognizable through the storm.

  Ziraiah flew towards him, her entire body engulfed in flame. Her fiery sword grew, expanding, lengthening—until it blazed two kilometers long, a radiant arc of destruction stretching through the heavens.

  She swung.

  The slash tore through the sky like a second dawn, cutting clouds apart in its wake.

  From below, Isabela looked up in awe, the air trembling from the heat.

  “My gods… Ziraiah is as much a monster as Eryndor.”

  Juvian stood beside her, speechless. “I’ve never seen her use magic like this.”

  Isabela’s voice softened. “Unlike me… she learned the true Endor’s Flow.”

  Her memory flashed—Eryndor standing before them both, calm, patient.

  “So this is how you do it?” Ziraiah had asked, imitating his stance.

  “Yes,” Eryndor replied simply.

  Isabela had frowned. “Why didn’t you give her an earring, like mine?”

  Eryndor smirked faintly. “Because she requires no such trinket. Were I ever obliged to fashion one for her, I would deem it a humiliation to call her my sister.”

  ---

  In the present—

  The sky burned.

  Ziraiah descended, flames rippling off her body like a living inferno.

  Her Endor’s Flow was no longer borrowed power.

  It was mastered.

  And at that moment, she had become Eryndor’s equal.

  Omfry’s chest was split open in a jagged X, blood hissing as it met the scorched air.

  Ziraiah didn’t stop there. Fury burned in her eyes — grief and rage fusing into something uncontainable.

  She slashed again and again, her blade screaming through the air, each swing carving deep across Omfry’s flesh. The earth trembled beneath their battle — light and flame painting the ruins of Heful in violent gold.

  Then, with a final roar that tore through the heavens, Ziraiah drove her fist into his face.

  CRACK.

  Teeth shattered. Bone split.

  Omfry’s body slammed into the ground with an impact so violent that a 100-meter crater split open beneath him. The fortified stone caved, glowing from the heat radiating off her body.

  Ziraiah stood above him, chest heaving. Sweat and soot streaked her face, but her eyes never wavered.

  She spread her arms wide — and barriers materialized, layer upon layer, encasing Omfry in a prison of radiant force.

  A hundred barriers, each a kilometer wide, locked around him.

  And beyond them, a final shell — a diamond barrier — formed, its mirrored surface gleaming as it reflected every ray of light inward, trapping the heat, the fire, and Omfry himself.

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  Ziraiah hovered above the blazing dome, her body flaring with searing flame.

  Then — she descended.

  A comet of fire and wrath, she crashed down from the sky, her boots igniting as they struck Omfry’s chest.

  BOOOOM.

  The explosion tore through the confined space, and a crater 300 meters wide opened beneath them.

  One of her heels dug into the ground, the other pressed upon his chest, holding him down like a nailed god.

  From her heels to her knees, her legs glowed white-hot — metal turned molten, reaching 3,000°C.

  Omfry writhed beneath her, smoke rising from his skin, flesh searing black.

  His voice cracked, pain and disbelief breaking through.

  “No... how can I lose to you? You? Just three years ago, you were nothing to me!”

  Ziraiah’s eyes gleamed — sorrow, fury, and fire merging into one.

  “If those are your last words,” she said coldly as she bent down, her face inches from his, “take them to your grave.”

  She soared upward, vanishing into the storm above.

  The outer barrier rippled — then a thin column extended upward, locking onto her leg like a cannon chamber.

  Ziraiah raised her right foot, the air around it twisting with unbearable heat.

  “INFERNO OBLITERATION!”

  Ziraiah's mightiest spell. The words thundered like divine judgment.

  From her heel erupted a beam of fire — white at its core, gold at its edge — that surged downward through the narrow conduit.

  It hit Omfry dead in the chest.

  The barrier sealed itself shut.

  Inside — hell was born.

  The temperature climbed beyond comprehension — five thousand, ten thousand, fifteen thousand degrees Celsius — until even the diamond walls began to glow, their edges softening from the impossible heat.

  And above it all, Ziraiah floated in silence — her eyes burning like two suns.

  ---

  Ziraiah’s eyes narrowed.

  Something was wrong.

  There were no screams.

  No trace of him.

  A pulse of power burst from her body, expanding outward in a brilliant field two kilometers wide.

  Her senses stretched across the air, through stone and flame — she felt everything.

  The faint breath of civilians. The hum of the still-glowing barrier.

  But not him.

  Omfry was gone.

  Her brows furrowed. “Impossible,” she whispered.

  Even if he was still here… she realized, she wouldn’t be able to sense him. That ring he wore — that cursed relic — veiled his presence.

  And beneath the city, far below her blazing sky, Omfry’s body crashed through a glowing portal.

  He slammed into a metal table, splitting it in half. Blood splattered across the walls of a dim, underground hideout.

  Daiel, who was hunched over a console, spun around and froze.

  “Holy shit— Omfry!” he gasped, rushing forward. “Damn, you got wrecked! I can’t believe you were beaten this badly.”

  Omfry groaned, muscles twitching, smoke rising off his scorched flesh.

  Daiel spoke quickly, panic seeping through his tone.

  “Things aren’t going well! Katos is fighting some kind of spirit, and Dreados— he’s clashing with that elf king. It’s chaos up there!”

  Omfry slammed a trembling fist into the floor, the ground cracking beneath his hand.

  “Then hurry up and give me the elixir,” he snarled, voice raw. “I’m going to kill that girl.”

  Daiel snatched two vials from the counter — one filled with glowing blue liquid, the other shimmering red — and uncorked them.

  He poured the first over Omfry’s chest, the second down his throat.

  Steam hissed.

  The flesh on Omfry’s chest began to knit together, burns fading, blood sizzling away. The muscles beneath his skin twitched violently as they reformed.

  Daiel shook his head, muttering, “Forget about her for now. You need to get the child. That’s the priority.”

  He looked toward a flickering holographic map on the wall.

  “I don’t know how much longer Jeriana and the others can keep Pungence from interfering.”

  ---

  The Palace Ruins

  A storm of shattered marble surrounded what was once Heful’s royal palace.

  Jeriana stood alone amid a mountain of broken glass bottles, her hands trembling as she downed another mana-restoring elixir.

  She raised both arms, chanting through gritted teeth.

  Her voice echoed like venom across the ruin.

  Oblivion Tongue.

  Pungence floated at the center of the black orb — his teeth clenched, body convulsing in agony.

  Nearby, Sandra stood knee-deep in shattered vials. Sweat poured down her forehead as she drank another stamina potion.

  Her eyes gleamed blue. She had assimilated the Illusion Seed.

  Dulgebar stood nearby, his massive frame half-shrouded in shadow. He had assimilated the Chamber Seed — With it, he could weave space itself into sealed pockets of reality, folding the world inward like paper.

  It was his doing.

  The black orb, the pocket dimension that held Pungence captive.

  In front of him was the black orb. Inside it, Pungence’s surroundings distorted — flames turned into phantom beasts, shadows warped into monstrous silhouettes. His vision fractured, reality twisting over itself.

  Behind a wall, Mibotu crouched low, his hands trembling as he drank yet another potion. His had assimilated the Loop Seed.

  He whispered under his breath, “Two seconds. Just two seconds…”

  Time distorted, inside the black orb.

  The same scream echoed from Pungence’s throat again.

  And again.

  And again.

  They were looping his pain — forcing him to relive the same instant of torment over and over.

  All of them had to combine their abilities in order to restrain Pungence. But...they were running out of time. Pungence was resisting.

  ---

  The Hideout

  Omfry’s breathing steadied. His wounds sealed completely — his skin red, hardened, flawless again.

  He pushed himself up on one elbow, bloodshot eyes narrowing.

  “Fine,” he muttered, his voice low and venomous.

  Then, in a burst of force that shredded the air, he vanished.

  Only a ripple of distortion remained — and the faint scent of scorched iron.

  ---

  To Be Continued...