Elizabeth wished that Edico hadn’t given her the assignment to protect Trinov Escar. It was pointless, and she would probably die. She wasn’t a fighter. Maybe if there were some ground soldiers, she could put up her hands and say “boom,” then tons of people would die—but these weren’t regular soldiers. Sara had taught her a high-level invisibility spell, and it took months of intensive training. During that period, Elizabeth also learned how rare—and illegal—invisibility spells were (let alone one that dispersed mana to avoid divination detection) so it was only available to the top ranks. So she pretty much knew from the moment they entered her [mana net] (a detection trap) that these people were high-level mages—and there were two of them. She was gonna die—and that made her heart race for the first time in a long time.

“Who are you?” Grent asked.

“The name’s Elizabeth,” she said. “I’m one of those [heroes] and, well, if you can’t tell—we’re really strong.” Seven suns just rained down from the heavens—that was an understatement. “Anyway,” she said, “there’s a few of us here to protect Trinov. It’s not really necessary, considering that we’ll just burn down your capital if you take ‘em, but still.”

Trinov Escar hadn’t been executed, ensuring that Alecov could never be legitimized as the sole king. That’s why Sara and Alecov should’ve killed him—but they hadn’t. That gave the kingdoms the opportunity to kidnap Escar and negotiate to release him for better terms. That said, it really wasn’t necessary. No one would rally behind Trinov when Sara had just decimated three kingdoms—and if they did, no one could stop Sara from taking him back by force.

“So you just guard for no reason?” Eline asked.

“No,” Elizabeth sighed. “I’m guardin’ cuz I was asked to.”

“We’re same,” Grent said. “We were asked to be here.”

“Shit….” Elizabeth was essentially committing suicide by continuing to stand there, but she felt duty-bound to continue doing so. She was part of the military and military fights and dies for their country… or something. The invisible mages in front of her were also military—so they were in the same boat. They were at a standstill. “So there’s no way to talk you out of it?” she asked.

“No,” Eline said. “We are here because we must.”

Before Eline even started talking, Elizabeth started silent chanting. Within three seconds, she had put up her hands, and a soccer-sized fireball ballooned to the size of a boulder. Then, it ballooned even larger as it shot at the Keetas—passing an amplification stone—giving it a thirty-foot diameter, melting through the fences on either side of the pathway as it swallowed the siblings whole.

Elizabeth felt it wasn’t enough, so she followed up with a wind spell, turning the ground into a raging inferno as it blasted the area where the siblings were standing. If it were anyone—or anything—else, they’d die—but these… [things]….

“Strong,” Grent said.

Elizabeth shivered when the smoke cleared, and she saw Grent and Eline for the first time. They were bald and naked (as the fire torched their clothing off), and every inch of their bodies was covered in glowing arrays.

“But not strong enough,” Eline said.

2

Taylor saw the massive fireball and immediately flew to the area, feeling a bad premonition about what was happening there. He was ten seconds away.

3

Elizabeth threw up a barrier as fast as possible—and it saved her life. An explosion of scalding steam blinded her vision, and a cloud of mana followed, making it impossible to see through her eyes or divination pulse. She was just stranded there, in a bubble, waiting for them to strike. Then, in a surreal twist of fate, all the mist in the area sucked away in a vortex, and for a split second, she thought that Sara had arrived with a black hole spell—

—she was wrong. All the water in the area got sucked into the sky, creating hundreds of ice spears. A second later, they crashed onto Elizabeth’s barrier like hail—shattering it and sending ice spears slamming into her body.

4

Ten seconds before, Taylor arrived at a hellish scene. The fight was happening at a massive stone building that had two courtyards on either side of the door, all surrounded by walls and a massive iron gate—all of it was on fire. No, more than on fire—melted. The massive iron gates outside were dripping with molten slag from a fireball that had melted right through it and continued on into the cobblestone roadway. Yet despite that hellish attack, the people fighting survived. One second, everything was on fire; the next, the world exploded in white steam, which made his silver glider screech as he shielded his eyes. Five seconds later, when he opened them, all the steam sucked into the sky, forming hundreds of ice spears in the air above two mages who looked radioactive with blue and green arrays lit up on their naked bodies. They were burnt—or at least their clothing was—but they stood there, unperturbed, as the man waved his hand and all the ice spears crashed into a barrier that Taylor had the luxury of noticing for the first time.

It was then that the massive fire and molten slag coalesced into a simple concept that he didn’t even have five seconds to connect before he was blasted with steam: a hero did that. No one else could’ve released an attack of that magnitude. A hero did it. And that hero was behind the barrier that just got punctured like a pin-cushion….

Taylor’s heart started pounding out of control. He just watched a hero die…. They died…. They died…. Fuck. If he had experienced the trap Sara’s team had ran into, he might’ve been prepared. Yet he couldn’t. Shit just got so real. People were dying, suns were falling…. Hero, hero…. Fuck.

Suddenly, both of the glowing mages looked up at him in the sky, making his body freeze solid. If he were Raul or Emma, he could create a barrier that even those ice spears couldn’t harm—but he wasn’t them. He was dead, Dead, DEAD! Fuck he was so dead!

Yet they didn’t attack. Instead, the two mages casually walked up the pathway toward the door to the building—looking at the hero on the ground.

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[Who is it?]

That was the question that repeated in his mind.

It could be someone he cared about. On his team, no. But….

Taylor’s eyes welled with tears as they approached the mystery hero.

[Who is it? Who is it? Who is it? Who is it!]

His body shook, and his mind had a meltdown, making him want to collapse on his silver glider and cry. Yet he couldn’t. All he could do was watch as the mages got closer, nearer—within reach. [Don’t look at them!] he wanted to scream. [Get the fuck away from them!] But he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. And when he saw the female mage reach for the hero—

Suddenly, a red meteor fell from the sky above him, and as it fell, his mind took a snapshot. When time stopped for that split second, he realized it was Raul, covered in gaseous crimson miasma that Taylor had heard myths about but never seen. Then Raul’s body continued down, slamming straight into the charred and melted pathway.

5

Raul felt icy chills looking at the two mages before him. They looked like archetypical practitioners of the black arts, people who had fuzed their bodies and souls with magic. Their bodies were glowing with over a dozen arrays, and with their clothing burnt off, he could see that the man was actually a eunuch, and his crotch had arrays on it. The woman, too…. These people… were terrifying.

They didn’t have the natural pressure that Lord Res had—and he could probably force them to kneel with pressure if he got near them. But these people… he didn’t think they’d let him get near them. They had already proven that they could survive an attack that melted through iron gates and even turned that into a weapon. Raul looked at Elizabeth, who was on the ground. She was bleeding heavily.

Raul narrowed his eyes when he noticed Eline’s hands reaching for her. “Don’t touch her,” he warned.

“I heal,” Eline said.

“Heal?” Raul repeated for clarification.

“Yes, heal,” Grent answered. “This fight? Pointless. She fought anyway. We respect that.”

Eline reached forward, and her hand radiated with green light. The ice sphere started melting, and the wounds around Elizabeth’s lungs started healing up, leading the blonde to cough out blood. Her cough was weak, but it proved she was alive.

Raul watched with energy burning in his veins—Emma’s energy, Lord Res’s energy. All of it was grounded within him, and unlike other forms of energy that release once they’re not used, Halkon Executioner didn’t. It just built up like a pressure cooker until he released it, so he was in pain as he watched.

“That axe,” Eline said after she finished healing Elizabeth.

Grent nodded. “Yes.”

Raul noticed the black magic freaks looking at his axe like it was a holy relic (even though it was a replica). In a sense, it was. No one had seen the runes on it, and it drank blood—something these two probably shared in common with it.

“Give us axe, and we will leave,” Eline said.

“Not here—the whole kingdom,” Grent said.

For a moment, Raul considered it. The axe was a replica, and the real—stronger—version was somewhere in a crypt. Yet when he looked at their tattoos, he was reminded that they weren’t good people. They would probably experiment on dozens or even hundreds to replicate the magic.

“No,” Raul said.

Eline nodded and looked to the sky. “Have friend move girl.”

Raul looked and found Taylor. Then he yelled. “Taylor! Take Elizabeth!”

It took five minutes, but Taylor eventually arrived and loaded up Elizabeth, whispering, “What now?” as he mounted the silver glider again.

“I guess we’ll fight,” Raul said.

Taylor nodded. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Not fighting.”

“If you weren’t here, we couldn’t fight,” Raul said. “Now go.” Taylor nodded solemnly and flew away, leaving Raul shaking with pent-up power. He looked at the Keetas and asked their names.

“Grent Keeta.”

“Eline Ketta.”

“Siblings?”

“Yes.”

“You?”

“Raul Martinez. I was summoned here to fight Agronus.” Raul gripped the haft of his axe and released magical pressure, which was amplified by the amplification stone Elizabeth had put into the walkway.

The Keetas jumped back with ghostly speed before it even happened, as if they could read his mind. That crushing pressure didn’t affect them.

“You helped my friend,” Raul said. “But if you continue—it’s war.”

“It’s war,” Grent said.

A brief silence passed between them—

—and then Raul charged. He blitzed at lightning speed, closing the distance and releasing intense pressure. The siblings split, jumping sideways in two directions. Raul swung his axe in a 180-degree arc, releasing a scythe of red aura shooting out on either side. Eline hit the ground and bent her back with sickening flexibility to avoid the crimson attack—but Grent was still mid-air when the attack reached him. The blade should’ve sliced Grent, but a barrier materialized underneath him, and he landed on it like a floating island. It was right above the crimson attack, and Raul could swear the aura cut through the bottom part of the barrier. It was incredible.

“Good,” Eline said, covering her ears. “Our turn.”

Grent tapped his throat, and an array on his neck lit up with purple light. Raul instantly reacted, rushing forward to stop him, but it was too late. Grent took a deep breath and then screamed with an amplification spell far exceeding anything that Raul had ever made. The sound shattered his eardrums, leaving him disoriented as he wobbled back and forth, hitting the ground with a knee.

6

Sara heard the amplified scream and finally got direction in the rainstorm. [Hold in there,] she thought. [Please…] Ten seconds later, she finally passed the story and saw Lemora.

7

Raul couldn’t hear, and his vision was hazy from being disoriented. So he released a divination cloud to see with his eyes shut. Calling upon the brutal training, Sara put him through, he watched Eline strike with an ice spear from behind him. He turned as she threw it, swinging his axe and hitting it like a baseball. The blade destroyed the spear, and the aura blade continued forward, slicing off Eline’s arm—leaving her shocked. She muttered something with her mouth—he couldn’t hear it.

Suddenly, he felt pressure from his back, and he dodged in time to avoid a fireball. A water ball followed close behind, but Raul was prepared. If Sara did anything, it was drilling combination attacks into them. Wind and fire, water and fire, create earthquakes and fill them with water, water and ice, water and electricity. Water and fire made scalding steam, which was deadly—but magically harmless. [Zória arkhízoun!] Raul chanted. A thin barrier wrapped around him before the fire water hit, dispelling it. [Akoloutheí ta ichnē.] Wind dispel. Wind exploded around Raul in a cloud, clearing the hot mist. Then he jumped forward, swinging his axe at Grent, who looked shocked. The mage said something—

—Raul couldn’t hear. He couldn’t even see without confusing himself. He was walking around, viewing the world through mana signatures, which were closer to black and white. Through that vision, he could see the siblings lifting their hands as massive ice balls floating above them rained down on him. Raul swung his axe, sending massive crimson arcs of aura flying at them in a Z pattern, trying to cover the land and sky when striking at the siblings.

It was getting intense, and his power was depleting, so he rushed up to Eline’s missing arm and brutally cut it in half, splashing its blood on the blade. His mind blanked out as the energy flowed into his body, and right then, something [strange] happened. It was hard to explain. It was like the siblings’ mana signatures blurred, creating this strange cloud. Raul became wary, but he couldn’t slow down because they started shooting ice spheres at him as they jumped from barrier to barrier in the sky. It was obnoxious.

“Stop moving!” Raul yelled. [Diamántia ouraníou toxévontai, graphóntas tin próklisi tis sympan!] He lifted his left hand and released a gust of scorching wind that knocked the siblings off balance in the air. Then he charged forward, jumping toward Eline. He reached her, lifting his axe and cutting through her—

—only for her body to dissolve and for his axe to hit dead air.

Then he felt a spear stab into his back.