He pulled out his wand from the spatial ring as he nearly stumbled on the stairs, his heart threatening to jump out of his chest as he rushed toward the window. There, he saw a rain of light particles descend from the sky as if the heavens themselves were shattering.

His parents quickly appeared next to him with pale faces, their pupils trembling as they stared outside the window, anger, resentment, and fear manifesting on their faces as they held each other’s hands tightly.

“They broke the outer barrier…” Ray said, his voice barely a whisper, frowning as he scoffed Where did I make a mistake?

Elena’s hand trembled in his as he turned to face her, staring deep into her fearful crimson eyes “I’m sorry dear,” he whispered, “I made a mistake, we…, he was one step ahead.”

She brought his hand closer to her heart and lightly shook her head “It’s not your fault! I, I shouldn't have intervened back then but Kai, he…”

“You did what you had to do,” Ray interrupted her, kissing her forehead gently before saying, “Now we must do what we have to do, for Kai.”

He quickly muttered something under his breath, and his face darkened as he clicked his tongue...

“They’ve cut off any teleportation…” he said, his voice grave, “It’s probably a huge spatial lock domain, he must have at least a dozen mages… Damn it!”

Elena released herself from his embrace and straightened herself, taking a deep breath, her eyes turned resolute as she looked at Kai with a gentle gaze. She turned toward the door, closing her eyes as she steeled herself.

Images of a tall man with black, short hair and a raspy beard appeared in her head. He wore a large black robe embroidered with golden thread, and a large crown decorated his head. His warm smile was as beautiful as a Lily, and his joyous laughter still rang in her ears after all this time.

Father…

Ray also steeled himself for what was about to come, and he pulled out a small piece of paper from his spatial ring, turning to Kai as he handed it to him. “Keep this close to your chest, and rip it when I say so, alright?”

Kai nodded and looked at the small paper in his hand, its yellowish hue showing its age.

His parents faced the door and they took out their wands as they slowly walked over to it. Each step felt like thousands of small needles relentlessly pierced their feet. The door creaked open, the faint luminescence of the moon spilling in revealing the grandeur of the army hiding within the darkness.

Hundreds of soldiers wearing tar black armor stared back at them with gazes filled with murderous hate. Fifty of them were flying high in the air on some sort of black-winged lizard beasts, looming over them, ever watching, like the tip of death’s scythe itself.

Behind the soldiers stood two dozen magicians who chanted in an indecipherable, ancient language. The man who stood in front of the soldiers was the same who sat on the throne in the imperial palace, the commander of the shadow soldiers: The King of the Vampire Kingdom.

He was tall, slim, and his long, dark hair reached down to his waist. His pointed red eyes stared at Elena and Ray with inexplicable hatred. He had a small nose and thin, red lips with a long and deep scar running across his face, from the upper left side of his forehead to the lower right and cutting along his eyebrow, nose, and stopping at the corner of his lips.

His left hand was missing, replaced instead by a metallic arm, talons at the extremities of his fingers, creating some sort of claw.

A grim, smile was etched on his face, his lips and legs were trembling. His expression was a mixture of excitement and anger. He watched the two as his breathing turned ragged, but quickly collected himself.

His expression turned deadpan as he played with some small beads in his hand. His teeth let out a light scraping sound as they brushed against each other.

Ray looked at the man with a fearful expression, his muscles trembled and his chest tightened. His gaze lingered on the man, and a wave of intense guilt swept over him as their eyes met.

Master…

He quickly repressed the feeling and gulped, tightening his white-knuckled grip on his wand, his thoughts becoming resolute. I have Elena and Kai, a family I must protect, I made the right decision back then…

Almost as if the wand had sensed Ray’s resoluteness, it let out a faint, sharp screech, similar to that of a bird. The Crystals on it flashed briefly as the sound abruptly stopped.

Next to him, Elena gritted her teeth, blood dripping down from her taught fists. She angrily glared at the man in front of her, her arms, legs, and lips. Her whole body trembled as her muscles tensed up. Blood rushed through her veins as images of that fateful day flashed in her mind.

Corpses.

Countless corpses, a bloody throne room, and her father’s large back protected her from this man’s fatal blow. Her beloved maidservant had acted as a second mother.

Her heart burned with anger and pain as she saw the man who took away her old family come to break apart her new one. I knew we shouldn’t have come here… everything would have been fine if not for that, Lytic! If only…

Her face flushed red as her muffled, angry voice escaped her lips through gritted teeth.“Ha-ni-ard!!!”

She inhaled deeply as she tried to calm herself down.

Ray grabbed her hand, his warm touch helping her compose herself. They stared into each other's eyes briefly, both of them seeing the decisiveness within and their breathing returned to normal as they wordlessly assured each other.

They inhaled deeply and faced the man named Haniard, whose face morphed into a piercing, maniacal expression. His lips twisted into a weird smile and he started chuckling, which gradually turned into a crazy crackle that sent shivers down everyone’s spines.

His crazed laughter continued for a minute until he finally calmed down, and his expression returned to a normal, neutral one. Hidden behind it, however, was an intense and vicious anger.

His eyes made contact with Ray’s, and a hint of a strange and complicated emotion revealed itself before slowly fading away. His lips parted, his hoarse voice ringing in Ray’s ears again after countless years.

“Why?” he asked a simple, one-word question, the meaning behind it only known by a certain few.

Ray bit his lip and avoided Haniard’s gaze, staring at the ground as he replied in a shaky voice. “It was wrong, all of it. We killed too many innocents, I had to make things right!”

Haniard let out a sigh as he looked at Ray, then at Elena, who stood beside him. “So this is your idea of making things right?” he asked, his voice filled with anger.

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“I wanted to believe you made a mistake, that you’d come back to me once you figured it all out… but instead… you decided to side with her!?” He said as his resentful voice gradually rose. “I raised you as my apprentice, my son! I taught you all I know and I saw in you what others didn’t, yet you decided to stab me in the back anyway?! What about your parents? What would they say!?”

By the end of his speech, any trace of pain in his voice disappeared, and his last words stabbed at Ray’s heart like a sword pierced through his chest.

He suddenly remembered the past he wanted to forget, the life of a young orphan left alone in the streets, his parents lost to war. He begged for food and lived in derelict houses together with the other war orphans.

Back then he was angry. Angry at the country, the king, the nobility, and at his parents. ‘After all that we went through, they surrendered? What about me? My siblings, what did our parents die for?’ He kneeled in front of a shattered statue as tears ran down his cheeks, crying toward the sky.

It was then, when he was five years old that he met Haniard, who had stopped behind him. He raised his head and looked at the man who extended his hand, and asked the question that sealed his fate “Boy, do you want to be my apprentice?”

How could he refuse?

A noble - someone he hated - wanted to become his teacher. He knew all too well what would happen if he said no. From that day forth he became Haniard’s apprentice. He was fed, taken care of, and educated, and gradually he began to see Haniard as more than a teacher… until -

Elena nudged him awake from his daydream, and as he looked into her eyes, reminding himself why he was there. He pointed his wand at Haniard and inhaled deeply before saying, “Master, I regret betraying you, because you were someone I cared about. But I don’t regret saving her from you, she did nothing to deserve this… neither… Neither did the servants…”

Haniard remained silent, letting out a deep sigh as his eyes drifted toward the night sky. He raised his hand and parted his lips, ordering coldly, “Men, fire!”

Hundreds of spells and arrows flew toward Ray and Elena in an instant. They waved their hands, murmuring spells under their breath and two huge, transparent shields materialized a few meters in front of them, blocking the majority of the projectiles.

A spectacle of colors covered the sky, and the sharp sound of metal on metal resounded in every direction.

A few arrows managed to sneak past the massive shields. The air split apart as they careened toward the house. They stopped a few meters away from the wall, crashing against a translucent barrier that enveloped the entire house.

The sound of falling arrows and crashing spells rang in Ray and Elena’s ears as they hid behind the shield’s protection, thinking of a way to get out of the situation.

As time went on, the sound of cracking glass resounded on the battlefield, and thin lines began to cover the magic shields as they trembled. “What should we do?” Elena asked through gritted teeth, “We can’t win a battle of attrition against them!”

He nodded slightly and pulled out a glass flask filled with a transparent liquid and handed it to her, saying, “Drink this and hold the shield for a minute, I will lessen the pressure…”

His shaky voice caused Elena to shudder, but she bit her lip and downed the liquid, her shield gradually healing.

Ray took a look at the battlefield and identified the people who were posing the biggest threat. A group of magicians were casting spells as if they didn’t need to use mana. The cockatrice riders and the magicians behind, I bet they’re holding the active spatial lock … If only I could get to them.

He clutched his wand and pointed it toward the sky, and as his muffled voice echoed in the noisy battlefield, Elena was doing her best to protect them from the unrelenting bombardment, her shield continuously splintering and healing as her mana depleted faster and faster.

“I can’t hold on much longer…” she said, her voice barely a whisper as cold sweat ran down her face while trying to hang on for a few more desperate seconds, just enough for Ray to finish his spell.

A small wisp of fire appeared in his hand and it gradually grew larger and larger, metamorphosing into a small, dark phoenix. Similar to the one Kai cast, except for its temperature and color.

Ray’s Dark Phoenix exuded a bone-chilling air, and as its size gradually grew larger, its temperature plummeted even lower.

It flew higher and higher, and after reaching a dozen meters in size, its eyes opened, letting out a loud screech as it hovered mid-air, waiting for Ray’s commands.

“Extermination Phoenix!” he yelled as he pointed toward the flying beasts, and the Dark Phoenix instantly dashed toward them, the air splitting under its speed.

It let out a sharp screech as it leaped right in the middle of the cockatrice riders, and it exploded without hesitation. The men at the center evaporated instantly, not even their weapons or beasts remaining.

And those were the lucky ones, in the outer limits of the explosion, those who had been barely touched by the shockwave began rotting, pieces of skin and bones turned to dust as they slowly disappeared.

They screamed in agony as their armor melted and molded onto their skin, before it too fell off, disappearing without a trace. Only those in the outer ring could say that they had gotten off scot-free, even if they were forced to cut off a body part.

The explosion had spread to the ground troops relentlessly as well, the thousand or so soldiers running frantically from the shockwave. Those that were closest to the origin point had a similar fate to those on the outer limits - Their armor, skin, and bones melted and disappeared, and their muffled screams filled the battlefield with a horrific sound before finally dying out.

Out of the thousand or so soldiers, about three hundred of them had lost their lives in this manner, and more than one hundred were severely wounded.

Out of the fifty cockatrice riders, one-fifth of them perished instantly, while the rest were severely wounded, with only some of them getting away relatively safe.

Haniard stood inside a small barrier as he watched the gruesome spectacle, feeling impressed and a little proud of his apprentice’s skill, but those feelings were quickly drowned out by sorrow. I spent so much time and resources training them, and now, they’re gone! He bit his lower lip as the soldiers rearranged themselves.

I shouldn’t have given him the time to cast that, I never expected him to reach such high proficiency in dark and fire magic…

With so many soldiers dead, the burden on Elena decreased exponentially, and she let out an involuntary sigh of relief before her pupils widened at the sight of so many people falling from the sky.

The wails and pleas for help from those unlucky to still be alive rang in her ears as goosebumps spread all over her body. She looked toward Ray, unable to endure the horrific sight.

His face was deathly pale as he struggled to breathe, and cold sweat dripped down his forehead as if he had just run a marathon. He clenched his stomach as he fought the urge to vomit, and his mind was flooded with thoughts he didn’t have the time to process. His whole body trembled as he straightened himself, looking at the corpse-littered, scorched battlefield with a pained gaze.

Is this the only way? Was there no other choice I could have taken… Kai popped into his mind as he pulled out a vial filled with a faint blue liquid, downing it in one gulp. We moved here for him… what’s there to question anymore when we knew the risks?

He pulled out another flask filled with a red liquid, and some color returned to his face after drinking it.

The bombardment of the enemy quickly resumed, although not as bad as before, it was still difficult for Elena to endure by herself.

Ray kneeled down and quickly activated a barrier that took most of the pressure off her shoulders. She undid the shield and took some time to catch her breath, her gaze drifting toward the mages that stood all the way in the back.

“Why aren't they attacking as well?” She asked her husband as she drank another potion.

He wiped the sweat off his forehead and answered with a hoarse voice, “They’re probably the ones… maintaining the spatial lock active… we must get rid of them…quick.”

Elena noticed her husband’s tired appearance and hurriedly cast a healing spell on him, easing his fatigue ever so slightly.

Haniard glared at them, his heart getting slowly ripped apart and eaten by hatred. He noticed Ray’s weakness after that attack, however, he didn’t dare be reckless as he didn’t know the strength of his former apprentice. Even a cornered rabbit bites after all…

“Men, advance!” he barked an order as pointed forward, his wand pointed straight at Ray’s heart. The sound of the soldiers marching in unison was like a symphony of death to Kai’s parents, but like music to Haniard’s ears. It was the song playing as he took the lives of two traitors!

Their hearts raced as they did their best to remain calm, and Elena healed Ray continuously as his muscles eased up, her mana supplies not showing any signs of exhaustion.

She stood close to her husband and they raised their wands, preparing themselves for the biggest fight of their lives. It was either kill or be killed, there would be no in-between.