Draven didn't move.
He didn't breathe.
He just **sat there**, cradling his mother's body as if letting go would make it real.
His eyes were wide—too wide—staring at nothing and everything at once. Tears poured down his face in heavy, silent streams, soaking into Elliana's hair, her clothing , the dirt beneath them. His hands trembled where they held her, fingers locked tight, as though sheer force of will could keep her here.
Outside the dome—
Chaos.
Lightning crashed against the barrier.
Blades of light slammed into it.
Holy mana roared again and again, each strike shaking the clearing.
But the darkness **held**.
For a moment… it held.
Knights shouted in frustration as their attacks skidded off the surface, distorted and swallowed whole. Cedric's lightning hammered down with thunderous force. Elira's radiant spears followed—merciless, unrelenting—
Still the dome did not break.
Because it wasn't shadow alone holding it together.
It was **Elliana**.
Her life.
Her will.
Her refusal to let them touch her son.
But life-force burns fast.
And when it's gone—
The cost comes due.
A thin crack appeared in the darkness.
Then another.
Then another.
The dome began to **crumble**, flakes of shadow drifting away like ash on the wind. The oppressive pressure inside faded, warmth draining away, the protective presence that had wrapped around Draven dissolving piece by piece.
Outside, the knights noticed.
"The barrier—!" one shouted.
"It's weakening!"
Elira lifted her head sharply, breath ragged, eyes widening as realization struck.
"…Her life," she murmured, disbelief seeping into her voice. "She used her *life* to form it."
Cedric's jaw tightened.
"So she's dead," he said coldly. "Then it's over."
Kaelen froze mid-clash.
Not because Alric's hammer struck true.
Not because Elyndra's blade grazed him.
Because something was **gone**.
The crimson storm around him faltered—just for a heartbeat.
"…Elliana?"
He reached out instinctively.
No answering presence.
No familiar pull.
No steady, grounding warmth that had always been there—even in battle.
Nothing.
His breath caught.
Below—far below—the battlefield snapped into focus.
The shattered clearing.
The collapsing dome of darkness.
And there—
Draven.
Kneeling.
Cradling a body that did not move.
Elliana's body.
Kaelen's eyes widened, pupils shrinking as if the world itself had slammed into his chest.
"No…" he whispered.
The word barely existed.
Time slowed.
He saw the blood.
The way her head lolled.
The way Draven's shoulders were too still, too rigid—like a child who hadn't yet understood that something could never be fixed.
Something inside Kaelen **collapsed**.
Not snapped.
Not cracked.
Collapsed.
The crimson aura around him didn't flare.
It **died**.
For half a second, there was no fury—only a vast, hollow silence.
Then—
It came back.
Wrong.
The air screamed as Kaelen's mana detonated outward, not in a wave but in a **cataclysm**. The clouds above were torn apart, the sky itself ripping open as crimson lightning forked violently in every direction.
Alric was blasted backward like a doll, his hammer torn from his grip.
Elyndra's wings shattered into radiant fragments as she was hurled away, spiraling through the clouds in a burst of light.
Kaelen didn't look at them.
His gaze was locked downward.
On Draven.
On Elliana.
His jaw trembled.
"…They killed you," he said softly.
The words weren't shouted.
They weren't roared.
They were **certain**.
The blood-blade in his hand dissolved—not into mist, but into pure, seething mana that wrapped around his arm like a living thing. His veins burned visibly beneath his skin, glowing crimson as the light spread up his neck and across his face.
This wasn't rage.
This was **judgment**.
"Elliana," he murmured, his voice cracking for the first time in centuries. "I told you… I'd protect you."
The sky darkened unnaturally.
Not with clouds.
With **pressure**.
The world itself bent toward Kaelen, as if gravity had remembered who truly ruled this battlefield.
Below, Elira staggered, nearly dropping her staff.
"…What—what is this pressure?" she gasped.
Cedric felt it too.
His lightning faltered.
His breath shortened.
For the first time, fear crept into his eyes.
"This isn't just wrath," he muttered. "This is—"
Kaelen raised his head.
And spoke.
His voice carried—not as sound, but as **law**.
"Every one of you," he said calmly, terribly, "who raised a blade against my wife…"
Crimson lightning coiled tighter, screaming like a living thing.
"…will die."
The forest shook.
The knights froze.
Draven, still kneeling, didn't feel it wash over him—even as the presence he'd known his entire life twisted into something vast and unbearable.
Kaelen's gaze flicked to his son.
For just a moment—
The fury softened.
Pain bled through.
Then he looked back to the battlefield.
And the storm descended.
Kaelen moved.
Not with haste.
Not with reckless fury.
With **finality**.
He swung.
The motion was simple—almost casual—but the force behind it was absolute. Crimson mana condensed along his arm, no longer shaped into a blade but into something far worse: a **line of annihilation**, raw and unrefined.
Alric and Elyndra struck at the same time.
Radiant steel pierced from above.
The lightning hammer crashed into his side.
The impact tore open the sky—light, thunder, and blood colliding in a deafening rupture.
But Kaelen's swing **did not stop**.
The arc descended.
It struck the forest.
The world split.
A screaming crimson line tore through earth, stone, and ancient roots as if they were paper. Trees vanished—sheared cleanly at the trunk, disintegrating mid-fall. The ground collapsed inward, forming a vast, smoking trench that stretched **for miles**, its edges glowing faintly red.
The shockwave followed a heartbeat later.
Everything not anchored was erased.
Knights caught in its path didn't scream.
They didn't even realize.
They were simply **gone**—armor, bodies, weapons reduced to nothing the instant the line passed through them.
The cut ended only a few feet from Draven.
So close the wind tore at his hair.
So close the heat scorched the earth at his knees.
Elliana's body lay just on the other side of the divide.
The trench separated them from the knights.
From Elira.
From Cedric.
From the battlefield.
Silence followed.
A vast, ringing silence, broken only by distant thunder and the groan of collapsing trees far down the line of destruction.
Above, Kaelen staggered.
The Apostles' attacks finally landed.
Alric's hammer crushed into his ribs, lightning detonating through his body.
Elyndra's blade tore across his back, radiant light burning deep, carving into flesh that had endured far worse.
Blood sprayed into the sky.
Kaelen coughed once.
But he did not fall.
He hovered there, wounded and bleeding, crimson lightning crawling erratically across his form. His arm—still extended from the swing—trembled slightly.
Slowly, he turned his head.
His eyes locked onto the Apostles.
They had stopped.
For the first time since the battle began, both of them hesitated.
Because they could see it now.
That swing hadn't been aimed at them.
It had been aimed at **separating his son from danger**.
Kaelen's voice carried low and broken—yet filled with something far worse than rage.
"You interrupted me."
The air thickened again.
Below, Draven stared at the vast chasm carved into the world, eyes wide, breath caught in his chest. The smell of scorched earth and blood filled his lungs.
For the first time since his mother fell—
He understood.
His father was no longer holding back.
And the world was about to pay for it.