"Shoot!!"
The order cracked through the smoke-choked sky like thunder.
TWANG!
Ballistae thundered to life—giant bolts with heavy, rune-etched chains screamed through the air. Some found their mark, tearing through membranes and muscle, pinning dragons to the earth like broken angels. Others missed, splintering rocks or vanishing into the flames.
"Poison arrows—now!"
The knights moved like machinery forged in hell. They swapped quivers with chilling precision and loosed volley after volley of black-tipped death.
The arrows struck. Dragons shrieked—high, guttural cries, not of rage, but of agony.
Majestic once.
Now—butchered like cattle.
Their power, the awe that once shook kingdoms, had withered. Centuries of decline had left them fragile, tamed, and weak. The dragons that soared above myths now bled and groaned, collapsing under chains and toxins.
One by one, they were slain. Graceful necks snapped. Glorious wings torn apart. Talons, once strong enough to rend iron, scrabbled uselessly at the dirt.
Lucas turned, unfazed by the carnage.
His burning gaze found Ian and the Snow Knight.
With a simple gesture—a hand raised and lowered like a conductor's baton—he gave the signal.
Ian smirked, stepping forward with confident precision.
"Light Art—First Form: Dawnpiercer."
A radiant spear formed in his palm, pure light humming with divine energy. He flung it like lightning. The spear pierced through a dragon's skull, exiting in a flash. Another followed. And another.
A trail of brilliance and death.
The Snow Knight ascended.
She ran up steps of hardened air, leaping between smoke trails and slashing through dragons mid-flight. Her blade, cold as winter, carved glowing arcs in the sky. Elegance and destruction became one.
It was not a battle.
it was a massacre.
Even the nearby fairies, once hidden within Mount Nytheris, wept. They huddled beneath leaves and stones, watching their sacred land burn, their dragon kin slaughtered before their eyes.
But the real storm hadn't arrived.
Not yet.
From above—a roar of falling water.
A massive torrent crashed from the heavens. A battalion of mages riding wyverns surged through the sky, cloaked in blue robes, magic dancing at their fingertips.
"Water Magic—Torrent!"
A deluge surged across the battlefield, drowning the flames in an instant. Smoke curled away, replaced by mist and cold fury.
Then—
A voice echoed from the sky, ancient and powerful.
"SAVE THE DRAGONS!"
The Wizard King had arrived.
Old. Weathered. His face was carved by time and sacrifice. Fifteen years ago, he had spent his life force to stop Teslon. He paid the price.
But his presence still bent the battlefield around him.
And now, he stood as the final wall between the dragons and extinction.
Mages broke formation and dove to rescue the dragons, casting barriers, healing spells, winds of retreat.
Lucas, standing amid blood and ruin, smiled.
"Kill them all. Burn the sky if you must."
A rain of fire arrows soared upward.
But the Wizard King lifted his staff. His voice cracked the air:
"Wind Magic—Tornado!"
A swirling vortex ripped through the sky, scattering the flame like sparks in a storm. The arrows never touched the dragons.
Now—it was no longer man versus beast.
It was Knight versus Mage.
Lucas's grin widened. He unsheathed his blade—a massive greatsword inscribed with flame runes that glowed with ancient heat.
He turned to Ian, to Snow Knight, to the elite around him.
"Follow me. I'll clear the path."
Then he leapt—down into the canyon, a trail of fire behind him.
He struck the ground like a meteor, the earth cracking beneath his boots.
His blade sang.
He cut through the chained dragons still crawling, tore through mages in mid-incantation, a whirlwind of death and heat.
The knights followed.
A legion of gods and demons in human skin.
The sky lit with spells.
The ground trembled with flame.
Lucas's advance was halted.
Above him, twelve elite mages hovered in perfect formation—robes fluttering, staves raised, chanting in eerie unison.
"Water Magic: High Tide!"
Twelve voices. One spell.
The air screamed as a massive tidal wave, summoned from thin air, surged forward. A wall of water, shimmering with arcane sigils, roared toward the Duke like an ocean rebelling against flame.
Lucas didn't flinch.
He lowered his greatsword, plunging it deep into the scorched earth. Then—he raised his fist.
A tremor spread beneath his feet.
"Heavenly Flame Art—Second Form: Eternal Wall of Blaze."
From the battlefield rose five pillars of fire, bursting upward like volcanic spires. One by one, they twisted, spiraled, and merged into a solid infernal wall, stretching across the path of the coming wave.
The duke stepped forward, expression like tempered steel. He clenched his fist—and with a roar—punched through the wall.
BOOM!
The collision of his aura and the living flame shattered the oncoming tide. Steam exploded outward, swallowing the battlefield in a blinding cloud of smoke and heat.
And then—light.
"Light Art—Third Form: Light of Judgment"
Beams of divine radiance burst through the mist. Like spears of heaven, they lanced downward—precise, unforgiving. The mages tried to scatter, but half of them weren't fast enough. The beams punched through their barriers, searing them from the sky.
Six survived.
Ian, watching from below, clicked his tongue in disappointment.
"Too slow," he muttered.
Before the survivors could regroup, the smoke split again.
Lucas leapt.
A flash of red cloak, a streak of flame—he came down like an executioner. His blade cleaved through two mages in a single swing. The remaining four began to chant defensive spells in desperation.
But a spear of light struck first.
"Light Art—First Form: Dawnpiercer." Ian's voice echoed calmly.
The spear skewered two more before they could finish their incantations. The last two hesitated—long enough for Lucas to end them with one sweeping strike.
Silence.
The flames still crackled behind him. The enemy elite had been wiped out.
The Empire's army surged forward again. Dracia's mages faltered. Dragons, wounded and shackled, cried out as they were cut down. Even with their intervention, even with wyverns and storms and desperate magic—the tide would not turn.
The Wizard King stood atop a high ridge, his aging face etched with sorrow and fury.
His soldiers were fleeing. The last of the dragons were dying.
He watched as Alaric carved through a formation of healers, his strikes clean and merciless. The Snow Knight danced on winds, silent and beautiful as winter, executing wounded mages trying to retreat.
The mountain was lost.
The Wizard King's voice trembled—not with fear, but rage.
"You'll drown in the blood you've spilled…" he cursed.
Then, with a sweep of his robes and a whisper of wind, he vanished into the sky.
Silence fell like snowfall.
Lucas stood amidst the smoke and ruin. He looked to the burning horizon. The mountain that once housed fairies and dragons, a place whispered about in legend, was now a graveyard.
"Cowards." he muttered, sheathing his blade.
The wind carried the sobbing cries of fairies, echoing through the blackened trees and broken stones.
Lucas turned to his soldiers.
"Bury the dead. Plant the banner. This mountain belongs now to the Empire ."
Steel boots marched forward.
the imperial flag was raised—a sigil of fire and crown—and driven into the heart of Mount Nytheris.
Camps were constructed. Graves were dug. Dragons were left in twisted heaps.
The mountain melt.
And still, the Empire ambition didnt stop.
Dracia
The Wizard King slumped on his royal throne,.
His once-proud figure—towering and resplendent in robes of celestial weave—now withered beneath the weight of time and battle. His hands, once channels of untold arcane might, trembled as they rested upon the throne's cold armrests.
The throne room of Dracia, silent.
The torches flickered as if mourning.
He coughed—a dry, rattling sound that echoed through the halls—and then, with what strength remained, he raised one hand.
"Seal the kingdom," he whispered.
It wasn't a suggestion.
It was an order laced with finality.
The mages surrounding him—his last loyal circle—bowed without a word. They vanished in a flurry of light, their spells already prepared, their hearts heavy.
Soon, across every border, every leyline, every crack and crevice of the kingdom—a web of ancient sigils and holy runes ignited.
From the outermost edges to the capital's very core, a colossal formation unfolded.
The skies above Dracia shimmered.
The winds halted.
The world itself recoiled.
"Array of Isolation."
A spell born from the old gods, long buried in forbidden tomes.
Massive golden barriers surged skyward and plunged into the earth, encasing the entire kingdom in a shimmering, translucent shell.
Nothing could enter.
Nothing could leave.
The Kingdom of Dracia, home of mages, dragons, and the oldest magic in the realm—shut its eyes to the world.
The Wizard King watched from his high tower as the final rune locked into place. His breath came shallow. His vision blurred.
"Let the Empire conquer the world," he muttered bitterly.
"They will not have us."
A silence followed, cold and eternal.
And behind his sealed gates, the last true kingdom of magic faded from the world's reach.