Ariella
North Pillar ocean
American continent
April 17th 6415
Four days had passed since Lady Renee assigned me the task: retrieve the Moonstone from the Dungeon buried deep within an isle of the North Pillar Ocean. The name alone had stirred something in me.
The Moonstone—a relic of immense significance to the Lycan race. A primal artifact tied to their bloodline, once said to resonate with the full moon even under a sunless sky. I had studied it once, when I was fourteen. A school-level obsession. At the time, it was nothing more than ancient history. A curiosity. I never imagined it would become relevant to House Mircalla.
And yet here we were.
"We're nearly there," Lilith said, standing at the front of the vessel.
We were inside Aeternum's inner sanctum—the Codex made manifest in the form of a sleek, silver-skinned craft, gliding through the storm-split skies above a raging ocean. Lightning danced across the clouds like living veins. The sea below roared with untamed mana currents. But Aeternum moved through it all with seamless grace.
We had departed quietly—intentionally—under cover of dusk, just as the Mircalla household had been absorbed in yet another night of the Feast of Lamentation.
I hadn't told anyone else of the Mircalla house. Not Rafael. Not Ravana. Only Lady Renee had been informed, as a courtesy. She had offered us a personal escort—Mircalla ships, armed guardians, spatial anchors. All of it.
But I had declined. Not out of pride. Out of purpose. I needed to prove to her that we could do this our way. Without her resources. Without her shadows. That House Ashtarmel—what remained of it—still had its own teeth. And thanks to Lilith's Codex—Aeternum—we had traveled faster and farther than any fleet could offer.
"I didn't know Aeternum could fly," I admitted, gripping one of the support rails as the vessel dipped through a turbulence pocket. "Or that it could handle this much pressure."
Lilith glanced over her shoulder, her dark hair rippling slightly under the ethereal wind. "It's not flying," she said. "It's rewriting how the space around us behaves. We're not above the ocean… we're part of a space-layer running through it."
I blinked. "That's… terrifyingly impressive."
She smirked. "Thank you."
The Codex hummed louder as the island came into view—dark, jagged cliffs rising like teeth from the water, wrapped in a shroud of storm clouds that churned without rest. A flicker of light pulsed somewhere near the center—a faint, rhythmic glow I recognized instantly. The Dungeon. And deep within it…
The Moonstone.
The moment Aeternum descended, the storm peeled back.
It wasn't natural.
The winds didn't die down—they recoiled, parting around us like we carried something the sea itself didn't want to touch. Rain scattered in reverse, and lightning forked away from our path, as if guided by an ancient memory buried deep within the clouds.
The island loomed ahead, jagged and black, its cliffs cutting into the sky like obsidian spears. Thick mist clung to the shoreline, crawling between ancient stones and fallen altars, half-swallowed by moss and time.
We touched down in a clearing of cracked slate and iron sand—no trees, no birds, no life. Just the rhythm of the storm above and the pulse of something old beneath our feet.
Eduardo stepped out first, his boots crunching softly on the stone. Greta followed, her staff glowing faintly in her hand. Ben muttered something under his breath about cursed places and getting paid more, but I could tell even he felt it—the pressure. The pull.
Lilith moved ahead of us, eyes already searching.
"There," she said, pointing toward a shattered arch half-buried in the slope of the island's center. "The Foldgate is still intact."
I narrowed my eyes. The archway was carved from pale stone, older than anything around it, and wrapped in vines that seemed to recoil from her presence. In its center shimmered a thin veil of light—fractured, like broken glass suspended in the air.
"Aeternum," she said aloud. "Activate the Foldgate sequence."
A glyph circle expanded from beneath the arch, lighting up with flowing runes. The space between the columns vibrated, then stabilized, revealing a portal of shimmering blue and violet light—like the surface of a calm sea reflecting a twilight sky.
"Dungeon gate confirmed," Aeternum's voice echoed in our minds. "Stability 82%. External mana flux acceptable. Layered space formation: complete. You may proceed."
Lilith turned to me, her expression unreadable. "I'm going in first. I'll see what's on the other side."
"Maybe I should go first," Greta said, adjusting the grip on her staff. "Seeing as I'm the strongest in the group."
I shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"
Lilith stepped aside without argument, allowing Greta to approach the Foldgate. The glowing veil shimmered, reflecting across her silver-lined boots as she stepped through without hesitation. A ripple of light followed her—then stillness.
A few seconds passed.
Then I stepped forward, the hum of the gate vibrating against my skin. The light pulsed softly, warm but tinged with an unshakable unease—like something ancient was watching from the other side.
I crossed the threshold.
The shift was immediate.
No sense of movement. No drift or pull. Just an instant, absolute displacement.
Stone became metal. The air thickened, laced with ether. Gravity realigned. Time itself felt slower, denser—as if the world here obeyed different laws.
When my vision cleared, I saw Greta standing ahead, already alert. She was gazing up at the ceiling high above, her brow furrowed.
I followed her line of sight.
We stood inside a massive chamber, its scale overwhelming, lit by veins of moonglass embedded deep into the walls. The glow cast a soft, silvery hue across the room, reflecting off the polished black stone floor in ghostly ripples.
The architecture was strange—part Lycan, but also older, layered with geometry that suggested a celestial origin. Every surface was etched with symbols: depictions of two moons—one whole, one shattered. The motif repeated again and again, carved into the walls, the pillars, even the floor beneath our feet. I felt a chill. Then, one by one, the others stepped through behind me—Eduardo, Lilith, Ben. As soon as they emerged, the Foldgate behind us collapsed into a thin thread of light—and vanished.
We were sealed inside.
I instinctively reached inward, preparing to extend my internal sense to scan the chamber. But before I could, Greta's voice cut through the silence.
"I wouldn't do that," she said, eyes still fixed on the walls. "The Moonglass has a unique property—it reflects energy. Using your mental force to scan the room will just bounce back at you. Hard."
I paused, the flow of energy at my core slowing. She was right to warn me. I could feel the room's resistance now—like standing inside a mirrored hall of mana, where every pulse would only ricochet and distort.
Reluctantly, I let go of the scan and reined in my awareness. Instead, I focused with my natural senses, observing the chamber with deliberate care. Shadows clung to corners. The air pulsed faintly. The glow from the moonglass was steady—but unnerving, like it was watching us.
A part of me was tempted to activate my Boundless Eyes. They would cut through illusion. Through matter. Through space. But I hesitated. If the Moonglass could repel ordinary internal perception, what would happen when I used something stronger—a gaze born from my bloodline's fusion of space, time, and radiant force?
Would the feedback be worse? Would it trigger the room? Would it trigger me? For now... I kept my vision sealed. And kept walking.
We moved cautiously through the chamber, the silence pressing down heavier with each step. The moonglass pulsed softly behind the walls—slow and steady, like a heartbeat embedded in stone.
It wasn't long before we came across the first marking. A curved wall stretched up to the ceiling ahead of us, its surface etched with deep carvings. Lines of ancient script coiled in a spiral, glowing faintly with silvery-blue mana. The symbols weren't decorative—they moved, ever so slightly, shifting like water across etched stone.
Lilith stopped in front of the wall, narrowing her eyes. "This isn't just ornamental. It's a warded inscription."
"Lykari," I said, recognizing the flowing, spiral pattern of the script. "Old Lycan dialect."
Everyone turned instinctively to Ben—the only Lycan among us.
He blinked, noticed the attention, and raised his hands with a shrug. "Don't look at me. I wasn't born in a pack. I don't know anything about Lycan traditions."
"Ella can translate it," Lilith said without missing a beat.
I stepped forward, the inscriptions drawing me in like a quiet pulse in the back of my mind. I let my fingers hover near the spiraling glyphs—not touching, but close enough to feel the thrumming energy radiating from the stone. The runes shimmered in response, glowing brighter at my presence.
"It's a kind of declaration," I said slowly. "A passage from a Lycan philosophy text. They used to inscribe these on the gates of their strongholds—to remind warriors who they were fighting for."
Greta stepped closer. "What does it say?"
My voice settled into the cadence of the runes, words rising like an echo: "One alone may fall, but the pack endures. Blood is not the bond—purpose is. Strength lies not in the howl of the one, but in the silence before the strike of many."
I looked up at the group. The meaning seemed to hang in the air, unspoken.
"It's about unity," I explained. "To the Lycan race, strength didn't come from dominance—it came from shared instinct. From acting together with purpose. They believed the most dangerous force wasn't a single warrior, but a pack moving as one."
Ben let out a low whistle. "Huh. And here I thought we were all just muscle and moon worship."
The others gave him a collective side-eye.
Ben raised his arms in exasperation. "Hey, I wasn't raised in a pack, remember?"
Lilith smirked. "Then maybe it's time you learned what it means to be in one."
We continued deeper into the chamber, the passage narrowing until we were forced to move in a single file. The moonglass veins along the walls pulsed with growing intensity, humming in time with some unseen force deeper within. Twin-moon symbols—the full and the shattered—continued to guide us downward like silent sentinels, leading into a wide, circular vault with a domed ceiling that shimmered like a living night sky.
In the center of the room stood a raised platform encircled by five crescent-shaped pedestals. Suspended above it was a crystalline orb, slowly rotating within swirling tendrils of translucent mana. Etched into the stone beneath it spread a vast circle of Lykari script, woven with ancient movement diagrams—like the heartbeat of a forgotten era captured in moonlit stone.
Lilith stopped first. "It's a trial."
Ben frowned. "How do you know?"
She pointed toward the orb. "Because it's alive. Watching. And reacting."
A moment later, a cold voice echoed into our minds:
"Warning: Localized trial field detected. Spatial isolation complete. Participants locked. External support disabled. Initiating engagement parameters."
"Trial of Unity: Initiating. Synchronization required. Emotional and spiritual alignment: pending."
The doorway behind us sealed shut with a hum. Runes flared to life beneath our feet, forming patterns of glowing lines that branched out from the center of the room. Each of us was pulled, gently but firmly, toward one of the crescent pedestals.
"What does it mean, synchronization?" Ben asked.
"It's not just about movement," Lilith said. "It's testing our cohesion—if our wills can align under pressure."
Symbols blazed around our platforms. Under mine, the inscription read:
"One alone may fall, but the pack endures."
Spectral mirror-images began to form around us—ghostly doppelgängers that mimicked our movements, step for step. They floated toward the center, mirroring our postures like puppets on invisible strings.
"The trial isn't about fighting," I said. "It's about rhythm. We have to make our movements sync up through trust. Through our Intent. We're being judged on unity, not individual power."
Ben, trying to adjust his footing, stepped too soon. A surge of light flared beneath him. He grunted and was knocked backward a few steps, the floor hissing as it rejected the discord.
"Okay," he muttered. "Point made."
I took command.
"Everyone—breathe. Match my tempo. Don't overthink it. Just feel."
We moved as one, the others mirroring my lead as I followed the movement diagrams inscribed on the floor. I kept a steady pace—breathe in, step left, breathe out, pivot, drop into a crouch, rise. The rhythm was alien, the sequence awkward compared to the footwork I was used to. It was hard to find the natural flow in the pattern—it wasn't made for us. These movements were Lycan techniques, tailored to instincts we didn't have.
I glanced at Ben. As the only Lycan among us, I wondered if he should have taken point. But he hadn't been raised in a pack, and the furrow in his brow told me enough—this wasn't any more natural for him than it was for me.
Still, we kept going. But at the center of the room, the orb pulsed faster—its light sharp and uneven, mirroring our faltering synchronization.
Damn it, I thought. This wasn't the time to hesitate.
I summoned the Boundless Eyes. The runic patterns bloomed in my pupils like a silent ignition. Lilith caught the flicker of activation and turned sharply toward me, concern flashing in her gaze.
As my perception expanded, the moonglass around us reacted instantly. The light refracted—bouncing off the mirrored surfaces and firing back toward me like a storm of reflected clarity. It wasn't just overwhelming—it was disorienting. Greta had been right.
This place wasn't meant to be sensed with Internal Sense. And Boundless Eyes... only made that truth more painfully clear.
The pain was beyond anything I had ever experienced—white-hot and blinding. Blood trickled from my eyes and nose, a sharp burn spreading behind my skull as the Boundless Eyes strained against the unnatural resonance of the chamber. But I endured. I had to.
Only Lilith couldn't.
She took a step forward, anguish written across her face. The trial no longer mattered to her—only my suffering. She moved instinctively, ready to abandon the ritual.
But Eduardo caught her by the arm.
"Don't," he whispered. "You'll ruin the trial."
"Let go," she snapped, her voice low and trembling with fury.
"We have to follow the sequence—stay in sync—"
"I said let go."
Her animosity flared, visceral and immediate, no longer hidden beneath her calm.
"Ella is not so weak that you need to—"
Their tension fractured the stillness like a scream in a cathedral. It bled into the ritual, a spiritual discord that disrupted the flow. The mirrored figures in the center twitched—staggering out of rhythm, no longer echoing our movements. The orb at the center flickered erratically.
Then came the voice again—mechanical and cold.
"Resonance failure. Emotional discord detected. Initiating phase separation."
"No—wait!" I reached toward them, panic tightening in my chest.
The orb exploded with force—blinding light, a rush of deafening wind. My scream was lost as I was hurled backward. The ground split open beneath Lilith and Eduardo.
The last thing I saw was their hands—so close, almost touching. Then the world fractured. I hit cold stone hard, the air knocked from my lungs. When the light finally receded, I found myself in a different chamber—smaller, dimly lit in shades of quiet blue. The air was still, but heavy with tension. Greta and Ben stirred beside me, both dazed but alive. Lilith and Eduardo were gone.
****
Lilith's POV
Elsewhere, deep within the Dungeon's ever-shifting maze, I hit the water hard.
The impact punched the air from my lungs as the icy lake swallowed me whole. Darkness closed in for a moment, then I surged back to the surface, gasping. My eyes flared with light, scanning the cavern around me—walls slick with moisture, faint algae glowing along the stone like veins of ghostly mana.
A splash behind me—Eduardo dropped in, coughing as he clawed his way to the surface.
"You okay?" he asked, voice rough.
I didn't answer right away. I treaded water, heart steadying, senses stretched thin. There was no exit I could see, no obvious way forward. Just us, the cold, and the weight of the trial's failure pressing down like stone.
Finally, I muttered, "Looks like the Dungeon doesn't like discord."
"If you'd just listened to me, we wouldn't be in this situation," Eduardo snapped.
"Listen, you arrogant turd—" I grabbed him by the front of his suit jacket, voice low and dangerous. "I don't care if you're Ella's ex-fiancé—"
Before I could finish, Eduardo shoved me. Hard. My body launched out of the lake, skidding across the shore in a spray of cold silver water.
Then the surface of the lake exploded.
A massive creature burst out, jaws wide—clamping down on Eduardo mid-retort. Blood sprayed in arcs, mixing with the silvery mist of the lake.
"Eduardo!" I shouted.
No hesitation. My hand shot out, summoning a weapon from memory and will. The broken katana—the same one I'd used to kill Loridien Kael—formed in my grip. Its shattered tip flared with golden Radiance, light magic surging to complete the missing blade.
I launched myself forward, the blade igniting as I slashed downward in a blinding arc. The radiant edge tore through the beast's jaw with a burst of light and flesh.
It shrieked, recoiling. Eduardo's limp body slipped from its maw and began to fall back toward the lake.
No time.
I flared Wind magic through my limbs, overlaying it with Skyfall, the Mana Art of speed and aerial agility. My body twisted mid-air, wind catching beneath me like wings. In a blink, I closed the distance, catching Eduardo just before he hit the water—then landed on solid ground, both of us soaked, battered, but alive.
Eduardo was bleeding from his midsection, though the wound was already beginning to close—his body knitting itself back together with vampiric resilience. Still, the blood loss was heavy, his skin pale, his breath shallow.
I turned my gaze back to the lake.
The monster thrashed in the water, writhing as if in agony. But my blade hadn't cut that deep... Not enough to explain the way it convulsed in torment.
Then Aeternum's voice echoed in my mind.
"It's Eduardo's Divine Protection. Vesper Mortem is transferring the pain he suffered to his attacker. The boy cannot die unless Death itself declares it so. Be careful—he's not someone who can be killed so easily."
I looked back at Eduardo. He was conscious, but barely—his eyes glassy, jaw clenched. Despite the accelerated healing, the blood he'd lost had drained much of his vitality.
Vampires could regenerate most injuries, but they couldn't easily replace lost blood. Not without a source. In extreme cases like this, when the body was depleted, they needed to feed to restore their physical and mental stamina before collapse. He wasn't at death's door. But he was definitely knocking—though I doubted Death would answer. Not for him. Not yet.
I summoned a flask from my space ring, popped the seal, and tilted it toward Eduardo's lips. He caught the scent and grimaced. Still, he drank—despite how much he hated it. Ella had once told me how vile Synthblood tasted, though she'd never had real blood herself. She just knew it was wrong.
Little by little, the color returned to his face. His breathing steadied, and sure enough, that annoyingly arrogant expression settled back onto his features like a mask slipping into place.
I watched him for a moment, confused. Why had he shoved me out of the way? I was a Kain Vampire. I couldn't die—not by anything in this dungeon.
I stood, slipping the empty flask back into the ring.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
"You didn't have to throw yourself in front of me," I replied, not looking at him.
"I know."
He rose beside me, wincing slightly as his body finished repairing itself.
"We need to get out of here," I said. "Find Ella and the others."
I dismissed my broken katana, watching it dissolve into light before returning to Aeternum's pocket space. Then I turned toward the cavern, eyes narrowing. Time to move.
But just as I took a few steps forward, a low growl rumbled from the far corner of the cavern.
Silvery portals shimmered into existence—five of them, rippling like disturbed water. From each one, mana beasts emerged. Massive, bear-like creatures cloaked in pale silver fur, their eyes glowing with a ghostly sheen. Their presence radiated a dense pressure, like concentrated combat aura—wild, unrestrained, and deadly.
"Looks like we'll have to fight our way through," Eduardo said. He drew one of his pistol blades—one of the custom-forged weapons Greta had made for him.
I summoned Heartbeats—my twin forging hammers, now repurposed as weapons. They pulsed with elemental power, each one thrumming with light and darkness mana, woven into their cores.
Greta's voice echoed in my memory—"Don't spread yourself thin. At the Awakening stage, mastery matters more than diversity."
It was advice I had taken to heart. Rather than struggling to wield all six elements, I had chosen to specialize—light and darkness, my two strongest affinities. And thanks to the Ninefold Pathways Greta had drilled into me, I no longer needed incantations or casting circles. I could channel spells directly through movement—through body language, rhythm, and intent.
The beasts snarled in unison.
I tightened my grip on the hammers, feeling the surge of radiant and shadow energy coil around me.
"Let's make this quick," I said.
And then the first beast charged.
I moved—fast. My body became a blur as I danced into the fray, Heartbeats glowing with elemental fury. The darkness-infused hammer built kinetic momentum as I spun, the weight and force crushing the skull of the lead Silver Moon bear with a sickening crack. Without slowing, I pivoted, my light-infused hammer already alight with radiant magic. I conjured a blinding construct of compressed light around its head—turning the hammer into a wrecking comet—and slammed it into the next beast. The explosion of impact sent it sprawling, its silver fur scorched and smoking.
Eduardo fought beside me, his enchanted pistol blades flashing as he fired fire-aspected rounds with mechanical precision. The elemental rounds struck true, bursting against the thick coats of the beasts, but the bullets mostly ricocheted off, the fur absorbing the heat and impact like reinforced armor.
"Damn things are fire-resistant," he muttered.
"Not just that," I said through clenched teeth. "Their coats are woven with mana. They're designed to deflect and absorb elemental attacks."
A massive paw slammed down where I'd been just seconds before. I flipped away, the ground erupting in shattered stone. The sheer force of the strike would've turned my spine to powder had it landed.
These weren't feral creatures—they were coordinated. Intelligent. Each movement was calculated. One would charge while another flanked. One feinted while a second swept wide. Their formation shifted constantly, a fluid pack strategy that pushed us back inch by inch. They were forcing us into a wider perimeter—away from close-quarters engagement.
Which was a problem.
I needed proximity. My body-cast spells relied on being in the heart of the chaos. From this distance, their defense was too strong.
"We're getting boxed in," Eduardo called out, backpedaling fast, his coat trailing like a shadow behind him. He fired a burst of rounds—three shots in rapid succession—but the bullets only staggered the beast, barely piercing its shimmering hide. "You got a plan?"
I narrowed my eyes, scanning the coordinated motion of the beasts—the way they flanked, circled, and pressed with brutal precision. Like a living formation.
"Yeah," I said, spinning Heartbeats in both hands, the twin hammers humming with elemental tension. "We do exactly what the trial demanded. We act like them. Together. Unified. Can I trust you to cover my back?"
Eduardo gave a sharp nod and swapped the cartridges in his pistol blade. The fire-aspected rounds clattered to the ground, replaced by shimmering ones etched with runes—resonance rounds. Greta's custom design. These bullets didn't rely on elemental force—they pulsed with Eduardo's mana, tuned to his wavelength, piercing with harmonic vibration rather than brute power.
"Let's end this," he said.
Radiant light surged in my right hand—warm, focused, sharp as justice. Shadow bloomed in my left—cold, fluid, and absolute. I stepped forward—toward the pack. Toward the storm.
Then I moved.
Dancing Twilight, First Form: Twilight Waltz.
My body surged forward, Wind Mana coursing through my legs, propelling me across the stone like a gust made flesh. My hammers glowed—swollen with layers of elemental energy, orbiting their heads like comets on a leash. I spun as I moved, my footwork tracing arcs of power across the ground.
With a breath and a flick of mental force, I began forming the twin spells. Not with incantations—but through motion. Through instinct.
The darkness spell—Grave of Shadows—was new, a gift from Aeternum's archives. From the point of impact where I slammed my hammer into the stone, tendrils of shadow exploded outward. The chamber dimmed unnaturally, the light sucked from the air itself as a gravity well of darkness formed. In an instant, arms of chainlike shadow erupted from the floor—black, slick, and groaning with arcane weight—ensnaring the Silver Moon bears in place.
The beasts roared, but they couldn't move. Not an inch.
Above them, the second spell bloomed.
Luminous Crucible.
A massive, geometric seal formed overhead, golden and immaculate, shaped like a divine furnace forged in aether. Runes snapped into place, and then the seal ignited—a blazing cone of purifying light cascaded down, crashing over the trapped beasts in a pillar of incandescent brilliance.
The roar of burning mana and searing fur echoed through the cavern. The crucible's light didn't just strike—it cut. It shredded through magical resistance and vaporized their defensive aura like morning sun dissolving mist.
Eduardo moved in tandem—his resonance rounds singing through the chaos. Each bullet struck where my spells weakened the hide, punching deep, destabilizing their mana cores.
Together, we weren't just fighting. We were orchestrating destruction—every movement, every spell, synchronized like a battle duet. But it wasn't enough.
More Silver Moon Bears emerged from the portals—hulking beasts with spectral fur and mana-charged muscles, replacing the fallen as if the dungeon itself refused to let us breathe. Their coordinated advance pushed against our momentum like a rising tide.
"Tch," I clicked my tongue, slamming Heartbeats together with a resounding clang that rang through the cavern like a war bell. The light and darkness within them surged—resonating against each other. My stance shifted as I flowed from Dancing Twilight, First Form: Twilight Waltz to Third Form: Shadow Serenade.
It was time to stop reacting—and start rewriting the rhythm of this battle.
I raised both hammers, channeling mana into my body—not through words, but through instinct. Bodycasting, pure and primal. I didn't have time to separate spells, no room for layered preparation. I did what Greta always said I would eventually have to: create something new in the moment.
Light and shadow fused together in my core, spiraling with unstable intensity. I shaped the converging forces into a spell with no precedent, no written diagram. Just raw vision and execution.
"Eclipse Baptism," I whispered, naming it aloud as I cast it.
A radiant sphere snapped into existence above the battlefield. It was neither day nor night—both. A sun-sized eclipse, black at its heart, glowing with an unnatural halo of shimmering white fire. It hovered midair, pulsing with liminal pressure. The very mana in the chamber shivered.
Then it released.
I brought Heartbeats crashing into the ground.
The moment the twin hammers struck, rays of shadow and light erupted from the Eclipse Baptism. Cascading waves rained down in slashing arcs—brilliant white light laced with streaks of void-drenched blackness. The beams didn't just burn—they rewrote. The mana flow within the beasts was scrambled. Their fur lost its resistance. Their auras dimmed like candles beneath a flood.
Every bear struck by the radiance was simultaneously debuffed and scorched, their armor-like hides unraveling under the crushing heat and soul-sapping shadow.
Eduardo whistled beside me. "Remind me never to piss you off."
I didn't respond. My eyes were locked forward, where the battlefield had shifted—tilted, finally, in our favor.
The bears were still emerging, their portal gates flickering with silver light, but now they were weakened—my Eclipse Baptism had stripped them of their enchanted defenses. Their once-impenetrable fur no longer shimmered with protective mana. They were exposed.
And I took full advantage of it.
My hammers spun in my hands, and I moved like a storm through the remnants of our earlier assault. The light hammer struck with blinding force, the dark one followed with brutal finality. Each swing ended a life, skulls caving beneath the focused kinetic energy. The leftover Silver Moon Bears didn't stand a chance. I became a blur of impact and motion, dancing from one dying beast to the next, giving them swift, merciful ends.
Then—just as I raised my hammer for another finishing blow—a shot ripped through the air beside me.
CRACK.
The bullet tore straight through the beast's skull, killing it mid-lunge. I blinked. Then came more.
A storm of gunfire surged past me—precise, relentless. Each bullet was laced with a gleam of red mana, and each one found its mark with surgical savagery. The portal-spawned beasts were shredded before they could fully manifest, their bodies riddled with so many holes they looked like torn fabric soaked in silver mist. Blood sprayed in crimson arcs. The air thickened with gunpowder, magic, and vaporized ether.
I turned my head slightly.
Eduardo stood back-to-back with me, his pistol blade extended, smoke rising from the barrel. The glow of his mana was different now—heavier, denser. Not just refined, but supercharged, like something deep inside him had unlocked. The bullets weren't just enchanted anymore. They tore reality where they landed.
That's not normal... I thought. That level of raw destructive output—it was beyond Master realm capabilities. And yet…
A familiar voice echoed in my mind, calm and clinical.
"It seems his Divine Protection—Vesper Mortem—strengthens his mana exponentially after he comes close to death. His pain is converted into magical pressure. The edge of mortality is his forge."
Aeternum's analysis made sense. That kind of evolution… it wasn't training. It was instinct, born from the brink.
"Of course," I murmured. "He nearly got torn in half by that lake beast. The pain must have triggered the second phase of his Protection."
Eduardo, still reloading without missing a beat, smirked. "What's that look for? Surprised I can actually keep up now?"
"I'm just wondering," I said as I slammed my hammers together again, "if you'll still be cocky after this next wave."
Because just then—three new portals opened. Larger. More vicious. And from them, came something else. Something bigger. The real fight had only just begun.