The invader plummeted from the heavens like judgment incarnate—too fast, too furious, too final.
Icariel knelt at the frayed edge of the courtyard, his breaths ripped from his lungs like broken glass dragged through flesh. Elena clutched his trembling hand. Elif stood protectively beside him, her eyes darting. Around them, Calvin and two royal guards formed a defensive crescent, just steps from the mountain of mutilated Crogs—the monsters Icariel had torn apart with nothing but willpower and instinct.
His lungs shrieked. His arms shook. His body was fire and iron, crushed but not broken.
"I pushed too far," he thought. "Way too far..."
Then—
White Sense flared.
It screamed.
A warning. Like the cry of a dying god.
The voice within him followed, sharp as a blade.
"ESCAPE. NOW."
Instinct detonated.
"RUN!" Icariel roared, leaping to his feet like a beast reborn. He yanked Elena with him, sprinting. Calvin didn't hesitate—he grabbed Elif and dashed. But the two guards…
KRRRRRAAACK!
The impact cratered the earth. The air exploded into smoke and blood.
The guards fell in pieces. Dead before their bodies understood it.
Icariel skidded to a stop, shielding Elena with his body. Across the yard, Calvin held Elif tightly, shielding her.
"What in the hell is happening now?!" Icariel spat, voice ragged with fury. Elena clung to him, wide-eyed.
"W-What was that?" she whispered.
The smoke hissed… then split.
And from it… came him.
The invader.
Orange eyes burning like cursed suns.
"You dodged," the invader growled, raising a single finger at Icariel. "That was a mistake. I'll make you regret it."
"What do you want from me?!" Icariel shouted.
Valier's mouth stretched into a smile that bled cruelty.
"I am Valier. Son of an ogre. What do I want? Everything you've taken."
Icariel blinked, breath catching. "Taken? What did I take?"
Valier's aura pulsed violently as he dragged a hand down his face, his eyes blazing between the fingers like suns in eclipse.
"I want everything you ruined."
FWOOOM—
A dagger shimmered through the air—aimed for Valier's throat.
A sword followed, carving downward—fast as thunder.
Virethiel and Aelar struck in unison.
The blows met Valier's body.
They died on impact.
Not a scratch.
His dark-orange aura held like the armor of a demon.
"Did I not say it already? Unless your blades are forged with the will to sunder stars… you're wasting your breath."
Virethiel landed by Icariel, protective as a shadow. Aelar stood near Calvin, eyes locked on Valier.
"Highness…" Elena whispered, tears glistening.
"Father…" Elif choked.
But Icariel… he wasn't focused on any of that.
His mind was spinning—spinning around one brutal truth:
"Valier's target... was him."
The one who had reduced his teacher to a bloodied mess.
"What… what did I take from you?!" Icariel shouted.
"I don't think he wants something," the voice murmured, "He wants to erase what you've done."
Valier's voice dropped—dark, deliberate.
"You killed my adviser. My inside man. Then you defeated Grinis, my underling. After that? The Yetis. Gone. And now… the Crogs. I threw hundreds at you. Not one made it past. Not one. They didn't just lose. They were torn in half."
He pointed at the steaming mountain of torn corpses.
"You've interfered — again and again. And now… you'll pay."
"Because you've become a thorn, one that, if I let it keep growing… who knows what chaos it might bring."
Aelar's jaw clenched. "Because of us… because he helped us… he's the one in the crosshairs."
He scanned the battlefield—Tessara, bloodied but burning through Crogs. Floon and Eldrin, still holding the line.
No time to gather mana. No chance to charge a counterattack.
Only one option left.
"We have to get him out."
Elena's heart was breaking. She could feel it in her chest. The pain. The helplessness.
"He's going to fight again… because of us."
Icariel looked at her, saw her despair. He looked at Valier. And his eyes… changed.
Something shifted.
His fear didn't vanish.
It calcified.
He wanted to run.
Gods, he wanted to vanish.
To escape this battlefield, this story, this life wrapped in blood and fire.
Because death wasn't just a fear anymore.
It was a fascination.
A pull.
A quiet whisper he'd heard too many times in the silence between screams.
Part of him thought maybe—maybe—if he stopped now, if he let go, it would all just end.
No more battles. No more pain. No more being the last one standing.
But then…he remembered her voice.
Earlier, just after the Crogs had fallen, when the courtyard was a storm of ash and silence—
Elena had clung to him, trembling. Her voice had broken.
"Thank you… for surviving."
He hadn't understood it then.
Not really.
He thought she meant the battle. The Crogs. The defense.
But now—seeing her silver eyes, wide and wet with emotion, her lips sealed in silence—he didn't need the full story. Somehow, he finally understood why she was acting that way.
She wasn't seeing Icariel anymore.
She was seeing her brother again—standing tall, shielding her from death.
And she remembered the moment after: the silence. The emptiness. The years without him.
Now Icariel stood in that place. And she couldn't survive that loss twice.
And for a moment… she thought the past was repeating.
That was what her eyes were saying now.
Run. Don't die. Don't make this memory the same."
And somehow, that was what held him up.
Not pride. Not rage. Not the will to fight.
Her eyes. Her fear. Her need.
So he stood. Slowly. Blood on his lips. Breath ragged.
And smiled.
A cold, cracked, terrible smile.
"What makes you think you can kill me?"
Valier tilted his head.
"I already blocked your strike once. So what's stopping me from blocking it twice… or three times… or until you crawl back to the pit you came from?"
The courtyard froze.
Even the wind held its breath.
Calvin's mouth parted. Elif froze, stunned. Elena trembled. Aelar blinked, as if seeing a stranger instead of his disciple.
And Virethiel… Virethiel smiled. A deep, fierce smile.
"I'm beyond curious what has happened to you in such a short time," she whispered, eyes blazing with admiration.
"You're not even close to the word 'coward' now."
Then the voice crackled in Icariel's mind like fire biting through bone.
"You're staying, even though your life's on the line?"
"Of course not," he muttered beneath his breath. "I'm running the second I get the chance. It's not like I can win. I just wanted to piss him off—to buy time."
And it worked.
Valier's eyes, once molten, were now infernos.
Burning.
All-consuming.
"I will rip your spine from your throat," he snarled, aura detonating around him in waves of blistering orange flame. "I'll scatter your pieces across this cursed sky."
"He's coming!" Virethiel growled, black dagger pulsing in her grip. Her stance dropped, sharp as a coiled viper.
But Aelar didn't move. He stood frozen beside Calvin and Elif, his expression carved from disbelief.
"Is that really… Icariel?"
"Is he planning to die here?"
The boy who once weighed every breath against the fear of death now stood at the eye of annihilation, defiant.
"Even I couldn't stand toe to toe with that monster… not without full strength. Is he truly that far gone—or has he grown that much?"
Then, it clicked.
Icariel's words from long ago echoed back:
"What you call courage… I call surrender in disguise."
No.
This wasn't suicide.
This wasn't bravery.
This was… a diversion.
A gift.
A farewell forged in seconds, bartered with his life—because his teacher needed one opening. Because someone had to buy time.
Aelar's lips curled into a bitter, proud smile.
"You really are a strange, precious boy," he murmured, and then flicked open his mind with telepathy.
"Princess—his attention's locked on Icariel. This is our moment. Strike in full power the instant you see a gap."
"Understood," Virethiel replied, her voice cold steel.
The battlefield compressed.
Valier descended like a hammer, aura screaming.
Virethiel stepped forward, shielding Icariel.
Aelar began to channel what little energy he had left into his blade, the steel now faintly veiled in dark green light.
Valier laughed. "You again?" he spat, dodging Virethiel's dagger with contempt. "You're nothing but gnats."
CRACK!
He slammed into her with a shoulder blow, tossing her like a ragdoll to the side.
Straight at Icariel.
"No—!" Virethiel cried out mid-fall.
The voice surged inside Icariel's skull.
"YOU CAN'T DODGE IT. BLOCK IT. SURVIVE."
The boy's body moved. His stance grounded. Hand raised. One last stand.
Valier grinned as flame crawled up his fist. "You said you'd block it twice?" he growled. "Let's see if you even survive once."
He struck.
CRACK.
The world shuddered.
The blow landed. Icariel's arm screamed. Blood erupted from his mouth.
But he didn't move.
Not an inch.
He stood.
Between death and the women who wanted him to escape.
Elena's eyes shattered.
The image that was too familiar returned again in a short time.
Her brother who died shielding her.
Now this boy.
This boy again.
"Please," she whispered, voice breaking. "Please just run."
Valier blinked.
His smirk cracked.
"What...?"
He looked at his own fist. At Icariel.
The boy was still standing.
Still bleeding.
Still smiling.
"You said I wouldn't survive this strike," Icariel rasped. "I did. So what does that make you—liar? Dreamer? Or just another corpse waiting to fall?"
"You damn brat!" Valier roared.
He lifted his hand again, aura raging like a dying star.
Icariel's vision blurred. His body screamed. "If he hits me again, I'm dead. Teacher—please…"
Then came the shadow.
A streak of green flame.
Death, wrapped in silence.
A blade appeared from behind Valier and tore through his chest like light through fog.
The sword's tip stopped inches from Icariel's face.
Valier gasped.
His breath caught on blood.
"What—how—?"
Aelar stepped forward, voice cold as winter steel.
"I lacked time, not power, you bastard."
Valier dropped to his knees.
Blood waterfalling from his mouth.
The blade still buried in his heart.
Aelar turned to Icariel, voice low.
"Thanks to you, my disciple… I can finally finish this."
Valier's aura flickered.
Not in power.
But in fear.