The rock face groaned under the strain, webbed in fractures that crawled across every surface like frantic veins. Entire slabs of ceiling tore loose with thunderous cracks, crashing to the ground in plumes of pulverised stone. Dust hung so thick it clung to the tongue like chalk and despair.
Two silhouettes tore through the ruin in streaks of colour and pressure, faster than a mortal eye could register. Their afterimages shredded the air, dozens of phantom bodies weaving and colliding, each collision birthing new shockwaves that hammered the collapsing cavern. Only the terrifying precision of the two warriors kept the mountain from imploding outright. Their Wills, towering, ancient, monstrous, were the hands holding back annihilation.
Rolando kept to the edge of the chamber, bracing himself behind a half-collapsed pillar. Every blow between the two warriors made the stone vibrate beneath his feet.
“Well, well, Michel…” Sylas’s voice cut through the chaos like a serrated blade. The colossal spider of his Will loomed behind him, each leg trembling with lethal anticipation. “Only a few minutes of real combat and you’re gasping already. You finally look like what you pretend to be: some hobo scraped off the streets.”
Mikael’s breathing was ragged, each inhale scraping fire through his chest. Sweat poured down his face in rivulets, cutting lines through the soot. His Qi fluctuated wildly around his old wounds.
But his gaze was steady.
He wasn’t fighting for victory. He was fighting for time
For his children to escape.
Sylas snapped his hands together, and six Acupoints ignited along his forearms like molten stars.
FWOOOOOM!
The titanic spider behind him spat a torrent of concentrated Qi, weaving a massive, adhesive web that shot toward Mikael. Where the web touched the floor, the stone instantly blackened and began to dissolve, the corrosive property of the Emperor-level Qi at work.
Mikael kicked off the ground, a golden blur. He struck the ceiling feet-first, anchoring himself upside-down. He extended his hands toward Sylas, five Acupoints igniting like small suns.
The gigantic Mastiff that was Mikael’s Will began to shed its fur, each strand transforming into a glowing arrow wrapped in crackling, volatile electricity.
ZAAAAAAAP!
The shower of lightning arrows engulfed Sylas and his arachnid Will. A great wave of electrical energy filled the cave, blinding Rolando. When the light faded, Sylas was nowhere to be seen.
Mikael released his grip, letting himself drop from the ceiling. He clasped his hands together, concentrating a devastating sphere of power from his core, and slammed it onto the ground where Sylas had been.
The entire floor cracked and immediately sank several meters, opening a colossal fissure. From one of the deepest cracks, Sylas shot out at high speed, his body rippling with recovered Qi. Though he had evaded the worst of the attack, his clothing was scorched, and a small trickle of blood came from the corner of his mouth.
Mikael, though wounded, possessed a legacy of power and experience that surpassed the younger Sylas. But he was past his peak, like an arrow at the end of its flight. His power was declining, and the tide was turning.
“You old fool…” muttered Sylas, wiping the blood away.
Even injured, Sylas moved first. A kick snapped toward Mikael—then multiplied, a spectral spider’s leg materialising over his limb. Mikael’s Qi faltered for a heartbeat, his old wounds screaming. His Will flickered, unable to fully manifest.
The blow struck him squarely.
BAM!
Mikael smashed into the ground, ricocheting across the fractured stone. He caught himself on bleeding palms, coughing, stabilising just long enough to meet the next assault.
Sylas didn’t relent. He was already upon him, raining down blows like falling stars. Each one forced Mikael backwards. Each one tore meters of ground away. Each one pushed him closer to collapse.
Rolando could only watch, trembling, unable to intervene, unable to look away.
But Mikael was not done. In a narrow heartbeat between Sylas’s attacks, Mikael opened his mouth. An Acupoint inside flared with primal brilliance.
The Mastiff’s spectral head lunged out with a roar.
It was Sylas’s turn to retreat. The gigantic muzzle of the Mastiff snapped shut, destroying a couple of his spider legs.
“So you still have fangs, old man. Good. Let’s see how…” Sylas said and then he stopped.
Both Emperors stopped.
A scream — small, raw, unmistakably young — echoed faintly through the stone from the direction of the cells. It was followed an instant later by a wild, unrestrained surge of power: chaotic, childish, terrifying in its desperation.
The energy was immense, but its instability was even greater than Mikael’s own deteriorating power, unstable to the point of dissolution.
Sylas narrowed his eyes. “What… is that?”
Mikael went pale. He knew that energy. Knew it down to his bones.
Nerion.
Fourteen… Tic, Tac… Fifteen.
__
Elisha, Saulo, and the elite unit were barely a kilometre from the cave’s entrance.
They had crossed sixty kilometres of forest in just under four minutes.
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Brigadier Saulo ran at the head of the formation, jaw set, eyes locked on the distant ridge. Behind him, Lieutenants, Majors, and Captains moved as a single organism: fifteen Wills braided into one, their Qi synchronised through years of Ansaran discipline.
Saulo’s Will was the conductor. Their collective Energy was the symphony.
The elite Army Technique tightened around them. The fifteen individual silhouettes blurred, dissolving into a single, elongated spear of blue Qi that streaked through the Woods in a straight line, ripping leaves and branches apart in its wake.
Saulo had taken Elisha with him inside the formation, something almost unheard of. The sheer might of the Ansaran military overwhelmed the Orphan; its order, its force, its unity. For a moment, a flame of yearning flickered inside him.
But the thought drowned under the roar of his fear.
The spear of Qi shot over the last ridge.
In seconds, they would arrive at Sagat’s lair.
But it was too late.
The convergence had already begun
Tic… Tac…
Fifteen.
__
The desperation carved bloody trenches across Nerion’s scarred face as Sagat turned towards the back wall of the cells.
Sagat had no time for games.
He needed two things, and he needed them now:
One: the spatial ring hidden behind the false stone at the rear wall — his entire fortune, his escape funds, his future.
Two: The woman Rolando coveted. A living trophy to bargain with, or a corpse to spite him.
He limped through the room, blood matting his bald head, fury twisting what remained of his face. His breath rasped like a wounded beast’s. He had minutes — no, — before either of the Emperors in the central hall noticed him. If that happened, he was dead.
Ailan, pale as a corpse, had dragged himself in front of Eliana. Both children shook uncontrollably. Sagat didn’t spare them a glance. He strode past the spreading lakes of blood — Roxy’s vacant eyes staring at the ceiling, Lucca’s chest a ruined crater, Silvestre, blood pooling below him, still twitching on the floor — and reached his target.
Ailan saw his only chance.
He inched sideways, one agonising half-step toward the open cell door.
Sagat never turned.
His hand flicked. A fist-sized rock shot out like a cannonball.
SNAP!
Ailan’s right leg vanished below the knee in a red mist.
He hit the ground screaming, a guttural howl that echoed off the stone as he clutched the gushing stump.
Eliana threw herself over him, tearing strips from her dress and pressing them desperately against the wound. Blood soaked the cloth in heartbeats.
“I didn’t give you permission to move,” Sagat said without looking back, voice flat as a guillotine. “Death will come. Suffering comes first.”
He reached the far wall, slid away a stone plate, and retrieved a spatial ring from a hidden cavity. His fingers trembled, not from pain, but from the desperation of prey pretending to still being the hunter. From the ring, he drew an alabaster canister, uncorked it, and swallowed a glistening Alchemy Pill.
Strength surged through him. Not enough. Not fast enough.
Arbak watched everything from her cage, violet eyes cool as winter steel. In her mind she was already calculating the exact angle to tear Sagat’s throat out with her teeth if the chains gave her half a chance.
A whisper, barely audible, reached her ears.
“Elder Sister Arbak… if I give you something to recover your strength, can you stop him?”
Arbak turned her head slightly. Nerion knelt on the ground, trembling violently, blood still dripping from his face. His breathing was uneven, his eyes dark with despair and hatred.
She almost dismissed him.
But the boy’s voice was steady.
Arbak's attention snapped back. "If you truly have something that can recover my power," she said, her voice weighted with ancient authority, "not even the Emperors outside could touch me."
Nerion’s trembling hand produced a tiny crystal vial. Inside swirled three drops of pure, opalescent liquid that made the air itself shimmer.
Millennial Stone Milk.
Undiluted. Ancient. Priceless.
Arbak’s pupils contracted to pinpricks.
“Two drops will restore most of my power,” she answered directly into his mind, voice ringing with absolute certainty. “But I’ll need ten seconds to cycle it. Ten seconds is a lifetime against a Legate. He’ll kill you all before I finish. When he realises what I’m doing, he’ll kill me too. I can promise you only this: he will die with us.”
Nerion’s blood-smeared face hardened.
“I will buy you those ten seconds,” he whispered. “I ask only that you save my brother Silvestre… Ailan… Eliana… Everyone is suffering because of me. I should have asked my father sooner… I should have shared it with you when you helped us… Roxy… Lucca…”
His hands shook.
“I won’t let anyone else die because of my mistakes. Never again.”
A single teardrop formed, and he crushed it with a breath.
Before she could stop him, he unstoppered the vial and tipped one drop onto his own tongue.
Arbak lunged against her chains, extending her beautiful hands towards him. “NO! You’ll kill yourself. Not even an Emperor can fully withstand that energy.”
Too late.
The drop vanished between Nerion’s lips.
The world held its breath.
The bottle slipped from Nerion’s fingers and fell into Arbak’s stretched hands.
Sagat turned fully now, alerted by Nerion’s cry, by the spike of unnatural power surging through the room.
He froze when he saw the bottle in Arbak’s hand. His entire body shuddered.
He exploded forward. Two red halos flared around his arm. His Will surged, the tiger paw materialising with murderous clarity as he lunged toward Arbak, killing intent overflowing.
He would reach her in less than a second. But something moved first. A small silhouette flashed into his path.
A small fist struck Sagat’s chest.
BOOM!
The Legate was hurled backwards, smashing into the far wall. His Will flickered violently, half-erasing the tiger paw. His eyes bulged.
Standing where Sagat had been was Nerion.
Or something wearing Nerion’s form.
The child stood between him and the cage, skin glowing crimson, veins black-purple and bulging, forty-seven star-like Acupoints blazing across his tiny body like a constellation. Ten serpents of pure white World Energy coiled around his arms and legs; seven more crowned his head like a halo of divine wrath. His eyes shone golden and sacred, the scars under his eyes burning like magma.
The Millennial Stone Milk raged inside him, a cataclysm held together by sheer, impossible Will, the Energy travelling through his open Acupoints, the very constitution that made him a double-edged sword.
He had seconds — maybe less — before his body tore itself apart.
But for those seconds, he was something beyond human.
Arbak didn’t waste the gift. She tipped the two remaining drops onto her tongue and closed her eyes as ancient, titanic power flooded her meridians.
Ten seconds chasing eternity.
Tic… Tac…
Fifteen.
___
When Mikael sensed Nerion’s aura, something inside him snapped.
A feral, ancient instinct surged up his spine.
He wanted to run off in the direction of the cells, but he was stopped by Sylas.
Mikael lunged toward the corridor leading to the cells, but a black silhouette appeared in his path. Sylas.
“Get out of my way,” Mikael growled, voice frayed to the edge of murder. “Move, Sylas. Or I swear, I will end you here. This is your only warning.”
Sylas’s lips curled into a cold smile. “Oh? Struck a nerve, beggar? That unstable little sun in the distance… means something to you?” He stepped sideways, blocking the passage entirely.
Mikael’s killing intent detonated.
Sylas attacked without waiting. The Rhodarian descended upon him like a predator, every strike aimed not to kill, but to delaystall
Sylas laughed, pressing the assault. “What’s wrong, Michel? You’re slowing down. Getting tired? This kind of maddened Warrior was the perfect prey for one insidious such as him”
Mikael’s eyes sharpened into slits of lethal clarity. He reached inside his tattered clothes and pulled out a tiny vial.
Sylas paused for half a heartbeat, his arrogance flickering into shock.
The vial’s contents glowed with soft, impossible light. Millennial Stone Milk. The last drop.
Before Sylas could react, Mikael uncorked it and swallowed the liquid in a single motion.
Sylas’s face drained of all colour.
“You…” His voice cracked. “ARE YOU COMPLETELY INSANE?!
A tidal wave of ancient, stable Qi burst outward from Mikael, swallowing the chamber in blinding pressure. For an instant, it outshone the wild, chaotic storm raging from Nerion’s distant Acupoints.
The Mastiff Will behind Mikael exploded
Mikael’s meridians writhed beneath his skin, pushing far past safe limits. Every line of his body screamed in pain. Every breath tore at him.
A colossal wave of stable, ancient Qi erupted from Mikael, momentarily eclipsing the unstable surge from the cell block. The Mastiff Will grew tenfold, its eyes reddened in ancient fury. Mikael’s Meridians strained to their maximum, like a tensed rope about to break.
For this particular moment, he was once more the Mad Dog of Ansara
And Sylas, for the first time, felt a small wave of fear.
The air between them ignited as father and son, burning the same forbidden fuel, began a fight for their lives.