The white mist expanded like a living, sacred ocean across the battlefield. It was dense, luminous, and in its wake, the world was rewritten. The broken bodies of the Aurelian and Vhalmir soldiers dissolved into light… and were reborn.
Lethal wounds closed with a quiet sigh. Blood that had been evaporated by black fire returned to their veins like crimson rivers flowing in reverse. Even those who lay motionless, eyes open to the void, were torn from the brink of death with a gasp of air that was a miracle. The very soul was stitched together, point by point, as if time were rewinding to deny the abyss its victory.
On the lunar ground, an impossible vegetation sprouted like a fever dream: crystal flowers that chimed with a silent music, golden vines that grew at an unnatural speed, and phosphorescent mushrooms that pulsed with a soft light. From this unreal flora, ribbons of color emerged, ethereal as smoke, tangling around the ankles of the black knights. They slowed them, twisted them, disarmed them. The battlefield had become a living dream… a final, desperate refuge before extinction.
"NAREL!" Baku shouted for the first time in centuries, his voice losing all laziness, broken by a primordial fear. "You are pushing my power beyond its limit! Altering reality on this scale… it will kill you!"
But Narel did not answer immediately. Ethereal blood, silver and shining, streamed from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. His body, now almost translucent, trembled like a puppet caught in a hurricane. His voice, however, when he finally spoke, was clear and firm:
"My skills… were never meant for killing…" he coughed, and a flower of light bloomed from his lips before dissolving. "But if I can give… one more minute… if I can gift them… even just that… then it will have been worth it."
He fell to his knees. The ground around him blossomed into a swarm of light-butterflies that exploded into petals upon touching the air.
Then a hand rested on his back. Firm. Charged with a different, cold, and desperate magic. It was Azrael.
"ZANJARA!" the prince roared, his cry directed not at anyone on the battlefield, but at the cosmos itself. It was a howl of rage and grief that seemed to devour the sky. "Zanjara, you owe me! I gave you back your daughter! ANSWER ME!"
His voice tore the fabric of reality. And the world… listened.
The eternally black lunar sky ripped open like a curtain set aflame. From between the seams of the void emerged a colossal figure: Zanjara, the god of broken possibilities. Tall as a mountain, draped in a cloak woven from extinct galaxies, with eyes like supernovas frozen at the moment of their death.
"I hear you," he said, his voice like thunder beneath a deep ocean. "What pact do you wish to make… Azrael von Fan Caelestis?"
"Tell me how to defeat them…" Azrael panted. "No, not just that! Give me the power to face them! This cursed army cannot win… I cannot allow such a massacre before my eyes… not again!"
He was channeling all his magic into Narel to keep the mist active, but the consumption was so brutal that he too was beginning to bleed from his nose and ears. His knees trembled. His soul was burning.
Zanjara lowered his gaze. And for the first time, he spoke not with cruelty… but with the weight of judgment. "The Cursed Army of Silicon… they are strong. But they are not immortal. I can imbue my strength into your allies' weapons. For one hour only."
Azrael shuddered, feeling hope and dread at the same time. "And what do you want in return?"
"Your story," Zanjara replied. "That which you did… that erased the last joy from your existence. The act by which you sealed your fate."
Azrael paled. The air seemed to freeze in his lungs. "The death of Zerek…" he murmured.
"Precisely. Renounce it. Rewrite your destiny. Give that being a chance to live… and I will settle my debt with you. But if you accept, my aid ends today. I will not hear your voice again."
Azrael trembled. The decision weighed more than a star. Zerek had been his purpose. His only fire. Killing him had stolen his ability to feel… but it had also given meaning to his broken life. To renounce that death was to renounce his very identity. And yet… the world was dying again. Just as it had before.
Around him, the mist was weakening. Narel was barely breathing. The army of metal was regrouping. The darkness was walking again.
"ALRIGHT!" Azrael screamed, his voice broken by a sob of pure rage. "STEAL MY TRIUMPH! GIVE THAT MONSTER ANOTHER CHANCE! BUT DON'T YOU LET THIS IDIOT DIE YET!"
Zanjara narrowed his supernova eyes. "You dare to negotiate with me?"
But before he could reply, a feminine figure appeared at his side. Slender, elegant, with hair as silver as the dead moon. The Santa Muerte. "Father," she said, her voice as sweet as poison. "If you help this subject… and allow me to forge a pact of alliance with him… I promise not to run away again."
Zanjara… smiled. A smile that moved the constellations. "Then, so be it."
The Santa Muerte descended with ethereal steps. Each footfall of hers caused the flowers in the mist to wither. She stopped before Azrael and smiled with bitter irony. "Now, you will carry my scythe. You will be my avatar. How fascinating… turned into the very thing you've hated most in your life… just to save a stranger."
Azrael gritted his teeth, the taste of blood and failure in his mouth. "Be silent. And give me your power. We have a war to win."
In the instant the pact was sealed, the mist dissipated. But it did not vanish like smoke, but like a final breath. Every thread of light and dream was absorbed from the battlefield, flowing in invisible torrents into the hands of the warriors. Their mortal weapons, previously useless, now shone with a pale, ghostly glow.
A Vhalmir soldier, cornered and preparing to die, threw one last, desperate slash at the black knight looming over him. He expected the familiar sound of steel bouncing uselessly. Instead, his sword sank into the black armor with a tearing screech of desecrated metal. There was no blood, only a thick, black ichor that gushed from the wound as the creature staggered, surprised for the first time.
A wave of astonishment and hope washed over the ranks. They could be hurt!
But every gaze was pulled from the battle to the sky, drawn to a new and terrible source of light.
Azrael was no longer on the ground. He floated in the air, his back arched in a bow of agony and ecstasy. A sound, not of flesh but of reality itself tearing, emanated from him as two immense wings erupted from his back. They were not made of feathers, but of pure, solidified light, a torrent of white soul that unfurled with a majestic and terrible glory. Upon their surface, symbols of death were seared with the darkness of the void, absorbing the light around them.
In his hand, the air twisted and condensed, forging the ornate scythe of the goddess from shadows and sorrows. The weapon, a polished obsidian black, did not reflect light, it devoured it. And upon its blade, black flames danced, a cold fire that did not consume, but promised annihilation.
The sky above him seemed to split. A new light, that of his divine power, pushed back the oppressive darkness of the moon. Hell, for an instant, receded. The black knights, that unstoppable tide, halted their advance. For the first time, they showed something akin to doubt, a recognition of a higher authority, of a predator more ancient than themselves.
And the avatar of death… opened his mouth and uttered his first sound.
It was not a roar.
It was a cry that was both a lament for all he had lost and a death sentence for all that stood in his way. A sound that made both the living and the dead tremble, and that promised a new kind of war.
The dragon landed with a dull tremor, its immense wings still spread as if resisting collapse. It exhaled with a muted, exhausted roar. Its scales, once gleaming, were dull from the effort. It had flown faster than ever before, and now it lay like a sleeping colossus, protecting the perimeter with its mere presence.
The ten expeditionaries descended with almost martial speed. The lunar dust rose like silver smoke with every step. Dren was the first to jump down. Then, with a delicacy that surprised even his own soldiers, he offered his hand to Elizabeth to help her down. He said nothing. He avoided looking at her directly, his normally impassive eyes searching for anything on the desolate horizon that wasn't her face.
Elizabeth, unaware of his strange discomfort, quickened her pace, her mind already on the next phase of the mission. Haste dominated her. They had to find the temple entrance. She couldn't explain it with logic, but every fiber of her being screamed that the secret to survival was there... beneath her feet.
"Any report from the front?" Veldora asked, her voice firm, a rock of composure in the midst of the chaos.
A communications soldier, his helmet still askew from the flight, answered, "Our prince… Narel… is defending everyone. His power is containing them. But those things… they can't be beaten by magic. They absorb it. They get stronger."
Elizabeth stopped dead. The statement chilled her blood. "Then… how was it possible to destroy the first one with the Sky-Breaker Beam?"
Mayron immediately intervened, his mind already spinning with hypotheses. "I believe… it was because we amplified the dragons' vital fire. It wasn't a spell as such, but a magical manifestation of a natural origin. It wasn't direct magic, but a transmutation of something living. That… perhaps that's why it worked."
Elizabeth turned to the soldier. "Transmit that information. Let everyone know. Now."
The messenger nodded and began to activate his magical communication device.
"How long until reinforcements arrive?" Elizabeth asked, her gaze lost on the open terrain.
"Our dragon reserves will arrive in about an hour, Highness. But Aurél's armies… could take several hours. They are crossing portals with thousands of soldiers, beasts, siege vehicles, supplies. Although, to be honest… an hour is already dangerously optimistic."
Elizabeth didn't respond. In the distance, she could perceive a whitish glow, the pulse of Narel's mist. A pulse that was growing fainter. A magical heart that was about to stop beating.
She had to hurry. "Dren," she said, her voice sharp with urgency. "Could you bring down that section of rock?"
Dren smiled. And for the first time in hours, he allowed himself a fleeting hint of his usual arrogance. "That's what I do best."
A single punch was all it took. The impact was dry, brutal. The air compressed and exploded. The dust rose like an exhalation, and from the shattered rock, a passage emerged: an ancient descending staircase, covered in metal plates corroded by centuries of neglect.
"Princess," Dren said, his voice more serious and deeper than ever. "From this point on, I give the orders. Do you agree?"
Elizabeth blinked, surprised by the direct assertion. But before she could answer, Dren was already organizing the others with a natural authority that left no room for doubt.
"You!" he pointed at the dragon rider. "Prepare for an emergency takeoff. If something happens, I want that monster in the air. And keep us informed of any changes in the battle. Prepare a level three speed amplification spell. Not level two. Three."
"Sir, yes, sir!"
"You two!" he addressed the elite soldiers, without even asking their names. "By your build and posture, you're scouts. Am I wrong?"
"Sir, no, sir!" they answered in chorus, their bodies already tense.
"Then what are you doing here? Move out! Check for traps, threats, anomalies. If we step on a magical mine, it will be your fault."
The soldiers ran, their figures vanishing into the shadows of the staircase like ghosts.
"You," he looked at the mage from Aurél. "Archmage?" "Yes, sir." "Full detection spell, level three. I want to know if this place is breathing before it bites us."
Then he turned to Mayron, his gaze as hard as steel. "You. Prepare a Death Hole."
Mayron's eyes went wide. "Are you insane? That's not a simple spell! It's an unstable magical singularity! If I cast it wrong, we could all be absorbed. One mistake and the whole team dies!"
Dren didn't blink. "And if we run into a dozen of those things? Do you want to ask them to wait while you think of a strategy?" His voice was cold, logical, irrefutable. "Your spell is a risk. They are a certainty. Choose."
Mayron gritted his teeth, a bitter, fatalistic smile forming on his face. He hated it… but he was right. "Alright… I'll prepare the spell. But if we die, I want you to know that I hated you a little less in the end."
Dren barely nodded. "All others… surround the princess. No one moves without my order. If she falls, we all fall."
Elizabeth said nothing. But for the first time since they arrived, her steps were firmer, her heart calmer. She had found the commander they needed for this mission.
At that moment, the communicator of one of the scouts crackled with interference. "Sir… you are not going to believe this…" the voice said, choppy, panting with a mixture of astonishment and terror. "Hurry. Maybe… maybe there is a chance for everyone… down here."
Elizabeth and Dren exchanged a look. A silent question, a shared answer. And without a word, they led the group into the darkness.
They descended into the abyss.
They had taken only ten steps down the metal staircase, the silence broken only by the echo of their boots, when a new sound reached them from the depths.
It was not the wind. It was not a machine.
It was a heartbeat.
THUMP… THUMP…
Slow, deep, immense. The beat of a heart as large as a cathedral, which had been sleeping for eons and which, for the first time, was beginning to awaken.