Aelith’s fingers trembled slightly as she finished the final rune.

  A surge of holy energy ignited in the air—blinding, golden, and absolute. The Alta’s Spear, named after the legendary war god who wielded divine judgment, was finally formed.

  The formation pulsed, humming with power. A spear of pure divine energy manifested, suspended in the air, its tip aimed directly at the monstrous existence before them.

  Then—

  VWOOM!

  A golden spear descended, cutting through the air like a falling star, its trajectory flawless, its purpose undeniable—annihilation.

  Yet—

  CRACK.

  A horrifying sound echoed through the battlefield.

  The divine spear stopped.

  Midair.

  Gripped tightly in a single, unassuming hand.

  Aelith’s heart pounded.

  That should have been impossible. The Alta’s Spear wasn’t something that could be physically blocked. It was divine judgment, manifesting in pure form—absolute destruction for anything unholy.

  Yet, Eo held it.

  No burns. No resistance. No pain.

  Antru’s sharp mind went into overdrive. He analyzed the spell structure—only to realize something far worse than failure.

  The formation—his own formation—was resisting him.

  The spell’s flow was wrong. Instead of obeying his command, the divine structure itself was… shifting.

  Antru’s breath hitched.

  He isn’t destroying it.

  He is studying it.

  And then—rewriting it.

  But Antru was no fool.

  The moment Eo grasped the divine spear, the secondary formation activated—one that had been hidden beneath the primary suppression circle.

  The Grandmaster Antru’s Killing Array, a formation so precise that even Archmages feared it.

  It was designed not to contain, but to kill.

  Golden veins of magic flared across the battlefield, forming intricate, ever-shifting glyphs. Runes rotated at incomprehensible speeds, resonating with divine law itself.

  BOOM!

  Chains of absolute severance erupted from the ground, each one imbued with a fragment of divine will—meant to bypass all regeneration, all resistance.

  Aelith felt her breath catch. This wasn’t something even a Mythic Beast could endure.

  Yet—

  CLINK.

  The first chain shattered.

  Then the second.

  Then the third.

  Each one unraveled, its structure disassembled at the source, not destroyed, but redirected—as if it had never been meant to strike Eo in the first place.

  A slow, unnatural silence settled over the battlefield.

  And then—

  Frid laughed.

  A raspy, broken chuckle, filled with something bordering on madness and worship.

  He knew.

  He had known from the beginning.

  This was never a battle.

  This was never a fight.

  This was an experiment.

  Thorne gritted his teeth, struggling against the invisible bindings, but his body refused to move.

  He had faced death before, had fought against monsters far stronger than himself.

  But this…

  This wasn’t a battle of strength.

  This was something else entirely.

  Aelith tried to steady her breath. The divine energy still crackled in the air, but the light—felt wrong.

  Eo tilted his head.

  His eyes—calm, detached, analytical—swept over them with a strange fascination.

  And then—

  “Curious.”

  The voice was too natural.

  Not strained. Not guttural. Not monstrous.

  Human.

  Aelith shuddered. It wasn’t fear of death that made her tremble. It was the implication.

  He was never struggling to understand them.

  He was never struggling to speak.

  He already knew.

  Eo moved his tentacle slightly, and the magic within the formation responded.

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  Tendrils of divine energy—Aelith’s own spell—crawled through the air, dissecting itself like a living organism unfolding for study.

  Eo focused on Aelith first.

  Aelith’s breath hitched as she felt something being extracted from within her.

  “—Ahh!”

  A sharp pulse rocked through her chest, as if her divine affinity itself was being isolated.

  Her knees buckled. The world around her blurred.

  "How fragile," Eo murmured, his gaze flickering between her and the unraveling energy.

  He hadn’t even touched her, yet her very essence was responding to him.

  Thorne had lived through countless wars, had carved his own path through blood and fire.

  But now, he was a specimen in a laboratory.

  He struggled, veins bulging against his skin. But the bindings were not physical.

  They were conceptual.

  No amount of strength would break them.

  For the first time in his life, he felt completely powerless.

  Antru’s mind was a storm of calculations.

  He could see the formation collapsing under Eo’s interference.

  He tried to seize control—but the magic had already been rewritten.

  His own grandmaster-level spell, something that took him decades to master, was being picked apart like a simple puzzle.

  Frid watched, eyes alight with something beyond madness.

  He turned toward Caelum, his voice a whisper of pure reverence.

  “You see?” he murmured. “You see now? He is not bound by their rules.”

  Caelum said nothing.

  But his eyes were sharp, analyzing everything, already considering his next move.

  Eo was beyond human comprehension.

  That meant—there were only two choices.

  Kneel or perish.

  The formation failed.

  A final shockwave burst outward, its golden light dispersing into the wind—completely absorbed.

  And Eo—was gone.

  Not moved.

  Not teleported.

  Just—not there anymore.

  The bindings vanished. The humans stumbled, suddenly free—but the weight of what had just transpired crushed them.

  Eo’s voice lingered in the silence.

  "I understand now."

  It wasn’t a declaration.

  It was an observation.

  A conclusion, drawn from data.

  And for the first time—true fear settled into their bones.

  --

  Antru staggered, his body trembling.

  His mind screamed at him.

  I should have left.

  From the moment he laid eyes on this thing, this unnatural being, he should have turned away.

  But he had let his arrogance blind him.

  Now, he was standing at the edge of annihilation.

  Eo had unraveled his magic like a child peeling apart a delicate leaf, layer by layer, with absurd ease.

  No hesitation. No struggle.

  Just pure understanding.

  And that realization terrified him.

  His fingers twitched, grasping for something—anything—beneath his robe.

  And then, they brushed against something cold.

  Something old.

  Something that pulsed with life.

  Antru’s breath hitched.

  His hand tightened around the vial.

  It was small, insignificant in weight—yet it felt heavier than the world itself.

  Inside, a mere two drops of blood.

  But even now, sealed in glass, it hummed with an eerie resonance, as if it had a will of its own.

  Even after all these years—

  Even after countless struggles and sacrifices—

  He had never dared to drink these last drops.

  But now, he had no choice.

  A deep, sharp sting struck his chest.

  A mix of regret and resignation.

  He hated the idea of using it.

  He had fought so hard, spent years searching, praying—all in the hope of receiving more.

  If he had just a little more time, he could have earned its blessing.

  But there was no more time.

  His jaw clenched.

  His fingers moved.

  And before he could stop himself—

  He uncorked the vial and swallowed.

  He had been younger when he found it.

  Deep in a forgotten cave, lost to time.

  The remains of a corpse lay before him—humanoid, but unnatural.

  Its flesh was blackened stone, frozen in an eerie posture, like something half-formed and half-erased from existence.

  But what caught his eye wasn’t the corpse.

  It was the small statue it clutched in its rigid fingers.

  Palm-sized. Ancient.

  And wrong.

  He took it.

  That was his first mistake.

  His second was when he broke open the corpse’s remains and found the blood.

  Thick. Dark.

  Alive.

  And when he first used it—

  It had saved him.

  His enemies had hunted him. Cornered him.

  He should have died that day.

  But the moment the blood entered his veins—

  He had become something else.

  His body had transcended.

  His magic twisted, warped, becoming something even he did not understand.

  And from then on, he searched.

  For answers. For more.

  Antru had spent decades chasing the origin of that statue.

  Sweeping through libraries, ancient texts, forbidden archives—

  He had burned a town just to get access to a single hidden chamber.

  And in the end—

  His search led him to a forgotten underground temple beneath the Magical Academy of this town.

  There, he found it.

  A child-sized statue, standing alone in the dark.

  Towering, silent, yet filled with an indescribable presence.

  He knelt before it.

  And he prayed.

  Day after day, whispering words he did not understand.

  At first, there was only silence.

  But then—

  He heard it.

  A murmur.

  Distant. Incomprehensible.

  Yet the more he prayed—

  The clearer it became.

  If he had just a little more time, he could have earned its favor.

  He was so close.

  But now, that hope was gone.

  Because in front of him stood Eo.

  And in this moment—

  Nothing else mattered.

  BOOM.

  The blood reacted.

  A violent, explosive surge of energy ripped through his body.

  His spine stretched, bones snapping and reforming.

  His arms expanded, his fingers splitting apart, elongating into clawed tendrils.

  His skin darkened, turning into an obsidian-like substance, engraved with ancient runes that pulsed with an otherworldly glow.

  A second pair of eyes snapped open on his forehead.

  A voice—not his own—whispered inside his skull.

  And for the first time, Antru felt it.

  Not just power.

  But knowledge.

  A forbidden understanding that clawed its way into his mind.

  His breath came out in a distorted growl, his voice now layered with something inhuman.

  He was no longer just a High Master Mage.

  He was something else.

  Something beyond.

  And the moment he lifted his gaze—

  Eo reacted.

  For the first time, Eo’s eyes widened.

  Not in fear.

  But in recognition.

  He felt it.

  That presence.

  That weight.

  It was not the overwhelming, suffocating might of a god.

  Nor the twisted chaos of corruption.

  No—

  It was something else.

  Something akin to a Territorial Lord.

  A force that had claimed its place in existence.

  Something worthy of caution.

  His mind, always calculating, ran through endless scenarios.

  And for the first time—

  There was a variable he did not immediately understand.

  His expression shifted.

  And then, he spoke.

  "Fascinating."

  Antru moved.

  Not through spell or incantation—

  But through pure, physical force.

  The air ruptured.

  A sonic boom shattered the ground beneath him.

  And in an instant—

  He was behind Eo.

  His claws lashed forward.

  SLASH—

  Eo tilted, his body fluid, adapting.

  The attack missed—

  Barely.

  But—

  A strand of Eo’s flesh—

  Was cut.

  A thin, almost invisible wound.

  Yet—

  It did not regenerate instantly.

  For the first time—

  Eo had taken damage.

  Antru grinned, his monstrous teeth glinting.

  For the first time, he had drawn blood.

  This creature was no longer untouchable.

  Now—

  Now, he had a chance.

  Eo’s expression remained unreadable.

  And then—

  The atmosphere changed.

  The air trembled.

  Magic, science, reality itself—

  distorted.

  And in that moment—

  The true battle began.