Aelith gritted her teeth as the sheer force of the battle around them threatened to tear her apart.

  She was still immobilized, locked in place by the backlash of the entity's reflection magic. But that wasn’t the worst part.

  The air was thick—dense with residual magic. The sheer energy rolling off the clash between It and Antru was suffocating, pressing down on her lungs like an invisible weight. Even though she wasn’t the one fighting, her body screamed in protest as if it was being crushed under an immense force.

  Then came the shockwaves.

  Each time Antru lashed out, the resulting destruction sent powerful gusts of wind tearing through the forest, carrying shards of broken stone, splintered wood, and raw energy through the air.

  Aelith’s arms, though unmovable, were pelted by countless razor-sharp fragments of debris. Her barrier spells had shattered long ago—there was nothing left to shield her.

  She wasn’t the only one suffering.

  Thorne let out a strangled growl, his body straining against both the force of the magic keeping him bound and the relentless waves of destruction sweeping through the battlefield. His face was bloodied, several fresh cuts marring his once-pristine armor.

  They were trapped. And the battlefield itself had become their enemy.

  —

  Unlike Aelith and Thorne, Frid and Caelum had moved far enough to avoid being caught in Eo’s counter-magic. But even from their position, the chaotic energy raging through the battlefield was overwhelming.

  Frid planted himself into the ground, grovelling to keep himself steady as another shockwave blasted past them. His already tattered robe whipped violently behind him, torn at the edges from the relentless onslaught of debris.

  This power…

  He let out a sharp exhale, eyes locked onto Eo’s unshaken form amidst the chaos.

  A cackles tugged at his lips, even as the wind howled around him.

  “Agatha… I was right.”

  His voice was barely audible, lost in the storm of battle, but he kept speaking as if she could hear him.

  “This is the being I chose. And look at him.”

  Antru was throwing everything he had—a rampaging beast of unnatural power. And yet…

  It hadn’t even flinched.

  Not once.

  Frid chuckled, the amusement in his tone layered with something almost reverent.

  “This isn’t a fight. This is a joke.”

  Caelum remained silent, but his sharp eyes never wavered.

  Even while struggling against the turbulent force of the battle, he was analyzing.

  He clenched his fists as another violent shockwave rolled through, sending the trees snapping like twigs and carving deep trenches into the earth.

  Antru’s rampage was distorting the entire landscape.

  And yet It… was still untouchable.

  Caelum could barely keep his footing against the residual magic alone—so how was Eo standing in the center of it all, completely unaffected?

  His gaze sharpened.

  He’s not just dodging. He’s controlling everything.

  This wasn’t a battle.

  This was a demonstration.

  —

  Eo’s body moved on instinct, weaving through the battlefield with effortless precision.

  His mind, however, was elsewhere.

  With his Core-Brain fully evolved, he had achieved something that should have been impossible—perfectly splitting his will into two separate lines of thought.

  One controlled the fight.

  The other… was thinking. Deeply.

  A single drop of blood.

  That was all Antru had taken—one mere drop.

  And yet, the transformation was monstrous.

  How?

  His thoughts flickered back to Frid.

  To the moment when Frid had nearly been destroyed by consuming a different kind of blood—one infused with Old Magic.

  The pain. The instability. The way his body had nearly been torn apart from the inside out.

  And now, here was Antru—his body twisting, warping, mutating into something barely recognizable.

  All from one drop.

  Eo’s golden eyes narrowed as he observed the way the blood had reshaped Antru’s very being.

  This was not normal magic.

  Not something from the modern world.

  Not even something from known history.

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  This… was something ancient.

  Something outside the established laws of magic.

  His second will focused entirely on deciphering the mystery before him.

  Where did this blood come from?

  How many more like it existed?

  And, more importantly…

  If a single drop could do this… what would happen if he found the source?

  Eo’s curiosity deepened, his hunger for knowledge growing sharper.

  And yet—

  His first will remained completely dominant in the battle.

  Antru still thought he had a chance.

  How foolish.

  Antru lunged.

  His monstrous form blurred, tearing through the air faster than before.

  To Aelith and Thorne, the speed was unbelievable.

  To Frid and Caelum, it was terrifying.

  To Eo…

  It was slow.

  With the barest flick of his body, Eo sidestepped—so effortlessly, so precisely, it was as if he had predicted the attack before it even began.

  Then, with a casual movement, he countered.

  One strike.

  Simple. Direct. But absolute.

  Antru was sent crashing into the earth, carving a deep crater into the ground.

  Silence fell.

  Dust and debris rained down, coating the battlefield in a thick cloud of smoke.

  For a brief moment, nothing moved.

  Then—

  Antru staggered back up.

  Even now, he still hadn’t given up.

  He still thought he had a chance.

  Eo exhaled slowly.

  His golden gaze, cold and calculating, bored into the desperate creature before him.

  He had seen enough.

  He had learned enough.

  And now—

  It was time to end this.

  The battlefield lay in ruin. The sheer destructive force from Antru’s rampage had left the surroundings unrecognizable, the air thick with residual magic, making it difficult for even the seasoned combatants to breathe properly.

  Thorne and Aelith were still under the crushing weight of their own reflected power, struggling against the unseen chains binding their bodies. The lingering magic residue still clung to them, making even the simplest movements arduous.

  Caelum, still free from the constraints, stood frozen, watching with a mixture of fear and awe. Something was changing.

  Frid, however, remained unfazed. He muttered under his breath, as if speaking to someone only he could see.

  "You were right, Agatha. My choice… no, our choice was the best one."

  His lips curled into a faint smile. Eo was proving, once again, why he was the one Frid had chosen to follow.

  And then—

  It happened.

  —

  Eo had been watching. Observing.

  Even as he fought, he was dissecting the principles behind formations, tracing their patterns, and deconstructing the logic of their activation. He had seen Antru’s and Aelith’s formations in action—how they structured magic, how they manipulated the air, how they forced energy into rigid frameworks.

  Now, he would try it for himself.

  His first experiment.

  Without hesitation, he extended his will.

  A second mind worked separately from his first, dedicating itself entirely to the process.

  Magic responded to his command, but it did not flow smoothly. It twisted and coiled like a beast resisting capture. It was inefficient. Clumsy. A crude attempt.

  But it was enough.

  A shape began to take form.

  Darkness bled into existence, forming jagged, gaping teeth-like structures that materialized in the air. The twisted, elongated fangs resembled the maw of an abyssal predator, dripping with a thick, toxic essence.

  The air itself became distorted, an eerie haze clouding the senses of those nearby.

  The structure pulsed with an unnatural presence.

  It was not a mere cage—it was an abyssal prison, one that gnawed at the mind, disoriented the senses, and emitted a toxic miasma that seeped into the body.

  And it had only been created through sheer instinct and experimentation.

  Antru’s breath hitched.

  "What... what is this?"

  His voice trembled, a mix of disbelief and something he refused to acknowledge—fear.

  It had just created a formation.

  Not through years of study. Not through trial and error passed down by masters.

  But through a single observation.

  It wasn’t a perfect structure. It was wasteful in magic usage, lacking the efficiency of trained formation masters. But what made it terrifying was its raw effectiveness.

  It worked.

  It worked in a way that should not have been possible for someone who had never studied formations before.

  Aelith's eyes widened, her mind screaming at the impossibility of it. Decades of research, of effort, of refinement—Eo had skipped it all.

  Caelum, watching the display, felt his heart slam against his ribs.

  This was no ordinary power.

  This was not a talent one could simply train for.

  It was something else entirely.

  Something divine.

  His legs buckled beneath him.

  Without a second thought, he dropped to his knees.

  He understood now.

  He would follow Frid’s example.

  Eo was no mortal. He was something greater.

  —

  Far away, buried deep within the grand archives of Lafina's greatest empire, an ancient text remained untouched for centuries.

  It spoke of an era long past, the era after the True Dragon. When humans teetered on the brink of extinction.

  The world had once been dominated by beings far beyond human understanding—monstrous creatures of unfathomable power, many of them possessing intelligence equal to or even surpassing mankind.

  Against such overwhelming odds, humans were nothing but prey.

  But then—Formation Making was born.

  Unlike the monstrous beings who wielded magic as an instinctual force, humans had to compensate for their weaknesses.

  So they devised a method.

  A way to gather the thin strands of magic in the air, condense them, and force them into rigid structures.

  They could not wield magic freely like their enemies—so they created formations to bridge the gap.

  For the first time, magic belonged to humans, not just to monsters.

  And with it, they fought back.

  Formations were crude at first—basic traps and barriers, mechanisms to amplify what little power they had.

  But each generation refined the craft further.

  Until, finally—the first human empires rose.

  What was once a desperate struggle for survival became a war.

  What was once a war became conquest.

  And monsters were no longer the rulers of the world.

  Formation Making had been the key to humanity’s survival.

  But like all things, time eroded its prominence.

  Magic evolved. Humans no longer relied on formations the way their ancestors did. The art faded into obscurity, lost among the newer, faster ways of wielding power.

  Only a handful of practitioners remained—Antru, Aelith, and the hidden scholars who still pursued its ancient wisdom.

  But now—on this battlefield—

  Something unprecedented had happened.

  A being outside of human history had begun unlocking the secrets of Formation Making.

  And he did it in mere moments.

  —

  Eo analyzed his creation.

  It was flawed—wasteful, unstable, and yet, undeniably effective.

  A first attempt.

  But a successful one.

  His second will continued dissecting the knowledge, refining the logic behind formation structures, preparing for future experiments.

  Meanwhile, his first will remained fully focused on Antru—a predator watching his prey.

  Antru took a step back.

  He refused to acknowledge it, but he knew.

  He could not win.

  Eo, without ever learning formations, had just created something that should not be possible.

  And he was only getting started.

  Aelith felt an icy chill crawl up her spine.

  Antru was strong. He had taken the blood of an unknown source and transformed beyond human limitations.

  And yet—

  Eo was still stronger.

  Even with his crude attempts, even without experience, he was already surpassing them.

  This… thing.

  What was he?

  What kind of monster had they provoked?

  Caelum, head lowered, trembled in reverence.

  Frid simply smirked, eyes full of certainty.

  He had already known the answer.

  And now, everyone else would understand it too.