The battlefield lay in ruin.

  Shattered stone, broken glyph sigils, and smoking craters stretched across the cursed valley like the aftermath of a divine catastrophe. Fragments of luminous energy still flickered in the air, dissolving slowly into drifting ash. The ground itself trembled faintly, unable to settle after the violence that had scarred it.

  At the center of the devastation—

  Binyamin lay motionless.

  His armor was cracked, dust-coated, streaked with blood. His sword rested just beyond his reach, half-buried in fractured stone. No movement. No sound. Only the slow curl of dust drifting over his still form.

  A few meters ahead, Aylen, Kara, and Naela formed a shaky defensive line.

  Their bodies were battered. Armor chipped. Skin bruised and blood-streaked. Breath came in ragged pulls, yet their weapons remained raised.

  They would not move.

  “We… we can’t let him… get past us,” Naela whispered, her voice trembling despite her effort to steady it. Her eyes remained locked on her brother’s fallen body. “Big brother… I won’t let him suffer like this.”

  Kara’s gaze flicked between Binyamin and the battlefield, her voice tight.

  “Binyamin… he’s… he’s not moving…”

  Aylen clenched her fists so tightly her knuckles blanched white.

  “Stay focused! We can’t give him an opening!”

  Their formation tightened instinctively—fear forging what strength exhaustion had stolen.

  Then—

  From the drifting smoke, the Inquisitor emerged.

  Glyph sparks crawled along his arms like living circuitry, pulsing in cold, mechanical rhythm. His steps were slow, measured, inevitable—each one crunching over shattered glyph fragments as if crushing resistance itself.

  “You’re on the edge… and your brother lies broken,” he said calmly, voice slicing cleanly through the battlefield’s silence. “How long do you think you can last?”

  He moved.

  The attack came instantly.

  A sweeping glyph blade tore through the air. Kara intercepted first, pivoting low, her weapon catching the strike in a violent spray of sparks. The impact drove her boots deep into the fractured ground.

  Aylen followed, rotating in from the flank, her counterstrike aimed at his ribs—but the Inquisitor twisted with inhuman precision, deflecting her blow with the back of his arm before releasing a point-blank glyph burst.

  Naela reacted on instinct.

  Her wings flared violently—jagged glyph light erupting outward into a fractured barrier. The blast collided, shattering the shield in a rain of glowing shards that scorched the earth around them.

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  The recoil forced all three girls backward.

  They regrouped instantly.

  Kara dashed right, drawing his attention with rapid, precise strikes—each aimed to disrupt rhythm rather than penetrate defense. Aylen mirrored from the left, her attacks heavier, forcing structural guard shifts.

  Naela anchored the rear.

  Unstable glyph energy spiraled around her arms, feeding outward into their movements—boosting speed, reinforcing impact, patching defensive gaps.

  But her power flickered erratically.

  The Inquisitor saw it.

  He pressed harder.

  A downward glyph cleave split the ground between them. Kara vaulted over the fracture, slashing mid-air. Aylen slid beneath his counterstrike, driving upward toward his torso.

  He parried both.

  A rotational shockwave exploded from his core, throwing them apart like leaves in a storm.

  They skidded across rubble, gasping, scrambling back into formation before he could advance further.

  “Big brother… if you don’t get up… we…” Naela’s voice broke, the words fracturing under the weight of fear.

  “Your strength alone is futile,” the Inquisitor said coldly. “Desperation will consume you.”

  They regrouped again—but slower this time.

  Breathing heavier.

  Formation looser.

  Fear heavier.

  “I… I won’t… I can’t just watch my brother lie there!” Naela growled, grief igniting into reckless fury.

  Her gaze snapped past the Inquisitor—

  To Zarek.

  He stood at a distance, watching like a spectator at a coliseum, amusement curling at the edge of his lips.

  Rage drowned reason.

  “If I die… I will at least avenge my brother!”

  Naela surged forward.

  Glyph energy erupted around her like a solar flare. Wings expanded, sigils igniting in wild, unstable spirals as she drove straight toward Zarek.

  Aylen shouted her name—but Naela was already gone.

  The strike she launched was everything she had left.

  A crescent arc of crackling glyph force tore across the battlefield, distorting the air in its wake.

  Zarek didn’t move until the last second.

  He raised his blade casually.

  The impact detonated in a blinding flash—but the energy shattered harmlessly against his aura, dispersing like mist against steel.

  His smirk widened.

  Before Naela could recover—

  He moved.

  Faster than sight.

  His blade pierced her abdomen with lethal precision.

  The world stopped.

  Naela’s eyes widened, breath vanishing from her lungs as steel drove through armor, flesh, and glyph light alike.

  Blood bloomed across her armor.

  Her wings faltered.

  Her body collapsed.

  “Naela!” Kara and Aylen screamed in unison, staggering back in horror, fists clenched, hearts pounding.

  And then—

  The battlefield seemed to fracture around her.

  Sound dulled first.

  Clashing steel, exploding glyphs, Kara’s scream—everything warped into a distant, underwater echo.

  Pain came next.

  Sharp.

  Blinding.

  Then fading into a cold numbness spreading from the wound outward.

  Her vision blurred.

  The sky above smeared into streaks of grey and crimson.

  Her glyph wings flickered erratically—fragments of light breaking off like dying embers.

  Inside her mind, memories surged unbidden.

  Her brother standing before her.

  Shielding her.

  Training beside her.

  Bleeding for her.

  If I fail… not just I… but my brother… everyone…

  The weight of Aurethia’s inheritance crushed inward.

  Heir of the god who killed Maltherion.

  Sister to Maltherion’s heir.

  Protector… yet always protected.

  Her power pulsed weakly around her hands—flickering, unstable.

  I relied on him… again…

  Guilt cut deeper than the blade.

  Her fingers twitched weakly against the shattered ground.

  Darkness crept into the edges of her sight.

  Her wings dimmed.

  The radiant glyph sigils orbiting her form slowed… then faltered.

  For a brief, terrifying moment—

  The power of Aurethia’s heir flickered like a dying star.

  And then—

  The sky above the ruins shifted violently.

  Dark clouds bled into a glowing, blood-red hue.

  A crackling surge of energy rippled across the horizon, illuminating the battlefield in a surreal, ominous glow that drowned even the chaos below.

  Kara and Aylen exchanged terrified, awed glances—breath caught between fear and disbelief.

  The air itself felt heavier.

  Charged.

  Watching.

  The battlefield held its breath—

  As if the world itself had paused to witness the fall of the girls’ last stand.