The commander's body gives out finally.
One moment he stands inside the crater—swaying, breath is ragged, aura flickers like the dying glow of a forge.
The next—
His knees buckle.
His sword slips from numb fingers, clattering once against the molten stone before sinking into the cracked earth.
His entire frame convulses as if someone rips the life out of him in a single, merciless motion. His eyes, still silver with leftover power, dim like fading embers.
Then he plummets.
Not gracefully.
Not heroically.
But like a vessel whose vital essence has been violently poured from the inside out.
"Commander!"
The word tears itself from my throat—a desperate, raw sound that shatters the crater's sudden silence—before I even register I move.
I scramble down the fractured ridge, ash slides under my boots like powder. Heat scorches my face; the ground still hisses with dying magma, and the thick air stings my lungs with sulfur and blood.
Every breath is agony.
But I run.
Driven by sheer panic, I am faster than my exhausted body should allow.
He lies on his side, barely conscious, steam rises from his skin where the ferocious aura backlash has charred it. Dark, visceral blood trails from the corner of his mouth. His breaths come in shallow, broken, whistling gasps.
I slam down to my knees beside him.
"Commander—hey—look at me. Can you hear me? Are you okay?"
My voice cracks, thin and terrified, betraying the calm I always try to project.
He has to be fine. If he falls, everything falls.
For a second, he offers nothing. His eyes stay unfocused, fixed on the molten sky as though he still grapples with the monster's dissolving essence.
Then, slowly… agonizingly… he forces out an exhale.
His fingers twitch, scratching for purchase on the cracked stone.
"Don't… worry…" he mutters, the words slurred, thick with blood, and hoarse. "It's… just backlash…"
Just backlash.
The sheer casual cruelty of those words hits me like a physical punch to the solar plexus.
His whole body convulses as he drags himself onto an elbow, gritting his teeth against a pain that must be consuming him whole. Silver fissures of unstable aura crawl across his skin—flickering, dangerous, ready to tear him apart from the cellular level.
"This," he continues, breath catches in a harsh rattle, "is why… I never allowed you to learn… the last two forms."
He coughs—a wet, gut-wrenching sound. Blood splatters on the dirt, dark and steaming, a grotesque contrast to the silver aura.
The sight turns my stomach to a rigid, trembling knot.
"Commander, stop talking! You need to breathe—you need a healer—"
He shoves my hand away, ignoring the plea.
"The Fourth and Fifth…" His voice trembles, a thin, frayed thread barely holding together. "They're strong. Too strong. But they're just as deadly… to the user."
A massive tremor, an inner electrical storm, passes through him. Sweat pours down his temple.
His fingers dig deep into the ground, tearing the soft earth to steady his collapsing frame.
"Unless you reach… SS rank…" His eyes snap to mine—clear, sharp, absolutely resolute despite the raw agony. "You cannot undo… the backlash."
The words strike me harder than the blast wave that had thrown me earlier.
He knew this risk.
He chose suicide for victory.
I swallow hard, my throat is tight, my vision blurs with unshed tears.
"You used both. Without hesitation."
He gives a faint, tired exhale that might be a laugh—or just the sound of a lung collapsing.
"I had to."
My chest tightens, squeezing the air from my own body. I stare at the ground, my jaw locked.
A gust of hot, dry wind screams across the crater, scattering ash like profane snow.
The battlefield is quiet now—a dead, echoing quiet. The storm he unleashed left nothing alive, nothing standing. Everything around us is pulverized ruin.
And still… I cannot look away from him.
His eyes flutter. His breathing stutters, catching on empty air.
"Commander—stay with me. Hey!"
I grip his shoulder, feeling the violent tremor beneath my fingertips, the silent, desperate storm inside his body.
"Don't you dare pass out here! Fight it!"
His gaze flickers toward me, softening… just a little, the barest, exhausted hint of acknowledgment.
"I'm fine," he mutters, though he is clearly spiraling. "Just… exhausted."
The ground vibrates again.
At first, I tense—What is it? Is the fight not over?
But no.
Footsteps.
Voices, muffled, distant, and then closer.
Then—
Knights appear at the shattered rim of the crater, their faces drain of color the moment they gaze upon the devastation below.
Some lock up mid-step. One drops his spear with a ringing sound. Another swears—a prayer or a curse—under his breath.
"What… in the God's name happened here?"
"Is that—the Commander?!"
"Kael—Kael is alive too—!"
They descend cautiously, as if afraid the scarred earth might rupture again. Heat shimmers and distorts the air; their boots sink into the soft, glassed terrain.
Every face carries a dizzying mix of shock, awe, and desperate relief.
A senior knight shoves past the rest.
"Get healers! Now!"
Within seconds they reach us.
Two knights kneel beside the commander, lifting him with practiced care but visible apprehension. Even in this state, his overwhelming presence is palpable—like they fear the battlefield might reignite if they touch him without permission.
"He's burning up," one gasps.
"His aura lines are unstable," another notes, seeing the faint, dangerous silver arcs still crawling across his skin.
They look at me, their focus snapping back.
I do not realize my own hands shake until one of them rests a firm grip on my shoulder.
"Kael, can you stand?"
I nod. Barely. My legs feel like melted iron, but I force myself upright. Another knight loops an arm under mine to steady me.
As we ascend the ruined slope, I look back over the commander's shoulder.
His body lies in their arms—bloodied, exhausted, barely conscious.
But his chest rises.
Falls.
Rises again.
Alive.
Because he chooses to fight.
Because he chooses to protect.
Because he refuses to fall when everything in the world tries to break him.
The crater smolders behind us, a massive, jagged scar carved into the land—a silent, searing testament to the price he pays with his life force.
The battle is over.
The air cools slowly. The crushing darkness recedes.
And the knights carry us back toward the fortress—
away from the smoking ruin,
away from the desecrated battlefield,
toward whatever terrifying fate awaits us next.
Far away from the crater—beyond the heat, beyond the destruction, beyond the dying screams—the forest remains untouched.
Quiet.
Still.
Too still.
And in that untouched silence…
two figures stand.
A man and a woman.
They watch the distant battlefield, where the commander's storm has ripped open the earth, where the very air itself trembled and bent to his will.
A low, guttural sound escapes the man first.
Soft.
Raspy.
A precursor.
Then—
"Hahahah… hahahahahahaha."
The laugh swells, twisting into something sharp, unhinged, and profoundly wrong, echoing like blasphemy between the ancient, silent trees.
The woman behind him flinches—her shoulders tighten, her expression stiffens with practiced dread—but she utters nothing.
She is used to his madness… or she pretends to be.
The man's laughter dies off abruptly, like a blade sliding back into its sheath.
The woman finally speaks, her voice tight.
"So what now? The plan failed. The fortress did not fall like the prophecy declared. We still have not secured the person we were seeking."
The man tilts his head slightly, observing the final glimmers of silver aura fading into the far distance.
"On the contrary," he says softly. His voice is smooth, silk over stone. "We have found him."
The woman's eyes narrow with disbelief.
"You cannot possibly mean that boy. Kael."
"Yes," he answers immediately—without doubt, without hesitation. "Did you not see it? That raw, untamed fearlessness? That instinct? He runs toward a cataclysm where SS-rank monsters hesitate to tread. He severs the abomination's mind-link. That is not something any human—certainly not a C-rank—is capable of."
He turns slowly, pale eyes gleaming with a fanatic, almost reverent shine that speaks of fevered faith.
"There is no doubt. He is the one. The key."
The woman bites her lip until it hurts. Her voice drops to a dangerous whisper.
"I admit… what he did was far from normal."
She swallows the bitter truth.
"No… it was wrong. No mortal should survive something like that. And yet he does."
She looks again toward the ruined land, unable to stop the shiver crawling down her spine.
A kid barely standing at C-rank… surviving an S-rank battlefield?
Impossible.
Absurd.
And yet they both witnessed it.
"So…" she asks slowly, dread heavy on her tongue, "what do you plan to do? Kidnap him?"
Silence.
A cold breeze whispers through the trees.
The man smiles—wide, sharp, and profoundly unsettling.
"Kidnap him?" the man repeats, rolling the word on his tongue as if tasting something bland and disappointing.
A faint, cold smile cuts across his face—thin, deliberate, wrong.
"No," he murmurs. The whisper is so soft it forces the woman to lean in, yet something in it makes even the night recoil.
"We do not steal him."
His eyes drift upward, following the unseen trail of a passing cloud as though it carries the answer to their destiny.
"We do something far more exquisite… far more necessary."
His hands lift slowly from his sides. Not a simple gesture—it is something ceremonial.
His fingers spread wide, palms facing outward, like a priest revealing forbidden scripture to an unworthy congregation.
"He is only a child now. Fragile. Unaware. A small, closed bud in a world of inescapable storms."
He takes a step forward, his voice gaining a strange, terrifying calm.
"And we… we will cultivate him. Feed him. Shape him. Water him with truths he cannot yet bear. Tend to him until his roots reach deep and his petals sharpen into blades."
He lowers his hands, then spreads them again—wider this time—arms open as though embracing an invisible future.
"And when he finally blooms, when every part of him has matured into exactly what we need… he will come to us. Willingly. Kneeling. Searching for the answers only we can give."
A small, high laugh breaks from him—soft, trembling with manic anticipation.
"Because once he sees the world for what it truly is, once he glimpses the rot beneath its shining, false surface… he will have nowhere else to go."
His voice drops lower, almost reverent, as if reciting a scripture only he knows.
"That is when our Messiah rises. That is when the first verse of the prophecy awakens. And when he leads us… victory is no longer a dream, but destiny itself."
The woman's breath catches—a tiny, involuntary sound of terror.
She feels it—the shift in the air around him, the feverish conviction building in his tone.
The moonlight reveals the wild gleam in his eyes, a devotion that borders on madness, a conviction sharp enough to cut a soul.
A chilling shiver crawls down her spine.
She has seen him like this only a handful of times, and each time the world around him seems to bend toward something irrevocably darker.
She bows her head, unable to stop the tremor in her hands.
And silently—desperately—she prays that the boy, Kael Thorne, is strong enough to survive whatever exquisite, cruel trials this man intends to force upon him.