The air in the boutique was just the beginning. As Cassian's bloodlust fully unleashed, it didn't just suffocate—it shattered. The polished windows of the shop exploded outwards in a rain of crystalline shards. The very walls of the corridor outside groaned and cracked under the pressure.
Jade's mind, ever-calculating, ran the variables and found only one path. He shoved the bag into Kai's arms. "Run. Now."
Kai fled, a blur of blue and terror.
Jade turned, hands at his sides, and met Cassian's gaze. The vampire's form seemed to grow, casting a long, predatory shadow.
"You defiled her," Cassian's voice was the grinding of continents.
He didn't throw a punch. He flicked his wrist.
A telekinetic hammer-blow of pure force slammed Jade through the boutique's back wall, pulverizing stone and support beams. Jade crashed through into a public atrium, skidding across the floor as screams erupted around them. He pushed himself up, blood already welling in his mouth, his pride the only thing keeping him upright.
"You made her weep," Cassian snarled, appearing before him in a blur.
This time, a fist. It connected with Jade's chest with a sound like a rotten tree splitting. Ribs snapped—not just the bruised ones, but a whole cage of them. Jade was hurled backwards, crashing through a decorative marble pillar. He lay in the rubble, struggling to breathe, each gasp a knife in his lungs.
A silver-and-storm-gray blur materialized at the edge of the destruction. Zero, his odachi drawn, lightning crackling down the blade. His eyes were cold with lethal intent.
"Jade. Move," Zero commanded, his voice cutting through the chaos.
"NO!" Jade choked out, the word wet with blood. He locked eyes with Zero, a silent, desperate plea passing between them. Stand down. This was his to bear.
Zero hesitated, his knuckles white on his hilt, but he did not advance.
From the other side, a vortex of shadows erupted. Lilith appeared, her naked form wreathed in violent purple energy, her face a mask of apocalyptic fury. She saw Jade broken in the rubble and her power flared, ready to scour the entire sector to ash.
"LILITH, DON'T!" Jade roared, the effort tearing something in his throat. He pushed himself to his knees, a bloody, broken king commanding his most loyal subject. "This is my choice! Stand down!"
Her eyes burned with conflict, but she obeyed, the energy around her dying to a simmering aura of protective malice.
Cassian watched it all, his fury deepening at the display of loyalty Jade commanded. He stalked forward, grabbing Jade by the hair and hauling him upright.
"Why?" Cassian hissed into his ear, genuine confusion mixing with his rage. "You have the power to fight. You have allies who would die for you. Why do you just take it?"
Jade spat a glob of blood onto the shattered floor. "Because... I was wrong," he rasped, the admission costing him more than any physical blow. He wouldn't apologize to Cassian, but he would acknowledge the truth. "And sometimes... the debt must be paid... in blood."
This admission seemed to infuriate Cassian further. It denied him the clean, righteous kill he wanted. He threw Jade aside like a ragdoll, sending him crashing through a wall into a training sector, the destruction carving a path of annihilation through half the sanctuary wing.
He followed, a force of nature, delivering blow after shattering blow. A kick shattered Jade's knee with a sickening crunch. A chop to the collarbone snapped it like a dry twig. Jade was a broken puppet, held together only by his will and his Obsidian Core's stubborn vitality, refusing to fall completely, refusing to lose consciousness.
The commotion, the catastrophic energy signatures, finally pierced the wards of Seraphina's chambers. A servant, trembling, whispered the news: "My Lady... Lord Cassian... he's killing the anomaly in the central sectors."
The image of Jade's stunned face from earlier flashed in her mind, followed by the hollow void of her own heartbreak. Then, a new, sharper fear—not for herself, but for him.
Her tears froze on her cheeks.
She was a blur of crimson and fury, exploding from her room. She followed the path of destruction—shattered walls, frozen patches of blood, the terrified faces of ascendants—until she found them.
She saw Cassian, his fist wreathed in killing energy, poised to drive it through the chest of a barely-conscious Jade, who was propped up against the ruins of a fountain, his white hair matted with blood and dust, one eye swollen shut, but his head still held high.
"CASSIAN! ENOUGH!"
Her voice cracked through the air like a whip made of absolute zero. Every remaining window in the vicinity frosted over and shattered.
Cassian froze, his fist hovering inches from Jade's heart. He turned, his rage faltering at the sight of her—not weeping in her room, but here, her eyes blazing with a protective fire he hadn't seen in centuries.
"He deserves to die for what he did to you," Cassian stated, his voice raw.
Seraphina looked at Jade's broken form, at the pride still burning in his single open eye, at the sheer scale of destruction he had allowed upon himself without raising a hand in return. The last of her icy anger melted, replaced by something far more complex.
She walked forward, placing herself between her brother and the man who had broken her heart.
"The debt," she said, her voice trembling with a power that stilled the air, "is paid."
Cassian froze, his fist hovering inches from Jade's heart. He turned, his rage faltering at the sight of her—not weeping in her room, but here, her eyes blazing with a protective fire he hadn't seen in centuries.
"He deserves to die for what he did to you," Cassian stated, his voice raw.
Seraphina looked at Jade's broken form, at the pride still burning in his single open eye, at the sheer scale of destruction he had allowed upon himself without raising a hand in return. The last of her icy anger melted, replaced by something far more complex.
She walked forward, placing herself between her brother and the man who had broken her heart.
"The debt," she said, her voice trembling with a power that stilled the air, "is paid."
In the profound silence that followed, broken only by the drip of water from the shattered fountain, Jade used the very last dregs of his strength. His swollen eye found Seraphina's. Through shattered teeth and blood-filled lips, he forced out three ragged, barely audible words, each one a universe of meaning.
"I am sorry... Seraphina."
It was not an excuse. It was not a plea. It was a raw, unfiltered admission, the first of its kind from the Void-Sovereign.
Then, the final ember of his will guttered out. His body went limp, consciousness fleeing completely.
He did not crumple to the ground.
In a burst of speed that left afterimages in the air, Seraphina shot forward and caught him as he fell. She gathered his broken, bloodied form into her arms with a startling tenderness, cradling him against her chest.
She did not look at Cassian. She did not look at Zero or Lilith.
Without a word, she turned and became a crimson streak, a blur of motion so fast it seemed to tear a path through reality itself, vanishing from the shattered sector before anyone could even process a thought.
One moment they were there, the next, they were simply gone.
Leaving only the ruins, the silence, and a mystery.
No one knew where she had taken him.