The thunder in the sky died abruptly.
The two divine forces ceased their clash, and a brutal silence descended upon the world.
The clouds shattered like broken glass.Entire mountains floated in the air, suspended by the residual shockwave of divine power.The mana emanating from Velyrion faded like smoke carried away by the wind.
The heroes—Alejandro, Xiomara, Drago, and Leonardo—barely had time to grasp what had happened.
And then, the forest changed.
The trees twisted toward them as if breathing.Roots stirred beneath their feet.Gravity trembled, the air vibrated…and the world warped as though reality itself were being rewritten.
From within that chaos emerged Dayana D'Angelo Rossetti, her pale skin illuminated by the fractured light of the sky.
But she was not alone.
Behind her, the bodies of fallen warriors rose like puppets, guided by threads of dark mana glowing like crimson veins.
But there was something more…
A shadow that did not belong to the forest.A double mana—impossible.An echo of space itself.
Dayana did not mention it.The heroes did not perceive it.But she did.
A hidden ally… the Hero of Space—a traveler between realities—manipulating the gravitational field around her, stabilizing her exhausted body, covering the subtle gaps in her defense.
A personal favor.A favor to Lusian.
Dayana allowed herself the faintest smile—one no mortal could have noticed—aware that without that unseen support, facing three heroes would have been suicide.
She raised a hand.
The corpses froze instantly, tense, ready.
"Your god is dead," she said with a cold smile. "And you still wait for salvation."
Alejandro stepped back.Drago tightened his grip.Xiomara lowered her stance.Leonardo raised his shield.
"You're not fighting alone… are you?" Xiomara growled.
Dayana let out a low laugh, barely human, almost amused.
"No. That would be a waste."
She slowly closed her fingers.
The living puppets creaked in unison, preparing to strike. Their joints cracked like dry branches; some still bled, others leaked black mana.
"You lost your god," Dayana advanced. "I simply gained new soldiers."
The forest sealed behind her with a low, rumbling roar.
Drago moved first, lunging at her with draconic force.
Dayana did not step back.
"Drago… you should have been mine," she whispered.
Her fingers elongated into claws.
One cut—clean, surgical:the carotid, and a precise point between the fourth and fifth cervical nerves, where vital mana overflows.
The blood stopped flowing for a moment… as if something invisible had halted time around the wound.
Drago dropped to his knees.
But he did not die.
The wound was not meant to kill him…
It was meant to empty him.To open his soul.
The Hero of Space subtly altered gravity beneath him so he would not die immediately.
Dayana needed a strong body.A vessel.
With almost delicate care, she plunged her hand into the wound and drew out a thread of crimson essence.
Drago screamed.
Then he fell…
…and rose again.
"Drago!" Xiomara cried, turning sharply.
Leonardo cursed under his breath.
"That's her style… separate, isolate, devour."
Alejandro tightened his grip on his sword.
"No… she's playing with us."
The forest's distortion began to fade like mist at dawn. The writhing roots, whispering shadows, and pulsing ground calmed as the last wave of divine collision dissipated.
The silence that followed was unnatural.
A body fell from above the canopy with almost ceremonial softness.
The puppet Drago was born.
Empty.Strong.Obedient.
His armor was fractured, his shield shattered, his chest caved in as if crushed from within. He barely breathed.
Xiomara ran to him.
"Drago!" Her voice broke.
But his eyes were glassy—lifeless.
From the crimson mist, Dayana emerged again, the blood evaporating from her fingers.
"He shouldn't be alive," she whispered, more to herself than to them. "But I was curious who would come to retrieve him."
Drago's body rose on its own. Joints cracked, fingers bent at impossible angles, muscles tightening with mana that was not his.
Dayana's voice sliced through the air:
"Don't worry. I wounded him gently."
Her shadow merged with his.
"I'll keep him standing for a while… while he serves me."
Drago—now a bleeding puppet—raised his sword and charged at his own companions.
A cold shiver ran through Alejandro.
"What the hell did you do to him?" he spat.
Dayana tilted her head, almost amused.
"I touched him where it hurts."
The memory of the strike flashed—a crimson flicker, a thread of blood slicing through the air as if it wanted to cut reality itself in two.
Drago hadn't even had time to react.
The diagonal cut had opened his chest… but did not kill him.Dayana had avoided heart and spine with surgical precision, as though she knew his anatomy better than he did.
"A small caress," she murmured.
Only then did Alejandro notice what he had missed:
the two bloodstained fingers Dayana had driven into Drago's neck a moment later.
It wasn't a strike.
It was an invasion.
Vampiric mana still writhed within his body like a dark swarm, suppressing his nerves, stealing his will.
Enough to keep him standing.Enough to turn him into a weapon.
Drago advanced again, dragging Dayana's shadow as if it were his own.
His body staggered forward, yet every step struck like a hammer. Blood dripping from his armor lifted in thin threads, responding to Dayana's will.
He was a puppet…
and a weapon.
"Drago…" Xiomara whispered, trembling. "Come back…"
What answered was a slash.
Drago's blade came down with unrestrained fury. Alejandro blocked, but the impact hurled him backward into a fractured tree.
Leonardo shouted:
"Don't hit him too hard! He's still alive!"
"It doesn't matter!" Dayana's voice rang from behind them, weakened, fraying. "Don't worry… his body has already crossed the point of no return."
Her body trembled. Her breathing faltered.
Controlling a hero of Drago's caliber demanded more mana than even a vampire of her lineage could sustain for long.
And it showed.
Drago's shadow flickered with every beat of her heart.
But as she weakened, he became more dangerous—driven by pure impulse, stripped of the last spark of humanity.
Xiomara cast a containment seal, trying to bind him in light.
Drago shattered it with a single strike.
Alejandro tried to restrain him from behind, but Drago twisted with unnatural strength and slammed him into the ground.
Leonardo charged with his spear.
"Drago… forgive me!"
The puppet hero answered with a strike that would have split another warrior in two. Leonardo deflected it halfway, but felt his shoulder tear open like cloth.
Drago felt no pain.Drago did not stop.Drago did not listen.
He only advanced, as if every step were a command:
Kill.Kill.Kill.
Dayana dropped to her knees.
The ground around her split with dark cracks like dead roots.
"I… can't… anymore…"
Her control over Drago faltered.Her shadow began to fade.Her form trembled like smoke about to disperse.
Alejandro saw it.
He understood what it meant.
"Now or never!"
Xiomara shook her head, tears spilling.
"No! It's Drago! He's still in there!"
But Drago raised his sword over her.
Death came in a gleam of steel.
Leonardo, wounded, shouted:
"Xiomara, down!"
She ducked at the last instant.
And Alejandro—drawing on his final reserve—drove his blade through Drago's chest from behind.
The sword burst out through the front.
Drago's body convulsed violently.
A sound escaped his lips.
Not a word.
Barely a breath.
The shadow controlling him peeled away like soot in the wind.
The vampiric mana was left without a master.
As the bond shattered, Dayana screamed—a sharp, tearing sound, as if half her soul had been ripped away.
The blood in the air dropped at once.The crimson mist dissipated.
Her body flickered.
"This… isn't over…" she whispered with resentment.
And then, she simply dissolved into a cloud of black, slipping between the trees like a fading breath.
She had exhausted all her mana.
Another second would have meant death.
Drago's body collapsed slowly, as if surrendering at last.
Xiomara fell to her knees beside him.
"Drago… Drago, please…"
But he no longer heard.
Leonardo lowered his head.Alejandro clenched his fists.
Even the forest—scarred by divine war—kept silence for him.
A hero had fallen…
and the one truly responsible had escaped.