Hm. Hm? I'm a pretty strong wizard. This is the second floor," Maynard said calmly, his voice drifting in through the shattered window.
Alicia reached for her waist, but her heart skipped a beat—her sword wasn't there. She had left it in the other room wher nelluru and luna is. She stood before the cradle, completely unarmed against a Highest Wizard.
In the room nelluru began "How did you..." , her eyes narrowing.I used this axe to fly here,"Von Ritz answered, resting a boot on a floating iron blade. "My magic is magnetic manipulation. With iron, I can draw anything or pierce anything. It is a characteristic I gained from a beast in the east—an iron-armored turtle. It's a little uncool to be a turtle, but it works. Look at the eyes... if you have the magic, your eye color changes. If not, you just bleed and die. It's only a moment of suffering."
"Oops, I can't let you move on your own," Maynard said with a flick of his wrist. The two iron beds in the room groaned, sliding across the floor with impossible force to block the exit. "A female swordsman with a human baby... I don't need the complications. My iron can stop the movement of a mountain." Von exclaimed;
Maynard (Von Ritz) reached into her cloak and pulled out a small, pulsing object—a Void Seed he had acquired from the forbidden ruins of the Black Marsh. It glowed with a sickly, rhythmic light.This is the test," she hissed, lunging to force the seed into the baby's mouth. "If he is not of royal blood, he will die instantly. If he lives, he belongs to us."
"Stop it!" Nelluru shrieked. With a surge of desperate strength, she slammed her weight into the iron bed that Von Ritz was still magnetically tethering. The massive frame crashed into him, pinning the wizard against the wall. The spiritual backlash was too much; Nelluru's eyes rolled back, and she collapsed into a dead faint.
The evening light hung low over the jagged peaks as **Clen**, in his majestic seven-tailed form, intercepted **Drel the Dragon Slayer**. The air itself seemed to vibrate with the sheer pressure of their meeting. The massive fox's eyes, glowing like molten gold, narrowed as he stared down at the man who had taken **Alicia's** father's life and now dared to stand in his path.
"I have only one question for you, child of man," Clen's voice rumbled like a tectonic shift. "The magic you wield—where did you acquire such a power? There is a presence behind it, one that does not belong to your kind. Tell me, what is its connection to the magic you use?"
**Drel** did not tremble. Instead, he looked up at the towering beast with a gaze filled with cold, calculated defiance. "Is that truly why a King of Beasts has appeared?" he mocked, his voice thin against the mountain wind. "To ask questions like a curious scholar?"
"When my domain is violated, it is the King's duty to judge the intruder," Clen replied, his seven tails lashing behind him, each movement carving deep grooves into the ancient stone. "Just as the King of this land once ruled, those who stain my territory are eliminated by my claws. That is the law of this world. That is fate."
"Fate?" Drel let out a hollow, jagged laugh. "I wonder... who was it that decided such a thing, Your Majesty?"
Without warning, the Dragon Slayer moved. He didn't flee; he struck with a desperate, suicidal speed. In a move so reckless it caught even the Demon King off guard, Drel lunged forward and allowed his own body to be pierced by Clen's power. He hung there, impaled, but a dark, triumphant grin spread across his bloodied face.
"You think I didn't prepare for your return after you leveled the Castle of Hayden?" Drel coughed, blood spilling from his lips as he clung to the wound. He wasn't dying—he was activating a trap. "This is the spell designed specifically to seal you away! Drink of it, Demon King! Taste the ultimate secret of magic!"
A horrific transformation began. Drel's body didn't just bleed; it began to dissolve into a swirling vortex of **Demon Blood**. "I cast aside my flesh!" he shrieked as his very life force turned into a pulsing, suffocating cage.
In an instant, a massive sphere of crimson energy erupted, encasing the great fox. This was the **Blood Prison**—a cage forged from a warrior's own life and soul. The red walls of the sphere were thick and viscous, absorbing Clen's golden flames as quickly as he could produce them.
"Even a King cannot escape this easily," the fading voice of Drel echoed from within the magic. "Inside this sphere of rot, you will slowly wither away. Your flesh will become my meat, and your power will be extinguished in the dark."
From within the crimson globe, Clen's golden eyes remained calm, though the fire around his horn flickered with a new, dangerous intensity. The battle for the world's survival had moved from the forests to a prison of blood, and the Demon King was finally starting to lose his patience with the world of men.
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