‘It's done’
Storm felt the project she left in the white tower vanish as soon as she was done helping Rita hijack. She closed her fifth gate and channeled all her life essence into the second.
At that same instant, Dorous unched his spear.
The air howled as the weapon shattered the sound barrier, the sheer force of his throw causing the ground beneath him to implode.
Storm Rider remained eerily calm. She twisted in midair, narrowly avoiding the deadly projectile.
Yet, the spear did not stop. It curved unnaturally, reversing its trajectory to hunt her down once more. She had anticipated this.
Instead of engaging it directly, she dived, accelerating toward the ground at breakneck speed. At the st possible moment, just as impact seemed inevitable, she brought her hands together and whispered out a command that created a vortex of lightning and fire that swallowed the spear.
The vortex of fmes sucked out all the essence Dorous had pced in the spear to make it more lethal.
The silvery white energy merged with the golden-red fmes, creating a complicated vortex of white, orange, and red. It churned and twisted violently, consuming everything in their grasp.
When the vortex dissipated, the spear fell and buried itself into scorched earth.
Storm Rider barely had any time to breathe before Dorus’s shadow loomed over, cast by the white moonlight.
He had closed the distance in an instant. His glowing fist, crackling with raw destructive force, descended like a falling meteor. Storm Rider blurred away just in time before his fist struck the ground, triggering an earth-shattering explosion.
Trees were uprooted, and the terrain was reduced to a crater of devastation. Shockwaves rippled outward, tearing through the air like invisible bdes.
Storm Rider reacted instantly, weaving a barrier of pure essence around herself. She had already tapped into this level’s essence and bent it to her will.
The moment Storm Rider dismissed her barrier, she flicked her wrist.
Five bzing bdes—crackling with fire and lightning, erupted from her fingertips, streaking toward Dorous like falling stars.
Dorous had seen this technique before. Centuries ago, he had swatted these bdes aside like mere embers in the wind. He expected no different now
Raising his hand, he yered his body with essence, preparing to brush them away with ease.
But this time….
Slice!
The first bde tore through his fingers before he could react. Pain shot through his hand. His eyes widened in disbelief—just as the second bde buried itself into his chest.
A searing agony ripped through him as the bde dissolved, leaving behind torn flesh and burning embers.
He acted quickly when he saw the other four bdes. And flicked his wrist and crescent-like bdes collided with each fire-lighting attack.
“Tricky witch.” He growled with a pained expression.
Storm Rider let out a manic ugh as she caught sight of the rage twisting Dorous' face. His severed fingers bled, divine ichor staining the air with shimmering droplets.
"You once told me that beings like you don't feel pain from wounds caused by lesser species." Her crimson eyes gleamed with satisfaction. "So tell me, how does my improvement feel?"
Before he could respond, another onsught of fire and lightning rained down at her command.
Dorous braced himself, summoning barriers in rapid succession. Some attacks shattered against his defenses, but the rest found their mark. Every strike sent waves of searing pain through his immortal body.
This was wrong. These were basic attacks for someone whose domain could summon firestorms that scorched realms, and incinerate armies with a single breath.
Why wasn’t she using her full strength?
The attacks stopped abruptly.
In the next instant, she was in front of him.
Her fists blurred, a relentless storm of blows striking faster than the eye could follow. Each movement left behind glowing trails of golden energy, like streaks of light burning across the battlefield.
Dorous gritted his teeth and let instincts take over, arms moving in perfect sync as he deflected her attacks. She was fast. But she wasn’t a true close-combat fighter.
He had the upper hand here!
"Kuak!"
The force of the blow sent Storm Rider hurtling backward. She crashed into the ground, coughing up blood, but recovered instantly. Without hesitation, she lunged forward, her malice sharpened into a vicious kick aimed at Dorous’ chest.
She moved like a phantom—swift and deadly. Her strikes were precise, each one aimed at his vital energy channels to slow his regeneration. Her crimson eyes gleamed with focus as she delivered a palm strike to the left side of his chest, where his energy swirled most densely.
But Dorous was no fool. The moment she disrupted his first channel, he understood. She was reading the flow of his essence, hunting for weak points like a predator sensing blood.
A flicker of his third eye and the battlefield changed.
Storm's palm met not his body, but a towering wall of roots.
"What—?"
She leaped back, but the earth betrayed her and dark hands erupted from the soil, grasping her legs like the grip of a dying god. Then, from the abyssal shadows of the forest, two massive stone hands emerged—colossal, ancient, merciless.
They came from opposite directions, colliding like a monstrous cp of judgment with Storm Rider in between them.
CRACK!
A sickening chorus of breaking bones echoed through the air.
She spat blood, her barrier shattered under the sheer weight of essence infused into the attack. Pain ripped through her body but it quickly subsided when the essence started healing her.
“You die here!”
At the same time, Dorous’s third eye had gathered enough energy for his next attack.
Storm saw this and knew what the Pantheon was about to unleash at her. She reacted instantly, shattering one of the stone hands with cackling with a bolt of lightning. But the remaining hand grabbed hold of her entire body and smmed her into the earth.
Thick roots erupted from the ground from its core, twisting around her body, constricting with unnatural strength.
She struggled, her muscles straining against nature’s wrath. There was a faster way out. She could create a third version of herself and end this in seconds.
"But I need to conserve my energy for ter!"
Her mind waged war with her instincts. Dorous was relentless’s authority over nature was a pain in the ass.
Suddenly!
Dorous’s third eye transformed and a beam of bright searing light energy exploded toward her.
In an instant, Storm smiled and her entire form was swallowed by crimson fmes, incinerating the roots in a furious bze.
Then, impact!
Bam! The beam struck. The world ignited. Heat roared, consuming everything in its path. It was a force rivaling a nuclear detonation—enough to vaporize weaker beings in an instant.
But Storm had inherited the Sun’s lineage, she was fire itself.
She absorbed part of the energy, fueling the inferno raging within her Soul Gate. And the rest? She let it burn, trusting the Divine Fme to keep her alive as long as her heart still beat.
The bst faded and the battlefield smoldered in silence.
Storm remained standing, barely. The fmes around her body were gone and half of her body was charred bck, bones exposed in a grotesque dispy. Her breath was ragged, her vision blurred.
She was at death’s threshold until the fmes returned.
The fire coiled around her like a living thing, licking at her ruined flesh, restoring it. Slowly, her body mended, white-hot energy knitting her back together until she was as good as new.
Dorous narrowed his eyes, frustration flickering across his face. This had happened before when they st fought.
"The Sun’s lineage is so damn annoying."
Just then, he felt an interference in the air that instantly caught his attention. More people had crossed into Artemis’s garden.
He could tell from his connection to nature. With this connection, Dorous's third eye pulsed and a wave of invisible energy erupted from his body.
“Awaken, children of the moon!”
His voice was a whisper but to his targets, it was clear as day.
***
“Awaken, children of the moon!”
The pantheon’s voice traveled through the crimson-leafed trees and suddenly stopped after reaching a specific tree.
There was silence!
And then—
Its leaves moved along with each tree near it. The ground shook as something ancient awoke.
At first, the ground was ft.
Then, the brown soil folded to form a giant set of fingers….
***
Somewhere in Artemis’s garden,
A giant creature rested in the confines of a nest solely made out of bck vines and crimson sticks. Its giant body was hidden from the moonlight, but its silhouette did justice to outline its terrifying size.
Its hibernation stopped once it sensed a great surge in the qi around it and a voice telling it to awaken.
It moved and opened its eyes, revealing the ghostly green balls resting in its eye socket.
***
In the middle of Artemis’s garden,
A rge creature emerged from a small hill growing in the garden. Its serpentine silver body stretched for miles, its face covered in scales and a pair of horns growing from its head.
Its slumber had been disrupted by the pantheon’s call.
***
Meanwhile, at the Twin Rivers,
The river leviathan awakened right after the pantheon’s call for help.
To its surprise, though…
A young man with long dark hair and cold deadly dark eyes was standing on the river staring at it like it wasn’t a deadly beast born from the goddess’s blood.
The leviathan sensed no divine powers coming him. And yet, he stood perfectly on water like it was the earthly floor.
Staying cautious, the great beast of the river growled at the young man. It wasn’t just going to attack like a wild animal. It was a creation of the Lady of The Moon, it was intelligent just like the other beasts that she created with her blood.
As if knowing what it was thinking, the young man knelt on one knee and spoke, “Great Beast of The River of Grief,” he announced without a shred of fear in his voice. “I am Victor Artemis, servant of the Lady of The Moon.”
The Great Beast lifted its body and stared at him like it was about to pounce down and swallow him whole.
But the young man didn’t shake. He wore the same indifferent look he started with.
The leviathan’s body was clear as water with a dragon face. A glowing dorsal fin grew from its spine, stretching down to the end of its transparent snake/dragon body.
Seeing that it wasn’t attacking, the young man continued. “Your enemies are here. They wish to free him by destroying the heart of this tower. As someone who knows and understands her lordship, I am against it…”
“Valentine?”
The young man, who had introduced himself as Victor halted midstep.
A shadow of regret crossed his face as he turned, locking eyes with the figure standing at the riverbank.
Gail.
A tense silence crackled between them, brief but suffocating. Then, without hesitation, Gail summoned his forged weapon. It materialized instantly in his grip, and with practiced motion, he nocked the string. Light arrows formed and streaked through the air, faster than thought.
Victor scoffed. With a flick of his wrist, an ice wall erupted between them. The energy arrows collided with the barrier, their brilliance dimming against the thick frost.
“He can use…” Gail's breath hitched when he saw the ice.
His knuckles tightened around his bow. That was Lena’s Aura! How was he using it all of a sudden?
Questions could wait. His instincts screamed louder. More energy projections formed around him, spiraling in midair before unching toward Victor and the leviathan looming behind him.
But before they could strike—
RAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
The beast opened its mouth and let out a deafening, abysmal sound that sent shivers down Gail's spine.
The arrows disintegrated into water mid-flight, bursting apart in useless explosions.
"What the—"
He didn't get to finish that thought because what came next was a sharp, burning sensation as something ripped through him.
Gail’s body tensed as pain bloomed in his side. He looked down, horrified to see a gaping hole just below his ribs--skin, flesh, and bone obliterated.
A light arrow that had struck him. And to his surprise, Valentine is the one who had fired it with a manifested bow.
"Ha...How?" Blood gushed out of his mouth and his projections all dispersed.
His assaint stood still on the flowing water. His dark eyes were cold, devoid of hesitation.
Just then, the world shattered, and Darkness appeared above Victor, with a ready fist. The world seemed to crack apart when she punched the air above the Leviathan and Victor with an unseen force that distorted reality itself.
The pressure was catastrophic and both the creature and Victor were crushed beneath it. The creature was unfazed, its body only swaying in the water. But Victor caved under the increased pressure and his control shattered.
The force might as well have been equivalent to being hit by a mountain.
When his control shattered, he lost bance and was pushed into the river by the gravitational force.
The Leviathan reared back, preparing to unleash another deafening roar. But before it could, its massive form froze mid-motion. A crystalline frost devoured its entire body in an instant.
Lena exhaled, her Aura pulsing as she sealed the beast in a temporary ice prison.
“Everyone, stop…”
Suddenly, Valentine burst from the water like a phantom of vengeance. He shot through the air and lunged straight at Darkness.
His fist streaked forward.
Darkness barely had time to react. She crossed her arms, bracing for impact.
Boom! The force smmed into her like a colpsing star.
The attack carried almost as much weight as her own power. A rare, agonizing sensation shot through her body, making her wince. But she recovered fast.
Snarling, she unched herself at him, arms outstretched. 'Might as well go all out with you!'
Before Valentine could escape, she seized his lower body--locking him in her grasp. And then, with a surge of power, she shifted the gravitational field and they were pushed to the ground by gravity.
The sky ripped apart as both warriors plummeted like falling stars. They smmed into the forest below with a cataclysmic impact, the ground shattering beneath them in an eruption of dirt and dust.
Lena turned away from the frozen Leviathan, her gaze now locked onto the dusty ruin where Valentine and Darkness had fallen.
Valentine was an enemy, that’s something she already expected. The retionship between Artemis and Feng had never been a good one to begin with. All the friendly moments they shared were meant for the public eye and fed propaganda. Behind the curtains, the two cns were always butting heads and never on the same page.
Valentine Artemis was Lord Artemis’s most prized possession for a reason. She had been ordered to let him join as a representative and not engage him because they knew nothing about him. Until now, Lena didn’t know what his Aura was or if he had an Aura in the first pce.
But after confirming both, Lena hadn't expected him to be that powerful!
He successfully used the Ice, Gravity, and Energy Auras as though they were part of him from the beginning. An ascender capable of using Auras like that was supposed to be a myth because a Soul Gate could only have one Aura.
‘Unless that person has two souls.’ Her eyes widened when she recalled something she learned years ago. This was very bad. Valentine was much stronger than she thought. Darkness didn't stand a chance.
“Let me take care of the Leviathan,” she said to Snow with an even tone. He had just arrived on the scene. “The rest of you should assist Darkness. Valentine is much stronger than I anticipated.”
“The Two Soul theory?”
Lena wasn’t surprised Snow had caught on so quickly. He wasn’t a commander for nothing.
“Yes,” she nodded. “Help Gail recover first. I stopped the bleeding but he's very weak...that attack was meant to kill him instantly.”
“Alright, don’t die.” Snow shot the Leviathan one final look. The creature an an imposing aura but he was confident in Len’s abilities.
With that, he turned around and ran toward Gail who had been carried away from the battlefield by Len.
‘I don’t intend to.’
Lena returned her attention to the trapped beast and unleashed the full power of her gates. Her grey started burning with raw power while she drew her second gate to the limit.
The ice wall cracked and finally shattered. The leviathan then let out an angry roar before shifting its gaze to the single figure standing on a single ice disc.
In comparison, the creature was about tens of feet taller than Lena. Its clear water-like skin had lines that seemed to pulse under the moonlight as if sucking in energy. Behind it, the top part of the red tree it was protecting stuck out while the rest of it was submerged in the ke.
‘The moonlight is the source of their power.’ Lena figured it out.
As soon as the great creature opened its mouth, Lena moved into action without hesitation. Thousands and thousands of white icicles came into reality at a thought.
“Today, you will know the true power of House Feng.”
She let them loose and the leviathan was bombarded by a rain of pure ice. Some bounced off its skin with ease, while those with more zenshi in them easily penetrated its water like flesh. And when they did, they started freezing its insides at a rapid pace.
Surprisingly, it didn’t protect itself from the rain of ice. No. Instead, it created a water wall to protect the trees behind it.
When the rain of ice stopped, Lena fshed forward, her steps creating a path of ice as she ran.
But then, as she was still charging, the ice path started to crack as soon as it was created.
The river was waking up. And as it did, the water was battling the effects of her Aura. And because she cked the power to affect nature, Lena barely had any time left.
Quickly, she dismissed the ice path and let herself get swallowed by the cold waters.
Yes…They were cold!
She felt her second gate’s powers fade once the water entered her system.
As she was dragged deeper into the water, the leviathan too appeared.
However, it now looked like a real mythical creature. Its water body was gone, and its serpentine azure body is what remained.
‘Gods…why did I think I could fight this thing?’
***
Meanwhile….
Luna gasped awake and fell into an immediate panic attack when she recalled excruciating pain.
She touched herself multiple times and stopped after she noticed she wasn’t feeling anything. Not even her sense of touch.
“I was awakening!” she murmured. “Why did I suddenly stop? Is it over?”
“No, it's not.” Replied the twisted version of herself. “I simply pulled your consciousness here once your mind experienced a severe mental shock. You hit your tolerance limits moments after the transformation started.”
“Oh…that’s shorter than I expected. But then, I was already in terrible pain before that.”
“Exactly." The reflect sighed. "But since you’re here, you should meet with the Prisoner.”
“What?” Luna had no clue what this piece of her mind was trying to say.
It pointed at the emptiness ahead. “You made contact with the Silent Pond. You have already established a connection to the prison. The rest is Imagination.”
‘Imagination?’
Sensing her confusion, the reflection started to expin:
“With Imagination, Oblivion was capable of recreating broken realms. After the gods died, he reconstructed his part of the sun god’s territory with imagination. It was an illusion, of course. But a very perfect one….”
“….In this void, you can create perfect illusions. You can recreate the silent pond and use the connection to pull the prisoner here just like Oblivion did with you.”
Luna listened with a shocked expression. If this was only a small fragment of Imagination, then what the hell was the actual concept capable of?
‘I might as well give it a try.’
