The evening breeze rolled across Drakemount’s northern pteau, carrying the scent of scorched stone and ozone from the arena. The summit had ended hours ago, but the energy still lingered like thunder waiting to fall.

  Kagami sat on the stone steps beneath the coliseum’s outer corridor, his swords sheathed beside him. His shirt clung to his skin, soaked with sweat and mana residue. The battle with Seraphina still pulsed in his bones.

  Footsteps approached.

  He didn’t turn.

  “You held back,” Seraphina said.

  “So did you,” he replied, gncing at her sidelong.

  She stood a few paces away, golden eyes catching the fading glow of enchanted nterns. “You could’ve ended it. That st cyclone—Galepeacock Senpū—was more than a demonstration.”

  “I didn’t want to win,” Kagami said softly. “I wanted to measure the distance between us.”

  Seraphina raised a brow. “That’s a roundabout way of calling me weak.”

  He smirked. “You’re anything but.”

  They sat in silence for a while, the quiet ced with mutual understanding. Rivals, yes—but in this world on the brink, maybe something more. Comrades against the storm.

  Seraphina finally spoke. “They’re watching us, Kagami. The dark mages. You know that duel wasn’t just for show. It was bait.”

  “I know,” he said. “That’s why I pushed harder than I wanted to.”

  She nodded slowly, then added, “When the time comes… if I fall out of line, I expect you to stop me.”

  His expression turned serious. “Only if you promise the same.”

  She didn’t smile this time. “Deal.”

  ---

  Elsewhere — Far Beneath the Surface

  In the heart of a crumbling ruin beneath the ancient woods of Mournvale, torchlight flickered over twisted stone. A long table, made of obsidian and sinew, stretched across the chamber. Around it sat cloaked figures—each radiating dangerous mana like poison soaked into air.

  At the head of the table, the Drakeheart emissary leaned forward. His crimson-scaled skin pulsed with heat.

  “So,” he said with a smirk, “the boy has grown teeth.”

  The Alvardein woman, still cloaked in shimmering diamond underyer, narrowed her eyes. “He’s merging elemental chakra with incantation. No one else has done that—not even the Arcanum Scribes.”

  A low voice crackled from the shadows—a hooded seer, her face wrapped in runes of decay. “He is the fulcrum. The fracture point. But he is still young. He still doubts.”

  A heavy hand smmed the table. The orc, massive and pted in jagged steel, growled: “Then crush him before he becomes more than a boy!”

  But the Drakeheart merely chuckled.

  “No… not yet. Let him dance. Let him think he’s winning. When the veil burns and the fourfold seals break, we’ll not need to lift a cw—he’ll come to us.”

  Silence fell.

  Then the seer spoke once more, her voice like wind through bones:

  “The storm has begun. The wings of the fallen prince stir in the east.”

  ---

  Back at Drakemount, Kagami stared out at the stars, unaware of the weight they carried.

  But he felt something… a tremor in the world. A warning.

  And deep inside, his chakra pulsed in sync with his mana—

  not just as a weapon…

  but as the only light left to pierce the gathering dark.

  ---