The lycan stepped forward, towering and sneering.
"Before I kill you," he growled, "it's only fitting you die knowing who ended you. I am known as—"
"Shut up," Dreados cut in, smirking as he looked up at him. His voice was calm. Cutting. "Where I come from… dogs like you don't have names."
The lycan's eyes twitched. He bent down until their faces were inches apart.
"What… did you just say?" he snarled. "Say that again. I dare you."
Dreados didn't move. He simply shifted his eyes to the left, locking onto the lycan's.
"I said… dogs."
The fist came before the next word.
A massive blow thundered into Dreados's face, shaking the fortress to its foundation. The shockwave howled outward, ripping through windows and corridors. Outside, nearby raiders were vaporized in the burst.
Inside, Jeriana and the Black March mages threw up their barriers just in time. Marie gritted her teeth, her arms glowing with strain.
"This pressure…!"
Anuel's eyes darted to Omfry, who stood watching with arms folded, a faint smile on his lips.
"What are you smiling about? Go help him!"
Omfry didn't move.
"Have you forgotten who Dreados is?" he said calmly. "Watch."
The dust settled.
Dreados still stood, head slowly straightening. Blood dripped from his nose.
The lycan's fist was still pressed to his cheek—unmoved.
Dreados exhaled, eyes burning.
"Let me ask you a better question," he said. "What happens to dogs… who bite their owners?"
He clenched his fist. Muscles flexed. Energy snapped around him like lightning.
"They lose their teeth."
And then he struck.
The punch was blinding. The lycan's face collapsed under the blow—skull cracking, teeth shattering, blood spraying like mist. His body was launched out of the fortress window like a cannonball, crashing through towers and walls for miles.
The force rippled back in a shockwave. The mages screamed as their shield cracked. Dust and heat rolled across them like a tidal wave.
Jeriana's barrier held—barely.
Outside, the world had noticed.
"What was that!?" a raider shouted.
People pointed at the sky as the lycan shot past like a meteor, trailing blood and rubble.
Beily watched the unscathed wall behind Dreados and narrowed his eyes.
"That blow… and not a scratch. What is this place made of?"
Inside the fortress, Dreados stood alone, unmoved.
He turned.
"Daiel. Take everyone home."
Daiel raised his hand—but the portal flickered, barely the size of a head. He staggered, breathing hard.
"I've hit my limit. Going to the base and back drained me. I need time."
Dreados nodded, voice steady.
"Then leave this place now. Regain your strength. The moment you're ready… you take everyone home."
He pointed to the gaping hole in the wall.
"Use the window."
There was no time.
The group bolted.
The Lycans snarled and gave chase.
"Oh no, you don't!" one roared.
But Omfry and Dreados stepped in. In a blur, they blocked the path—fists raised.
"Back off," Omfry growled.
One by one, the Unbound launched through the shattered window—falling from high above like comets.
Lisa was first. As she leapt, she shouted behind her, "Daiel is gonna pay for what he did."
Sumshus followed, laughing. "I live for these dramatic exits."
Marie adjusted her cloak as she jumped. "Whoever touches the ground last buys drinks when we return!"
Alcoos spun midair, unsheathing his blade. "Let's make this beautiful!"
Spencer said nothing, but his descent left a shockwave in the air.
Jeriana jumped last, turning back only once. "Don't die, Dreados."
Then she vanished into the wind.
Beily jumped with Valerius and Eryndor under his arms. "Try not to vomit this time."
Anuel landed with Ziraiah in her arms, light-footed and silent.
They all slammed into the ground far below—feet cracking the stone, dust spiraling around them.
No time to pause.
They ran.
Inside the fortress, Katos stepped forward, eyes on Dreados.
"You're strong. For an elf. I've never heard of one that uses Bravo. Who taught you?"
Dreados stared him down.
"Where I come from," he said coldly, "dogs don't ask questions."
Katos growled. "You're starting to annoy me."
He lunged.
Faster than thought, he slammed his forearm into Dreados's throat, pinning him to the wall. Dreados's legs dangled, his body straining against the pressure.
"You can't keep them from me," Katos whispered. "I know what they feel like. I will find them."
Before Dreados could answer—Boom.
Omfry's foot crashed into Katos's head, hurling him sideways. Katos flipped in the air, landed on the wall feet-first, and sprang back like a missile.
He raised his arm midair and brought it down like a hammer.
Omfry raised his arms just in time—bracing.
The impact cracked the air.
The fortress trembled.
And the real fight began.
---
The ground trembled.
Beily's feet slammed against the stone, his grip firm on Valerius and Eryndor. All around him, their team sprinted at full tilt—cracks spidering beneath their path.
Jeriana whipped her head around. "What now?"
A deep rumble, like a beast breathing in the dark.
Anuel narrowed her eyes. "Something's moving underground. Something massive."
"What?!" Sumshus yelled, leaping to avoid a sudden fissure.
"It's more than one," Anuel said, her voice darkening. "A lot more."
Then, the ground exploded.
A worm-like monstrosity—over 80 meters long—burst from the stone floor with a roar that shattered eardrums. Its eyeless head opened into a colossal mouth lined with rotating rings of teeth. It snatched an entire stone building and swallowed it whole.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!" Sumshus shouted.
More erupted.
The Signite Worms had awoken. Their slumber disturbed by the chaotic intrusion of thousands of unbounds and raiders shouting, blasting, and trampling ancient ground. And now, they were hungry.
Dozens were devoured in seconds. Screams filled the air. The worms spun and drilled through the ground like tornados of meat and stone. They surfaced and dove repeatedly, swallowing entire streets.
---
From the Longbridge, the Ignir forces had just disembarked.
Maloi gasped. "What is happening down there?!"
She, along with the other Spellbounds, beheld a landscape of chaos—monsters, raiders, and worms in a frenzied storm of destruction.
"We're under assault," Jeron Hevier said, adjusting his glasses. "Multiple large-class subterranean predators. Non-intelligent. No known classification."
"Then we classify them as dead," Lizzy said, her hand already glowing with summoning sigils.
The King of Ignir closed his eyes.
Where are you... he thought.
His spirit slipped through the threads of the ruin.
And there—he felt her. His daughter.
"She's alive," he said aloud, his voice hardening like drawn steel. "Spellbounds—strike formation. Show these beasts what they've awakened."
---
Heinzel Maigrain (#10) shot forward, his wind magic roaring behind him like a storm. He formed slicing gales with each flick of his wrist—dozens of raiders were knocked away as he focused.
He spun mid-air, conjuring two cyclonic discs that hovered like moons. He pointed.
"Wind Severance."
The discs fired toward an incoming worm, slicing clean through its upper body. Blood sprayed, but the worm kept moving.
"Not enough."
He clapped his hands—causing a shockwave—and launched himself at the worm's inner maw.
"Spiral Expanse!"
He formed a tornado like a drill and shot through the worm's open mouth, tearing it apart from the inside. He burst out its back as the creature crumpled.
---
Maloi Enria (#9) raised her hand as frost spread across the air.
"Flashfreeze."
A wide wave of permafrost covered the stone, halting the advance of a trio of worms.
One shattered through, but Maloi snapped her fingers, summoning a lance of solid ice.
"Shard of Winter!"
The lance speared the worm's skull. Its body convulsed, then collapsed, frozen from the brain down.
Maria Synclary (#6) raised her staff.
"Rouse the mountain."
The ground beneath her surged as a titanic stone golem rose—a humanoid over 40 feet tall with glowing veins of crystal.
"Crush."
It swung its arm, smashing a worm mid-flight. The impact shook the bridge.
---
Arthur Suspain (#7) held a sphere of water between his palms. He tossed it into the air.
"Rain Veil."
The sphere exploded, creating a storm of compressed water blades. Each droplet sliced through raiders and worms alike.
He followed up with a wave of high-pressure jets.
"Hydro Spear."
A worm's head exploded from the blast.
---
Lizzy Dorfilia (#5) raised her arm.
"Spirits—rise!"
Three glowing beings emerged:
A flaming hawk.
An electric hound.
A storm-faced warrior with a club made of thunder.
"Cleanse this place."
They surged forward, the hawk burning a worm's insides, the hound zapping through multiple foes, and the storm warrior slamming the ground—launching shockwaves.
"That's how you break a siege," Lizzy grinned.
---
Jeron Hevier (#4) swept his hand through the air.
"Wind Mantle."
A ring of bladed gusts encircled him.
He dashed through the battlefield, each step carrying sonic destruction.
He twirled midair and sent wind crescents outward.
"Execute."
Four worms lost their heads in synchronized strikes.
---
Anisa Belcruver (#3) raised both hands.
"Cloud Banishment."
The sky turned dark above the ruin.
Thunder rumbled. Lightning surged. Rain came sideways. Hail the size of skulls dropped from above.
She gestured sharply.
A lightning bolt struck a worm. Another bolt followed. Then a chain.
She closed her fist.
"Tempest Lock."
A humanoid cloud-being formed in the air—a titan of storms—its fists made of blackened thunder. It crashed into the ground, annihilating five worms with one slam.
---
Elvis Grifion (#2) didn't speak.
He simply raised his hand.
The gravity shifted.
The entire battlefield warped. Worms crashed into the earth as if it had become magnetized.
He stepped forward, eyes glowing.
"Collapse."
Five gravity orbs formed—dense, blackened spheres.
Everything was dragged into them.
Worms were stretched, snapped, compressed.
The orbs disappeared.
Only dust remained.
---
The King spoke again, his voice a roar across the chaos:
"Press forward! Do not falter! The heir of Ignir lies ahead—these creatures are nothing but echoes of an age that belongs to us now!"
The battlefield boiled.
Raider elites surged, fighting worms alone. One leapt onto a worm's back and cut down its spine with a red crescent blade.
Another used flame body magic to burn one from the inside.
Others died.
But the Spellbounds carved a path forward.
Toward the fortress.
Toward the heart of the ruin.
Toward the war still yet to come.
‐--
Beily's group tore through the ancient streets of Beniek, the ground a blur beneath their feet. Every twist, every leap, was precise—a blur of crimson and steel. Creatures lunged from shadows, shrieked from rooftops, but they didn't last. Beily's fists crushed skulls like fruit. Sumshus unleashed twisters with a sweep of his arm, swallowing enemies whole. Anuel's strikes were pinpoint—each blow severed breath from bone.
Behind them, the fortress still howled with battle.
Within its impenetrable walls, Dreados and Omfry fought like twin storms, facing a pack of Lycans twenty times their number. But the walls—those impossible, ancient walls—contained the chaos. The devastation was internal. The sound, however, found escape through broken windows and cracked towers, echoing like thunder down the veins of the ruin.
Omfry moved like a ghost through a forest fire—heads rolled, bodies crumbled, hearts were ripped from ribcages mid-beat. Beside him, Dreados danced with death itself.
He clashed with Katos—the beast commander.
Dreados's fist struck forward, aimed for the Lycan's gut—but Katos caught it mid-air with both hands, muscles bulging, jaws parted in a wicked grin. "Is that all?" he spat.
Then came the slam.
Katos hurled Dreados downward with crushing force. The elf hit the ground, and again, and again—each impact thundered like meteors striking steel.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Katos laughed as he raised Dreados overhead like a banner of war. "This place…" he snarled between slams, "…is strong. Incredibly strong. What will it take… for me to scar it?"
Another slam.
Another boom.
The floor cratered slightly beneath Dreados's body—but still, not a single fracture spread beyond.
Katos grinned wide, lifting the elf again. "One more should do it—"
But before the final blow, Dreados twisted in midair, his feet kicking against the very air itself. Using raw force, he spun upward like a cyclone, twisting Katos's arms with him—then flung the Lycan like a missile through the nearest shattered window.
The air cracked.
A sonic detonation ripped through the ruin.
Less than a second later, Dreados launched through the same window, a silver blur chasing his target into the sky.
High above—where the ruin's artificial sky loomed—they clashed.
Boom.
Katos slammed into the sky ceiling—a metal crust hundreds of meters thick, forged by ancient hands. The impact carved an 800-meter-wide crater.
Then—another boom.
Dreados's boots slammed into Katos's chest with both feet.
The impact was apocalyptic.
The Lycan's ribs compressed with a sickening crunch. Blood erupted from his mouth as his body was driven like a missile into the reinforced ceiling—an ancient alloy dome never meant to be touched.
The crater didn't just widen. It detonated.
Ten kilometers across.
A sound like the earth itself screaming rang through the ruin. The shockwave that followed wasn't just sonic—it was seismic. It propagated in a circular dome, displacing the air at hypersonic speed.
Far below:
The artificial sky fractured in silence, but what came next was anything but.
First came the flash—a blinding pulse of compressed air and light as the rock dome cracked open.
Then came the wind.
A hurricane collapsed downward, spiraling through the shattered ceiling and slamming into the city. Entire buildings shuddered. Smaller structures were flattened. Dozens of raiders were lifted off the ground and hurled like dolls.
Tents tore, trees snapped, even the glowing rivers trembled, their surfaces whipped into whirlpools. Lightning ran through stone as compressed energy bled from the ruin's seams.
Many fighters, even powerful ones, stumbled to the ground, hands over ears from the delayed sonic blast that followed.
A full second later—the air finally caught up with what had happened.
It struck like a battering ram.
People screamed, some vomiting from the air pressure. Glass shattered. The floor itself cracked.
A few of the Signite Worms—massive as they were—recoiled and dove, misreading the shockwave as a new predator.
Even the Spellbounds flinched. Lizzy had to anchor herself with summoned vines.
"What was that?!"
Marie looked up and gasped.
There, in the artificial sky… a hole. Ten kilometers wide. Pierced clean through.
Her voice trembled. "My goodness... who could cause something like that?"
Sumshus stepped forward, awestruck. "Was that… Dreados?"
Anuel nodded slowly. "You and Marie… you haven't seen what he's really capable of yet."
Daiel, pale, whispered, "That can't be real."
Beily stared upward, stunned. "Those Lycans are monsters. If they're pushing Dreados this far, we were right to leave. We'd have been vaporized."
---
Above them, the battle left the ruin behind.
They fought in the soil itself now.
Beyond the artificial sky.
Beyond architecture.
Beyond light.
In the choking dark of Yilheim's soil.
There was no up or down. No air. No sky. Just pressure and tremors and Bravo-fueled instincts.
Each punch was a meteor.
Each parry, a quake.
Dreados and Katos collided again and again—bones cracked, blood sprayed, but neither slowed.
Katos's claws raked Dreados's cheek.
Dreados spat blood, then gritted his teeth.
"You think you can take what is mine?" he growled, eyes wild, voice thunder in the dark. "I'll never allow it. I will never again lose what is mine!"
He roared and struck, a flurry of brutal blows that shattered the dark like flashes of lightning.
Katos laughed, eyes gleaming. "Yes... YES!" he bellowed. "It's been so long!"
His claws slashed out, catching Dreados's ribs.
"I've wanted this," he hissed, face twisted with elation. "To be pushed to my limit… I've wanted to feel it again. The thrill. The ecstasy of true battle!"
He surged forward with renewed fury—fangs bared, limbs blurred.
Dreados caught his arm mid-swing and twisted it.
"You'll feel more than that," he snarled. "I'm not here to test your limits. I'm here to end you."
He slammed his forehead into Katos's snout. Bone cracked.
"You will not touch them."
Katos snarled, lunged.
Dreados dodged and countered.
"You will not take them."
Another punch. Another block.
"You will never again make me lose what is mine."
And then he grabbed Katos's face with both hands, feet coiling beneath him like springs—then pushed.
Downward.
Like a warhead.
Together they plunged back toward the ruin.
Toward the broken sky.
Toward the screaming city.
---
Far below, the siblings stood with Eryndor, still weak but now awake, staring upward at the hole in awe.
Eryndor whispered, reverently:
"…What manner of power… rends the heavens beneath the earth?"
Valerius swallowed. "That's Dreados?"
Ziraiah couldn't speak—she only stared.
And from the breach in the ceiling above, the sound of titans continued to rumble.
Katos's voice echoed down like a war cry.
"YES! Fall with me, elf! Let the world witness the fury of monsters!"
To Be Continued...