In the shadowed corners of the Magma Forge, untouched for a thousand years, war-cries, steel-on-steel, and flesh tearing echoed, each second honed like a blade.

On the main field, the air soured with dread, hope thinning like mist at dawn.

"Can your magic do anything, for once?!"

Varie’s sharp complaint cut through the roar of colliding mana, a spark thrown at her partner, Adelaide.

She had reason to snarl. Soul Devourer Sormaidon pressed them hard, and their teamwork was a cracked mirror—no shine, all shards.

Adelaide was supposed to use the Tarkus Point-Needle, to shave down the remnant-soul shield on its bone-wing. Then Varie would link a full-power strike, crippling a wing.

Instead, Adelaide’s spear of high-density mana missed the mark. It shaved the edge of that massive fixed target, skittering off into steam.

Varie had to snap a gold chain mid-flight, hook a wall-mounted arm, and brake hard. Her follow-up died halfway, like a spark drowned in rain.

No wonder Varie was boiling. Adelaide snapped back, heat for heat.

"Shut it! I’m a Blood Mage! You want me to break that shield? Then hand me sacrifices on its level!"

They locked eyes, wide with fury, dodging dragon breath while bickering. The disaster of it made Sormaidon’s lip curl.

It stopped charging its white-hot breath and smacked its thorn-studded jaws, savoring their noise like spice.

"Oh? Little morsels already infighting? Your souls will crowd together in my gut soon. Be kind to each other, no?"

"—&*@#@!" (human vulgarity)

"—****!" (Nacha vulgarity)

Curses flew from two soot-streaked beauties in two tongues, a storm of salt and grit. Sormaidon didn’t even try to interrupt; it was content to watch.

Dragons are greedy. Chaos broke Sormaidon’s last tether to kindness; its heart and spine were packed with venomous wants, a hive of hunger.

It relished this. Two foes in dire straits, choosing blame over unity. Human nature at its dumbest, its saddest, teased out by despair like poison drawn from a fang.

It craved the sight of praised virtues disassembled under absolute fear, ground to comic dust. Souls that taste this pain slide down easier, and drown in the nightmare it brews.

It stopped the heavy breath, calling instead to little storms of chaotic mana. It squeezed their space, like a cat toying with mice.

It had already mapped this generation’s Lionheart Heroes. The two of them, alone, had no way through its remnant-soul shield.

It relaxed, ready to savor ugliness a while longer before claiming their souls.

But when it felt victory like a ripe fruit in its claw, the earlier “missed” mana lances turned mid-air, like red swallows wheeling.

Adelaide, at its back, was still spitting human curses. Yet when her gaze locked with Varie’s, she shaped a silent word, a number on her lips.

Three.

The blood-red lance knifed back and slammed into Sormaidon’s exposed flank. A razor-high chant shrieked and cut out.

Adelaide blurred in midair. From the strike-point, brown-red thorn-vines exploded outward, locking the dragon’s joints like iron ivy.

"Merillë vanda (Rose Prison)!"

Petals bloomed from the shreds of organs, a scarlet rose exhaling deadly spores. Air nearby thickened to glue, pinning lesser beings like flies in amber.

It wasn’t enough to hold a dragon—much less Sormaidon. It gurgled low, muscles knotting to burst the thorny cage, lungs rearing for a roar to scatter all bindings.

Varie struck first. The gold chain she’d used to brake wrapped Sormaidon’s muzzle in a blinking flurry, ten turns tight.

One end knotted dead behind a wing; the other dug into Varie’s palms.

She spun and dropped a heel-kick into its dragon eye. The world lurched. The titan staggered back under the looming Forging Hammer.

The sudden synergy stunned Sormaidon. It clawed for air, jaw strangled shut. Adelaide, Spiderstride humming, rushed in close, the distance where evasion dies.

"Two!"

A crisp count, then the same red flare, the same ghosted afterimage. A giant glyph flashed and vanished.

"Starte nas!"

The Tarkus Point-Needle finally manifested—not one, but three—lined between its eyes, a tripod of threat.

Mana detonations rattled the entire Magma Forge, a mountain shaking in its bones. The translucent remnant-soul shield held, but chaos frothed in its fractured pupils.

Varie’s arrows knifed for its eyes. Sormaidon’s neck went slack for a heartbeat, a slip of spirit and sight.

Adelaide seized it. She drew her magic-core sword and flooded it with power at the limit.

The Dream Eater Spider’s Magic Core glowed soft pink. That light poured into Sormaidon’s pupils like moonmilk.

She forced a trance to smother its waking mind. Varie’s gold chains tangled its wings, thorns doubling the bind, motion pared to nothing.

This was the true plan.

Three, two—the numbers were Adelaide’s remaining uses of Crimson Frenzy. Only chain-casting legion-tier spells under Crimson Frenzy could threaten Sormaidon at all.

Even then, they could only pin it, not pierce it. That was fine. The task was to hold Soul Devourer Sormaidon still, to make it take the Forging Hammer’s strike whole.

Varie glanced up. The Hammer was venting steam, white plumes like wild orchids. She hauled on the chain till veins rose like braided ropes.

Hold!

She screamed it inside. Pressure in the Hammer meant hope—a tide pressing her to keep this grip, to deny collapse.

They weren’t the only eyes on the Nacha miracle.

Sormaidon lifted its head. The trance from the Dream Eater Spider’s Magic Core fogged its sight, but through the blur it saw the Forging Hammer blush red, its heart surging.

Oh.

So that’s it.

So this… is their dying gambit.

The magic-core sword in Adelaide’s hand sputtered, crackling. The Dream Eater Spider’s Magic Core flickered like a shorted star.

In Sormaidon’s slit pupils, a coal of rage caught fire.

It understood their plan. That fury burned away the mist the core had woven, like sun scalding dew.

Mere ants for slaughter dared not flee. They dared to challenge. They dared, even, to try and kill it.

Sormaidon snapped. The hypnosis failed in the same breath. Varie and Adelaide blanched, tightening everything they had.

Sormaidon lifted a foot and stamped toward a patch of clear ground.

There, on the floor—amid chaos and flame—Isilia’s Glow still shone with quiet moonlight. It had not changed for millennia, steadfast as the Nacha Tribe’s rise, its ruin, its long exile.

The bottle’s light fell under the shadow of a bone-claw. Varie lashed a whip and knocked it clear of the landing zone.

Her chain on the dragon’s jaw loosened a fraction. That was enough.

The roar hit like a blade through silk. Sound tore the Forge. Thorn-vines blackened and withered in an eye-blink; roses fell dead as ash.

"Damn—!"

Adelaide dropped from the air, Spiderstride dispersed like smoke. She reached for Crimson Frenzy, but Sormaidon’s bone-wings unfurled, gale like knives kicking up a wall of grit.

Varie thought it would strike the grounded Adelaide first. She grabbed for her bow.

A gaping reptile maw burst through the smoke. White-hot breath flared straight into Varie’s face, a sun in a throat.

"Lioness!"

Adelaide’s cry lagged behind the blast. The white beam ate the space where Varie stood.

Her Lionheart Hero’s body carried her barely clear, but a heartbeat later a bone-spiked claw filled her world.

Then, nothing.

She saw the claw flood her vision, then hit like a mountain. At the instant of impact, numbness flooded her chest.

It didn’t last. She slammed into a steel wall, then dropped, and numb turned to pain beyond words, a red tide eating every nerve.

She couldn’t even push herself up.

"Cough—cough…"

Meat and blood spilled from the corner of her mouth. Breathing became a luxury denied.

One rib… or two…

No—probably all.

She felt shards pierce her lungs. She coughed another mouthful of blood. Her cheek kissed the cold floor. Thought frayed and drifted.

"Lionheart Hero… your futile struggle ends here."