“Facing the Plague of Beasts head‑on? That intel’s solid?”

The middle‑aged man’s eyes narrowed like dusk‑blades, doubt coiling under his calm.

“Con… confirmed, sir. The enemy chose to take the Plague straight on. And the Plague looks ready to shift into a second phase…”

The Dark Dragon Soldier rushed his words, pressure crushing him like a cold hand at his throat, death breathing close.

“You saw it yourselves?”

“We used arcane scouting while he fought the Plague. Though the Plague disrupted—”

His voice broke. The world spun like a storming sky. Darkness folded over him, and he went under.

“Useless. Worse than useless. Do I have to spell out everything?”

The middle‑aged man flicked blood from his fingers, disdain sharp as a knife. His brown eyes slit for a heartbeat, a predator’s pupils rising and fading.

He picked another Dark Dragon Soldier as leader, his tone the weight of iron orders.

“Send a squad. Shadow him. Avoid a clash… if he’s still alive.”

He pressed a sheepskin scroll back into a soldier’s hands, then drew another scroll and tore open a portal. Colors tangled like rival serpents. Arcane Power hissed, dangerous as a nest of blades.

The Dark Dragon Soldiers froze, fear coiling in their guts. One wrong twitch, and they’d end like the headless corpse at their feet.

“Follow the plan. I’m heading back. If anything unexpected—”

He stepped through. The unsteady portal swelled to burst, then snapped shut like a thunderclap swallowed.

They all knew the unsaid words, carved under their breath like a scar.

Kill without mercy.

While the Dark Dragon Soldiers readied in tight, Aphelia’s magic circle finally came together. Her breath thinned like winter mist. Her face went white as bone. Her Arcane Power guttered, a candle in wind.

The cost bit deep. But the array was etched at last.

She set her wand into the circle’s heart, a key pushed into a lock. No chant would drive this design. It would ignite when the right measure of Arcane Power poured in.

So she would draw power from the World Tree. She’d be the bridge, feeding the array. But the World Tree’s ebb meant the barrier would shatter. The black storm would swallow her first, like a mouth of night.

Timing had to be tight as a blade edge. One step off, and it was life or death. She treated the unknown like hemlock, not a gamble she’d drink.

Titleholder? That’s the peak of humankind, not immortal brass. Above them, gods still look down.

Use the right method, and a Titleholder can be killed.

She watched the crack widen, spreading like frost over glass, ready to skin the whole barrier. She drew a deep breath, steadied her heart, and laid one hand on the root of the World Tree. Power surged like a river through her. She bridged it into the array.

“O great god of Space and Time, your child begs your guidance, to seek that shining light across the far shore…”

No chant was needed. Yet she spoke, to fix the moment, to keep her rhythm in step with the array.

It sounded like an apprentice’s trick. She had no pride left to spend. If it worked, she used it.

Arcane Power poured in. The array, carved with her blood, woke. Runes flared one by one, fireflies turning into stars. A strange force gathered, thick as twilight rain.

The green barrier dimmed, the World Tree’s power thinning. Cracks raced like spiderwebs. The edge of breaking crept closer.

Aphelia didn’t look. Her focus locked on the array. The outer ring runes blazed. The inner ring waited, the heart that would decide it all.

She pushed like a swimmer against a black sea. She could let the storm roll, take the hit, and live. But the three behind her would die, bones scattered like leaves.

Too neat. Too tidy. A little girl saved. A cry for help pulls her to duel those siblings, burning her strength. Then the Plague arrives on cue.

A coincidence? As neat as finding an artifact on your doorstep.

If she still called this chance, she should go back to Beginner tier and relearn humility. And if they thought these cheap hands could take her life, they mocked a Titleholder with paper knives.

“Space Magic—Crimson Seal!”

The instant the array locked, the green shield broke like a shattered jade bowl. The black storm lunged, a beast bursting from its cage. Raw hatred and despair rushed her, a furnace at arm’s length. Her heart thumped hard, fear sharpening her senses.

At less than a meter, the crimson array burst into a thousand chains. They coiled like red serpents around the storm. Each link was etched in the array’s runes. As the chains formed, the array thinned to embers—she had spent blood in place of vast Arcane Power, trading life for force.

Chains speared the storm and drove into the ground like scarlet spikes. The black gale froze, locked in place like iron under frost. No step forward. No step back.

Aphelia felt it then. The storm had a body. It strained like a living thing. Its purpose cut sharp. This was not a pure calamity.

And inside it, a hatred so vast it chilled her blood. Rage. Despair. A tide that wanted to drown the world.

Seeing the seal hold, Ophelius let a long breath go, pulled her staff free, and stepped back to a safer distance, where she could still feel Arcane Power and the elements like rain on skin.

If she were the opponent arranging these neat “coincidences,” she’d plant ambushers nearby.

In her state, a quasi‑Titleholder with a few super‑tier allies could trade pieces and cut her down. From any angle, it was profit without risk.

She felt the thin stream of Arcane Power in her veins. A bitter smile touched her mouth. She widened the gap from the black storm, picking terrain like a cat chooses shadows.

Distance grew. A bad guess rose like a cold moon in her mind. She resisted it, stubborn as stone.

Even far out, her Arcane Power didn’t climb. Her face darkened like a sky before rain.

“So it’s a persistent state…”

The trouble deepened. Recovering while watching the Plague was off the table. With no recovery, any hunter at her back would be more blade than shadow.

And… she didn’t have the power to re‑shift her Valkyrie weapon. She wouldn’t brawl with a staff. She had a Mageblade, but it wasn’t built for a mage to duel at arm’s length.

Whatever happens… hide first.

She mapped the tribes’ recent ranges and paths in her mind, and angled away. She wouldn’t fight masses of Dark Dragon Soldiers while weak. Without Arcane supply, she’d be worn down like stone in rain.

Any path cut into the plains. More soldiers would cross her road.

No rash moves. Was there any place out here to slip past their net? Tribes? No. That’s the first place they’ll strip clean. Where else… right.

A spark flashed. She skimmed the marked map in memory, chasing the Hydra Plains spots Jasmine had flagged—abandoned Mana Crystal mines.

Hydra Plains’ pride—Mana Crystals. How could she forget?

The closest abandoned pit…

A route unfurled in her mind, a thread that dodged most tribes and most ambush points. As for the “Plague of Beasts” sealed behind her… she had no spare hands left for it.

One thing eased her breath. A seal drawn with her blood held hard. Only her blood could unbind it. Or power stronger than hers could hammer the array apart.

Even if they sent a Titleholder to break it, he couldn’t reach from the deep plains to here in under half a day.

“The nearest Mana Crystal mine… in this state, it’ll still take a full day…”

She sighed, counted the supplies in her ring. She hadn’t packed Mana Crystals—careless. The spare space held scrolls she’d prepared for herself. Now they were scrap drifting in a storm.

She gathered fast, and moved. Time pressed like a hand at her back. She couldn’t spare another breath.