One begets two, two births three, and three births the myriad.

Her silver-bright spear fractured into a storm of phantoms, red lotuses blooming across a sea of blood.

Aphelia moved like a human cyclone, every thrust a falling guillotine. Warm blood flecked her pale cheeks like rain staining porcelain.

At times she raged like a typhoon. At times she slipped past like a wraith. The spearwork surged, then twisted, savage one breath, uncanny the next. That was its heart: answer a thousand armies with ten thousand shifts. Hence its name—Armybreaker.

An army of men would’ve faltered, their momentum ebbing like a cold tide. These Dark Dragon Soldiers were puppets in iron skin. They felt no fear. They knew no pain. Even dismembered, they crawled to strike at Aphelia, and her body paid, new wounds opening like crimson petals.

They trampled their fallen without a glance, charging over broken bodies like waves over reef. Aphelia pushed for the ring’s edge, Armybreaker tearing gaps, but new Dark Dragon Soldiers rushed in, their flesh a wall, their shields a grinding millstone.

A day and a night of battle didn’t drain a Titleholder to emptiness. With that stamina, she could wrestle rank-and-file for three more days and nights. Yet the legion had been feeding its ranks through a portal, soldiers pouring like a river without source or end.

If the enemy kept sending bodies, then rolled in higher units, then led them with clean command, even a Titleholder would be boxed shut and buried alive.

Luck held. These Dark Dragon Soldiers showed no high craft, only blunt numbers pressing like a landslide. The flaw cracked, and Aphelia drove a wedge into it.

A cold-sheened halberd scythed past her shoulder. She swung, Arcane Power roaring through her arms. The ring around her blew open like a battlefield under sorcery bombardment. Earth sank; dust jumped. She stamped onto the halberd that hadn’t yet recoiled and kicked herself skyward in a clean whoosh.

Arcane Power surged with her, a deep-blue cyclone rising from dirt to cloud. Her silver spear bent and reformed, a longbow scaled in dragon plates, the ruthless bow of Yi reborn without that iron scent of blood.

Four deep-blue arrows of pure Arcane Power rested against Ophelius’s fingers. In the air, a flawless beauty turned, drew the string, the bow round as a full moon, her gaze falling to smoke-choked earth. She was the immortal by moonlight, a hand on zither strings, eyes half-lidded and soft.

Aphelia’s eyes held no softness—only killing, cold as frost. In. Out. The Arcane Power swirling around her poured ahead into the arrow’s path, winding into a vast blue spiral.

The instant that spiral locked, pale fingers released. Three arrows of pure Arcane Power fell like thunderbolts, slamming into the ranks faster than a blink, then bloomed in thunder.

Arcane Power became the powder. The arrows were the fuse. The moment Aphelia loosed, the fuse caught, and death ran its blue fire across the ground to greet the Dark Dragon Soldiers.

Three pillars of blasting Arcane hit first. Then the chain lit and leaped. Pure Arcane Power clung to bodies she’d felled before. That residue woke in the shock and turned each corpse into a bomb. Flesh and iron ripped a vacuum lane through ranks packed too tight to breathe.

Aphelia didn’t hang in the air to admire it. As the first blasts rolled, she ran hard for the horizon, her body a streak of light. She couldn’t cast. She burned Arcane Power as raw fuel, pushing speed to the ledge of what flesh could hold.

She’d wanted to break away earlier, but madness denied gaps. The Dark Dragon Soldiers struck in waves, without pause, without mercy. At first she’d been caught off-beat, and she had to watch that troop portal like a tiger at her back.

When they saw their target flee, the Dark Dragon Soldiers went rabid. Any who could still move chased. The cavalry spurred hardest, their warhorses inheriting the frenzy, hooves grinding their own wounded without a flinch.

Infantry followed in a black tide behind the lances. From high above the plain, you’d see a shadow-band rushing fast, not like men who’d fought a day and a night, but like a storm’s front splintering the light.

Their one focus was Aphelia far ahead.

“What iron will. In this state, and they still keep coming?”

She squinted at the dogged blur behind her, a throb of headache beating like a drum. If those Dark Dragon riders kept tailing her, the enemy had her line of travel pinned under their eyelids. If teleport worked, Aphelia would be gone in a breath.

Ophelius’s magic was sealed for reasons unknown. She could only feed Arcane Power as crude fuel, forcing her pace toward the edge.

There’s always a price. Even steel burns out if you feed it endless fuel and never rest. Work a machine past limits, and you don’t stop; you break.

A Titleholder won’t “break” like a gear. The word for it is Arcane fatigue. As humans climb, they understand Arcane Power deeper, and their control gets finer, like a calligrapher’s brush carving hair-thin lines. They also see, with chilling clarity, what it does to flesh. Everyone hits the same wall—Arcane fatigue.

Use Arcane Power too roughly, and it chews the body from the inside, bite by bite. The longer you keep that up, the faster the teeth tear.

Stack the damage, and the body reaches a cliff. Cross it, and the balance of Arcane in you collapses like a levee. The wielder gets swallowed by the very current they command. Worst case, you go blind to Arcane forever—cut off for life.

“Isn’t a Titleholder’s flesh stronger?” Sure. But if you keep the same crude methods, the “amount” of Arcane Power you need scales with your tier. The result doesn’t soften. Arcane fatigue doesn’t negotiate.

Aphelia had fought this way for a full day and night. She’d pared her use of Arcane Power to the finest cut she could manage in her state. Every strike carried exactly enough—never a drop more, never a drop less.

But if she kept forcing raw-speed this way, the hidden cracks would spread. In a next fight, at the worst moment, those cracks could split—and that would be fatal.

So she held back. She didn’t run at maximum. That restraint gave the Dark Dragon riders the hook to hang on. After a day and night of fighting, she could feel the fatigue pooling inside like heavy silt. If she pushed to full now, the flood might break in short order. That could never happen in front of the enemy.

She thought fast, teeth clenched, then chose to gamble. Before she sped up, she’d cut off those annoying tails.

Silver light ripple-flickered. Her weapon reshaped into a silver Holy Sword. Aphelia halted in midair, blade angled like a drawn sabre. Her breath fell into rhythm, calm as rain.

The Dark Dragon cavalry didn’t wonder if a trap lay ahead. Their target stopped; their lances lowered; their charge plunged.

“Ancient Martial Flow—”

Aphelia breathed out, a feather-light sound. Her blade whispered free. A silver gleam, too fine for mortal eyes, spread in the sky like a thin wave. A silver surge rolled forward to meet the straight-line charge.

“Autumn Silence.”

The moment she cast, Aphelia stopped looking back. She turned and drove, Arcane Power whipped to the limit around her, a straight dash into the deep of the plain.

In a handful of breaths, the riders passed through the silver wave. They rode on for a stretch. Then their speed faltered like wind losing sail. Warm blood jetted. Horse and man parted cleanly in halves. On that broad plain, several flowers of blood bloomed in sudden scarlet.

The Dark Dragon Soldiers arriving after saw no sign of Aphelia. They stomped their fallen underfoot and scattered to hunt her trail. It was futile from the first step.

After a full-speed flight, Aphelia’s body faltered. She dropped out of the sky like a felled star. Fell—no other word. Her slender frame hit with the weight of a millstone, carving a crater in hard earth. Dust geysered up, tall as men.

Bright blood traced her lip in a thin line. Under her pale skin, veins leapt into stark relief, dyed a deep-blue like ink in glass. The sight was chilling.