"Lord Senro, the Mana Crystals are all recovered..." His voice fell like a thin thread of rain.

When the fighting ebbed like a tide, mages in deep-blue robes drifted back to Senro. Their staves dimmed like dying coals, only the top gems kept a dusk-blue glow.

"Dispose of that thing," Senro said, her tone cool as moonlit frost. "Banish it to the void, and don’t touch the monster’s remains. After that, return to the Ritual Tower."

The mages nodded like reeds in a night wind, then moved to the creature frozen into an ice sculpture. Silver streams circled like fireflies, and chants rose like a low tide.

A silver magic circle budded like frost on glass, and Runes aligned like stars drawing a net.

"After this tossing about, Clive City will bleed like a storm-battered grove," Duke Dion sighed. His eyes swept the ruins where people searched like ants for kin.

The city that once shone like a lantern now looked broken like cracked pottery. The edges fared better like spared shores, but the heartland lay scarred like trampled fields.

"That’s Nero’s burden," Senro said, her gaze cutting like a crescent blade. "By the way, where’s Nero?"

She searched like a hawk over open fields as the barrier fell away like mist. She saw no sign of Nero amid the crowd like drifting leaves.

She turned to Duke Dion with a look sharp as frost, hoping for an answer like a spark in ash.

"Regretfully, Lord Senro, I haven’t seen His Highness Nero," Duke Dion said, his voice heavy as wet earth. "Wait a moment... someone might know."

Though he didn’t know Zhe, he knew that black robe like a night standard. He had just seen the same cut on two gate guards at the camp like twin shadows.

Duke Dion strode to Zhe like a steady tide and cast a few minor healing spells like warm rain.

"Young man, do you know where Nero is?" His question landed like a pebble in a still pond.

"Of course, Duke Dion," Zhe answered, steady as a taut bowstring. "I stayed to cover his retreat, please follow me, I know roughly where."

Seeing Duke Dion, Zhe spoke the truth like a blade laid bare. Right now, the duke wasn’t an enemy, and battle-nerves were still taut like drawn wire.

If Duke Dion sensed anything strange, the backlash would bite like a trapped wolf. That fear crawled under Zhe’s skin like cold ants.

He also needed the duke’s strength like a pillar in a collapsing hall. Since the battle began, his prepared circle wouldn’t connect like a severed line.

At the worst possibility, his face went dark like a gathering storm.

"Dammit, let go of me, don’t touch her!" The roar tore from Nero like fire from a cracked furnace.

In the underground base, Zhe was pinned to the wall by shadow beasts like tar-stained hands. Christine lay unconscious before him like a fallen lily.

A white-robed middle-aged man drew a finger along her cheek like a cold blade. He smiled at Nero’s fury like a cat before a trapped bird.

"Oh? Now you want me to stop?" His voice tinked like broken glass.

He rose in a snap like a striking serpent and clamped Nero’s throat like an iron collar. His glare gnawed like wolves, as if his eyes could swallow a man whole.

In those pupils, Nero saw despair like a dried well, madness like wildfire, and anger like an endless night.

When Nero’s face swelled purple-red like a bruised plum, the man let go like dropping a stone. Nero hung there gasping like a drowning dog, all grace gone like ash in rain.

"Who are you..." The words scraped out like rust from iron.

The man cut him off with a lazy wave like a drifting leaf. A sneer curled his mouth like a hooked knife.

He drew a blood-streaked dagger from his robe like a thorn from silk and drove it into his own palm like a spike, spilling deep red like pomegranate juice.

He smeared the blade with a finger like painting with dusk and touched his tongue like tasting poison. His face twisted, laughing and crying like a broken mask.

He capered like a child with a favorite toy, hands fluttering like moths at a lantern.

The wound didn’t knit as Nero expected, but spread like ink in water. The blood stopped by some force like a sudden frost over a stream.

Nero stared at the man like a stag at a hunter, knowing the blade was treated like a viper’s fang. With his bloodline, mere toxin was a breeze like smoke.

But if it wasn’t poison? The thought rang in Zhe’s mind like a temple bell in fog.

He remembered a terrifying possibility like a ghost’s hand on his neck. Disbelief flashed through his eyes like lightning through cloud.

Impossible—could it be him?

"Impossible, you should be dead!" Nero shouted, rage surging like a broken dam. Arcane Power rose like a storm, then was crushed flat like clay.

"That’s right, Prince Nero of the royal line," the man said, voice smooth as oil over ice. "Looks like you remember, your brain still works."

He turned his head, and black pupils flared to blinding gold like a sun behind smoke. The venom in those eyes scalded like fire, and Nero looked down like a whipped dog.

"Raise your head!" The shout cracked like thunder, and the slap landed like a whip.

He yanked Nero’s hair and dragged him up like hauling a net from a river. Those golden pupils burned like coals, scorching Nero with shame like noon sun.

"What’s wrong? Didn’t expect me to be alive?" His smile cut like a thin blade.

"This is wrong, this is wrong!" Nero’s voice shook like leaves in wind. "You should’ve died, I saw you die five years ago—"

His words stopped like a snapped string as memory struck like a hammer. His face went pale as snow, and he tried to break free like a trapped fox.

The man gave him no chance, and the shadows reached like eels from both sides. Two tentacles punched through his chest like spears without warning.

"Gah!" Blood burst from Nero’s mouth like a red spray. The tentacles churned like knives in a cauldron, clawing for his heart like scavengers.

He held his breath like a diver, eyes bloodshot like veined marble. Pain surged like a storm, and rage beat against his cage like a caged tiger.

The black tendrils spread through him like roots through soil. The near-fatal wound drove his bloodline wild like a wildfire through dry reeds.

Blood in his veins ignited like lamp oil, and whispers crowded his ears like night insects. Pain shattered his control like brittle ice, and Arcane Power roared out like a volcano.

Even the superior man had to give ground like a cliff eroded by waves.

His human pupils snapped to vertical slits like a hunting serpent’s. Horns budded at his brow like dragon nubs, yet didn’t unfurl like sealed buds.

Unlike Fenrir, no black scales flowed like night over him. Instead, keratin skin formed like growing bark over stone.

"ROAR!!!" The shockwave rippled visible as heat-haze and flung the shadows off like dead leaves.

His human frame collapsed like a shed shell, and several serpent heads tore from his spine like roots breaking earth. A colossal elemental storm gathered like a cyclone and swept at the man like a moving wall.

The storm surged beyond his rank like a river breaching banks, near-Titleholder in force like thunder on a mountain. The man didn’t dodge, standing firm like a stake in flood.

He snatched the unconscious Christine from the ground like a doll and raised her like a shield.

"ROAR!!" Even in true form, Nero halted like a cliff before a wave when faced with Christine. The storm unraveled like smoke, and the serpents’ breaths died like embers in rain.

In that heartbeat, the man hurled Christine at Nero like casting a net, and twisted black Arcane Power seeped from his dagger like tar. The blade struck Nero’s throat like an adder’s lunge.

The keratin layer hadn’t spread and recoiled like frost under sun. The slit pupils dulled like lamps going out.

In that sliver of weakness, the man carved a crimson circle on Nero’s chest like a brand. Crimson chains surged from it like snakes and flooded his body like roots.

At the same time, the two black tentacles snapped like twigs and stayed buried in him like barbs.

"In the end, you’re just Hydra," he said, contempt dripping like sour wine. "With a few tricks, I don’t need much strength to bind your kind."

"Besides... an idiot who’d die for a woman should sit still," he snarled, voice rough as gravel. His heel crushed Nero’s metacarpals like dry sticks.

Black Arcane Power bled from his body like smoke from peat, belonging to no element like a nameless wind. It wasn’t pure Arcane Power either, like a river fouled with ink.

Yet one stink felt familiar to Nero like a scar in winter—the Plague of Beasts.

That twisted aura rose like warped heat, and the bestial whispers returned like gnats. Pain gnawed so deep he had no breath to spare like a fish on sand.

One pupil cleared like dawn, then the feral air flooded back like night tide. "You... your power, what is it?" he choked, fear prickling like needles.

Blood surged against the seal like an army at a gate. It hammered the carving like rams, as if it had will like a stubborn beast.

The crimson array trembled like a drumhead, and even the man above looked surprised like a crack in ice. "Impressive," he murmured, voice soft as falling ash.

"If you were a bit stronger, this array might not hold," he said, like a judge tapping the gavel. "A pity..."

Black Arcane Power poured into the crimson circle like oil into fire. The orderly Runes and circle twisted like vines, writhing into thorns like brambles.

Jagged lines spread from the array like creeping ivy and wound around the crimson chains like a crown of thorns. They rooted into Nero’s flesh like iron nails.

The bloodline’s flicker of revival smothered again like a candle pinched out. The black Arcane Power formed a pattern like an Ouroboros, a serpent biting its tail like a closed loop.

Where the pattern passed, blood vaporized like dew under noon sun. The dagger in his hand drank that misted blood like a thirsty leech and mottled the blade red like rusted wine.