She seized him, then slammed the chain-flail into his head, a black comet cracking down.

The skull, human-shaped and brittle, shattered like petals. Blood and pulp sprayed over Elina’s nun’s habit, a dark rain on white cloth. Alpha was hurled into the wall, a sturdy body buckling; blood burst from his back, flowers of red painting the webbed cracks.

There was no moon here, yet essence rose from the ground into him like mist, stitching a broken frame. His body rewound like a tape; only the spilled blood wouldn’t flow back like a tide.

The Lunarfolk’s vow—undying on earth, unending under the moon—was carved in bone, not a joke.

He opened his mouth and coughed out the clot that clogged his throat, a rust-caked lump, and rasped, breath like frost, “Elina–Helena! Calm—”

The word hadn’t finished when an unseen force snagged him again, dragged him to the berserk girl, and whoosh—the flail’s full arc came down like a falling star.

The three-headed flail showed its savage truth in a berserker’s grip, three meteors tethered to rage.

Three iron heads struck evenly into his chest, carving three widening hollows, cave-mouths that almost tore off his upper body; the holes kept blooming.

Elina gaped wide and roared at a pitch ears couldn’t catch, a needle-whine beyond hearing. Her weapon moved faster than thought; before Alpha could fly, the second sweep smashed his waist like a scythe.

A severed leg spun like a tossed branch and thumped behind Elina.

Yet midair, his body had already knit, ice sealing a crack.

Alpha smashed into the wall again, a bell struck dumb. Hauled before Elina once more, he tried to speak, to tug her mind awake, and met the same hammering, a loop that wouldn’t break.

This won’t do. The thought hit him like cold river water.

Even this reinforced arena at the Hero Academy couldn’t endure sustained legendary magic; the pillars would crumble like old bark. And his iron-hard body was being torn like porcelain into a doll’s scraps; even Lunarfolk recovery would demand a price written in bone.

He felt it—wills harder than diamond, tougher than steel—almost concepts made flesh, black nails driven into him, skewing his healing like a warped compass.

And those old wounds that never closed, chill pockets of winter under the skin...

He frowned and cast, trying to smother the force that grabbed him, as if throwing a net at the wind.

It failed. He went back into the wall like a needle pushed into cloth, the same dull impact.

Of course. Alpha gave a bitter smile, a dry leaf crinkling; he’d never been good at magic.

His control and sense for elements were the worst in any Lunarfolk village, barely above an ordinary human, moss growing slow on stone. Only time had piled up to make him stronger, grain by grain.

His martial talent was plainer still; ten thousand swings couldn’t match a friend’s one clean cut, a ladder forever too short for the sky. He knew he was ordinary, a sparrow climbing toward thunderclouds it would never touch.

Unlike the girl before him, whose eyes broke and knit, and what slid down wasn’t tears but lines of blood, crimson rain on pale cheeks.

Because he was weak, he lost what mattered most—his beloved, his people. Long ago, yet sharp as frost on a blade.

The Demon King’s fire came like a red tide. It razed his home, burned his family, his love, his friends, and would have burned him—if the Hero hadn’t arrived like rain on a blaze.

That man and his companions moved like a single river, cut off the Demon King’s head, offered it to him, and comforted him with a smile sad as a weeping sky. “We’re all small. We can’t save everyone,” the Hero said, words falling like ash and balm.

Those words opened a road to rebirth, and seeded a nightmare twin to it, two shadows walking behind him.

The Hero’s group brought him to the Hero Academy, ferried him across the current, got him enrolled, found him work. Alpha graduated and stayed, a stone set in those halls.

He trained without end, pounding the same grain in the same mortar. He knew it was futile, knew it gained nothing—and didn’t stop.

He thought hard of beating the Demon King, of winning. Years of sweat turned “survive one blow” into “survive two,” a candle guttering in wind. He despaired and still he hoped.

The Hero who saved him had children, then children’s children, until branches tangled thick. The world faced ruin countless times, Demonfolk stood on the brink of rule, but every era sent up heroes like waves, and cliffs held because they kept crashing.

This time the current Hero fell into crisis; the Demon King was too strong, a mountain on a reed. Outside the Hero Academy, the King pinned him to the ground and hammered him, fist after fist, thunder shaking soil.

He, who’d saved so many, couldn’t save himself, a lighthouse drowned by its own storm.

Time kept flowing, a river with no ford, and there was no way to shift the tide.

Alpha knew that even if everyone rushed to help the Hero, it wouldn’t matter; you can’t stack sand high enough to match steel.

He knew even sacrifice would save nothing—just a foolish, clumsy, blind death, moths driving into flame.

He knew it in his bones.

But he still stepped forward, a reed bending into storm.

As an ordinary teacher at the Hero Academy, as a small striver, he made a slight stand against a fate carved like iron, a pebble thrown at a flood.

The Demon King was curious, so the first blow left Alpha grievous and dying, a cat toying with a bird.

Alpha knew there are no miracles, no stars under smothering cloud.

Yet in lucid despair, he still looked for one, a spark buried in ash.

So he woke his own legendary magic—beyond the old tiers. He poured mind and soul in, shaped sorcery with will, wrote fire into air, created concepts from nothing. In a way, legendary magic is the Creator’s right—void to matter, concept given flesh.

No one knows how Alpha won, not even Alpha; memory slipped like river water. It was his first taste of the crowd’s light, a sunlit stage under his feet.

In delirious joy, he thought he could be a protagonist, a Hero—yet the drumbeat cut short.

Alpha’s thoughts snapped to the now. The magic and drills he’d kept up were useless here, dull blades against stone.

Then, only that remains?

I don’t want to save anyone. I don’t want to redeem a soul. I just want to stop her rampage. That’s all. That’s all...

He repeated it inside, whisper-prayer in the dark, then spoke the name of his legendary magic, breath thin as moon mist:

“Burning Moonlight...”

I can’t save anyone. Maybe it’s more than a curse—maybe my spirit’s weak by nature.

Alpha thought it, bleak as midwinter.

Alpha can’t touch spatial magic; it’s too deep, a sky without stairs.

He could only leave the arena a moment, head to his dorm, and fetch clothes a girl could wear for now—new, never worn, a small lantern carried through night.

On the way he ran into Vice Principal Gugwen. The old man halted, eyes on the blood soaking Alpha’s clothes, gaze like rain, and asked, “Alpha, what happened to you?”

“Nothing. Sparred with a student. Got wrecked,” Alpha said with his usual joking face, a mask like painted wood.

Gugwen didn’t let him slip by, a gate that wouldn’t open. “Be careful. The Lunarfolk are hard to kill, but Demonfolk have been brazen lately. The principal’s gone—who knows where. Don’t let your carelessness give them an opening. If... if...”

“I get it. I need to change. Can’t chat,” Alpha said, cutting the thread gently.

Gugwen isn’t a bad sort, just an old man who loves to ramble, a brook babbling on—though Alpha’s true years outlength the short-lived Gugwen’s by far.

Alpha quickened toward the dorm. Gugwen’s last sigh drifted after him like mist: “If only you didn’t have that curse...”

Alpha knew there was no malice, just a human sigh. Still, it pressed on his chest, a damp fog. He fetched the clothes and hurried back to the arena, the heaviness clinging like wet sleeves.

He handed the clothes to the newly awake Helena and told her to bathe and change out of the blood; at last a window could open and they could talk.

“Did you dry your hair? If not, you’ll have split headaches when you’re old. Dry it—here, this towel’s unused,” he said, practical as warm tea.

“Ah—ah, thank you, teacher,” Elina said, taking the towel with both hands, stiff and polite, rage gone like a storm leaving a kitten shivering.

Weakness and fury, poles apart. Does she crush herself down most days? Likely. Without a will obsessive to the edge, legendary magic never wakes; a bow drawn too long becomes song and snap.

In the end, only zealots carve their own legendary magic, names scratched into stone.

Alpha shook off the idle clouds, cracked his bottle, took a swig, and asked, brushing dust off a page, “Helena, how did the first use of legendary magic feel?”

“Uh—I... it’s thanks to your teaching,” she said, voice small as a sparrow.

“Teach you well? I insulted the Andor you love and the Catherine you mourn,” he said, words like thorns meant to pierce.

“That was to draw out my power, right? I don’t hold it against you! I won’t!” she said, bright as a fresh leaf.

Looking at Elina’s lively face, he couldn’t link it to the berserk storm—sun and squall, two masks on one moon.

“‘Guardian’s Zeal’—the name I gave your legendary magic. How does it sound?” he asked, the title like a badge hammered true.

“It’s great. That’s exactly how it felt in battle. When Catherine was killed, I wanted to grab her, not let her go, but I couldn’t,” she said, and grief and relief crossed her face like rain under sunlight.

“My god told me we can’t pull loved ones back from death. Then I’ll grab the killer instead,” she said, a vow like iron clasped in both hands.

This legendary magic might be her beast-blood’s wildness venting, the drum in the chest. Elina shouldn’t be a divine proxy who must face grief and death every dawn; she should be a shield for her companions—a Holy Knight, a wall under moonlight. That’s for later; now we forge what we have, hammer to steel.

“Not bad. You’re a gifted kid,” Alpha said, adding in silence—at least more gifted than me, though legendary magic isn’t about talent. “You did well. But mind a few things. Most legendary magic’s hard to control, I know. Still, fight to control it; stay as clear as you can. Your enemy won’t wait while you burn out your skill,” he said, advice like ropes thrown to a climber.

“Yes. I’ll remember it!” she said, words crisp as winter air.

Alpha patted her tense shoulder, smoothing ripples on a pond.

“And refine your legendary magic. What manifests may not match your intent. Make it handier, so it actually works in battle,” he said, craft over glory.

“Got it,” she said.

“And third...” he went on, threading needle through cloth.

Alpha shared more of his hard-won tricks with legendary magic; words like small fires along a path. Long after dark, he wrapped the day’s training and finally breathed out, a knot loosened.

“That’s it for today... anything else you want to know?” he asked, lantern low.

“One thing. Why are you so devoted to teaching me?” she asked, eyes like wells.

Alpha had planned to buy a late snack; he heard her and turned back, setting the bowl down, feeling he should answer properly.

“Because I’m about to die,” he said, plain as stone.

“What? Are you sick? It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m a divine proxy—I’ll cure—” she began, a rush like spring rain.

“I don’t know how I’ll die. But the Lunarfolk have a gift: we can foresee our own death. It’s rarely wrong,” he said, moon-truth heavy as silver.

“How could that...” she whispered, voice trailing like smoke.

“Lunarfolk don’t lie,” he said, a cold blade’s edge.

Elina sagged again, like when Anna’s attack first brought her here—raw with loss, a flower wilted under frost.

“Don’t make that face. I’ve lived long enough. I just want to leave something of worth before I die, so I chose you,” he said, a seed pressed into a palm.

He also felt he and Elina shared much—history, heart, spirit—mirrored lakes catching the same moon.

All very close, threads braided.

“Maybe I just saw another me, and I don’t want that pain again,” he said, a quiet truth like tea gone cold.

A little selfishness should be allowed. Alpha and Elina walked out of the arena together and looked up at the bright crescent moon, a silver boat on black water. He muttered softly, words floating like breath.