The capital was still.
Fire smoldered. Lightning faded. And from the shattered center of it all, Minus stood—bloodied but unbroken.
Across from her, Lowe breathed hard, the right side of his face and his right eye was severely damaged from the impact. His body was bruised, scorched, cracked. But he moved.
He always moved.
"Stubborn little mortal…" she muttered, half-laughing. "Fine. Let's finish this."
Her staff lifted once more, gathering pure mana so dense it made the air ripple.
She spun it with a flourish.
"Prism Collapse."
The world shattered into mirrored fragments—each reflecting Lowe's movements, bending light and space like glass. He stumbled through the illusion, swinging into nothing, striking shadows.
She appeared behind him.
A blow cracked into his spine.
He dropped to a knee, eyes blazing.
Still—no hesitation.
He's adapting, she thought. Unreal.
She raised her hand.
"Vacuumbind."
Air vanished around him. Pressure crushed inward. His lungs burned.
He didn't flinch.
Instead—he roared.
Not with mana.
But with will.
His body pulsed—not magical but something deeper. The pure inner strength of a peak warrior. His mana—normally untouched—channeled inward like a pressure valve. Not to cast, but to survive.
Stone cracked beneath him as he rose.
"You're not the only one who knows how to use mana," he spat. "I just don't waste it on spells."
She flinched—for the first time.
He charged.
"Then die with the rest—!"
"Cradle of Falling Suns!"
Dozens of white-hot orbs fell from the heavens—spheres of compressed energy, exploding on impact. One struck between them, blinding.
Then another.
Lowe disappeared in the fire.
She waited.
But in the silence after the final blast—he emerged.
Burned. Bleeding. Alive.
His right eye was gone—burned away by the last blast. Blood ran down his face.
But the sword in his hand never shook.
"You're the strongest I've ever faced," Lowe growled, voice low and raw. "But strength means nothing if your enemy won't die."
He moved.
Minus swung—desperate now.
Too slow.
Lowe's blade drove forward—cutting deep across her ribs.
Her staff clattered away.
She fell to her knees, coughing blood, mana scattering from her body like dying embers.
He towered over her, one eye dark and ruined.
"No more witches."
He struck.
And Minus fell.
The world fell still.
The sky cleared.
Smoke drifted.
Lowe stood alone, blood dripping from his blade.
He looked at her body once more.
And turned away.
But unbeknownst to him, beneath the surface of that stillness—beneath flesh and bone—a seed of magic pulsed once.
A spell buried, dormant, perfectly woven into death itself.
A spell designed to be invisible, impossible to detect, impossible to stop.
Not even the world noticed it.
But—
Far across the continent, in a chamber untouched by time, Serie stirred upon her throne.
She opened her eyes slowly, lazily, as if roused from a dream she'd already predicted.
A faint tremor of mana brushed her awareness—minuscule, distant… but unmistakable.
"So," she murmured with a faint smirk, "you finally met your end."
She rose to her feet, eyes narrowing as if peering through the layers of the world itself.
"How dramatic of you, Minus. I wonder what you'll turn yourself into next…"
She turned slightly, her voice carrying a faint, mocking lilt—just shy of fond.
"No matter. We'll be seeing each other again… very soon."
A breeze stirred through the silent sanctum, though no windows were open.
The wind carried something.
Something old. Something new.