Icariel took the hit square in the chest. No time to dodge. No instinct fast enough. It landed—an iron gale, a hammer of gods, a wound writ in pressure. And yet, somehow, he didn't crumple. Didn't fly back like a broken doll crashing into Elif and Aelar.
He stood.
But the air recoiled behind him.
A shockwave hissed out like a breath held too long, trees bending, grass whispering fear. His feet scraped the stone, dragging shallow scars into the earth beneath them. His body held, but it wasn't unbroken.
His mouth bloomed red.
Blood—thick, wild, and alive—spat from his lips in a wave, painting his chin and chest. His face twisted, muscles convulsing in pain too deep to name. A wound not just of flesh, but of soul. Everyone froze, caught between disbelief and dread.
Princess Virethiel's whisper was a blade drawn too slowly. "That boy…"
Elena, trembling, echoed back with joy and fear strung together like threadbare lace. "Icariel."
Aelar's eyes widened. "Icariel? Is that… you?"
But it was the godless invader—the thing cloaked in orange eyes and grinning malice—who looked most undone. His fist still lodged where the blow had landed. His voice, a curse spat through disbelief: "Hey, bastard… that strike should've hollowed you out. Pierced through your damn spine. What the hell is wrong with you?"
Icariel didn't respond. He couldn't. He was drowning in pain.
"It hurts. It hurts so much."
Each heartbeat a scream.
"It hurts so much."
"Too much."
The invader stepped forward, shadows gathering like hungry hounds around his arms. "If you took one… you can take another."
But this time, the attack shattered.
The moment broken by a scream of black steel.
Virethiel was first. A dagger born from darkness leapt from her hand, and she followed it—air parting around her like cloth torn in haste. She lunged with murder in her veins. "Die."
The godless invader scoffed and leapt, his second strike abandoned. He took to the sky like a falling star reversed, dodging with the grace of death itself.
Aelar wasted no breath. On the ground, Aelar finally set Elif down.
"Guard! Sword!"
Calven didn't hesitate. He hurled the blade—a royal weapon, marked with golden leaves.
Aelar caught it mid-run.
She looked up, wide-eyed. "Father…?"
"Elena, help Icariel. Guards protect them them."
"But—"
"There's no time."
Wind cracked. Earth fractured beneath him as Aelar surged into the air.
Virethiel danced with death. Her strikes—a storm of precision—were dodged like flickers of candlelight. His smile widened with each missed stab. Each failed breath of vengeance.
"So fast…" she thought. "If he reduced Master to that… he's something else."
She scanned him with sharpened eyes. A mana core swollen like a furnace roared inside his gut, but no magic circles—none. He wasn't a mage.
He was a superhuman. A monster in flesh.
"You're not even worth the warm-up," the invader muttered. "That elf guy was more fun."
He blurred—disappeared—reappeared behind her.
His fist curled.
Fwoom.
"Did you miss me?"
Aelar's voice carved through the air. He collided mid-strike, sword singing death. A leaf-handled blade glowed in his hand—a gift from Calven, thrown in desperation. Aelar's steel met the invader's twisted arm.
Clash.
It struck. A clean hit.
And did nothing.
Aelar's blade vibrated with uselessness.
But Virethiel moved, escaped the punch that would have torn her in half.
Now, three figures hung in the sky. A princess. A father. A godless ruin in human skin.
"Oh, look," the invader sneered. "Didn't think you'd be back on your feet, Elf. Weren't your mana reserves dry? After I beat you to mush?"
Aelar's voice was steel bent by hope. "I got help."
He glanced at Icariel.
Still motionless.
Still broken.
Still standing.
The invader chuckled. "Won't change a thing."
Then.
A voice entered Aelar's mind. Not spoken. Not heard.
"Master… what is he?"
"How did he defeat you like that?"
Telepathy.
Aelar blinked.
"Virethiel?"
Telepathy was not learned among elves—it was inherited, like sorrow in blood. Their minds sang in silence, thoughts flowing like wind through the trees. No lips moved. No sound was made. But meanings bled clear.
And Virethiel was speaking now.
"He's strong, Princess," Aelar's voice trembled through the thread. "Stronger than me. I didn't have enough mana left after killing the last invader… used too much Vital Surge. I was empty when he came. Empty, and he didn't hesitate."
She responded with calm forged in chaos. "He's a superhuman."
"Yes," Aelar answered. "He shapes his body into a weapon. Surrounds himself in some orange-black aura. When he braces, when he guards… even I could've died from one strike. His fists—they're not hands. They're executioners."
Virethiel replied with nothing but a flicker of thought.
Understanding.
And battle resumed.
Aelar's blade whispered through air—a leftward arc meant to cleave the invader's ribs. But the godless thing lowered his frame, dodging like shadow fleeing flame. His leg twisted to strike Aelar's gut, to crumble him again—but Virethiel came like a ghost behind death, her blade meant for neck and silence.
He vanished.
Again.
Dodging, smiling, mocking.
"Oh, not bad," he laughed. "Your rhythms are decent. But I don't have time to play. My goal is that giant tree."
He pointed with his chin—toward the sacred root towering behind the castle.
Below, the earth held quieter suffering.
Icariel stirred.
His knees sank into blood-wet stone, his body crumpled forward, elbows shaking. Red stained his chest, his hands, his breath. Blood meeting black—like memory meeting grief. He looked up. He watched the sky burn with motion.
The battle continued above.
Elena reached him first, then Elif, then the guards. She fell to her knees, nearly folding in half, her forehead nearly touching her feet.
"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you. You protected them. You healed us. Again. I don't even know what I can do for you anymore… I don't have anything that's enough."
Her voice cracked like breaking bark.
"I'm truly grateful, Icariel… I wish—"
"It's fine," he said hoarsely. "He's my teacher too."
He didn't smile. He didn't blink. He looked past her, into the storm.
A voice, ancient and cruel, came inside his head.
"I told you to move,"it said,"not to shield them with your body."
Silence followed.
His dark eyes didn't move. His breathing slowed, shallow, caught between worlds.
Then his mind replied, quiet, fragmented.
"I don't know."
More silence.
Even the voice didn't respond for a moment.
"I thought I'd be fine. Maybe I got cocky — after awakening this body, after the bald woman, the monsters, the traitor."
"But that punch—"
He winced.
"It almost killed me. I nearly pissed myself thinking it was over."
His lips curled faintly. Not into a smile.
Into despair.
"No more hero games. I've done enough. I paid my debt—protected them, killed for them, bled for them. I earned what they gave me."
He stood.
Every joint a scream.
"Time to leave."
The voice answered, almost with pride.
"Still clinging to that mountain village law? That nothing is free? That every kindness must be returned?"
A breath. Then—
"Fine. You've done enough. More than enough. You can leave."
And then—light.
His body lit from within, green lines pulsing like veins of rebirth beneath his skin. Mana surged—not summoned by thought or will, but flowing by instinct. The spell: Vital Surge. A rare healing art, one of the few that could be cast on the move, no hands required. He had trained tirelessly with Aelar to master it—to make it not a spell, but a reflex.
His chest unbruised.
His wounds sealed.
He looked at Elif first. Then Elena.
"I'm leaving," he said.
Simple.
Final.
Like the last line of a forgotten story.